Privacy Policy

Ovend Ltd (RC 9776599) builds and runs the systems a State revenue service uses to register and collect levies from the informal sector: the Ovend Tax app and USSD service for taxpayers, the Enumerate app for enumerators, the Tax Relationship Manager app, and the Board for the revenue service.

When you pay a levy or are registered on the State's register, the State revenue service decides why and how your data is used, and Ovend processes it on its behalf. Ovend decides for itself only for its own website, enquiries sent to us, and the accounts of people who work with us. This policy covers both, and follows the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023.

If you pay levies (taxpayers)

• Account: your phone number, name, and the passcode and payment PIN you set (stored only in scrambled form, never readable).
• What you pay for: your vehicles (plate number, type, the drivers you link), your shops (Shop ID, market or street, trade), and the flats, rooms or units you occupy or own.
• Payments: top ups to your tax credit, levies paid, receipts, the channel used (app, USSD or bank transfer), and your balance.
• Contact with you: SMS reminders sent, calls and visits logged by a Tax Relationship Manager, notices served, and messages you send to support.
• Technical: the device and browser you use, sign-in times, and USSD session details passed to us by your network.

About shops and buildings on the register

• Where a shop or building stands (GPS position), photos of its outside and inside, a description of how to find it, and the phone number of the person who will pay.

If you work with us (enumerators, Tax Relationship Managers, Board users)

• Identity and contact details, staff ID, photo, bank account and tax ID for payment, and your sign-in history.
• The work you record: captures with their GPS and photos, calls, reminders, waivers and notices, used to pay you, to measure performance and to keep the register honest.

If you contact us through the website

• Your name, organisation, email or phone, and what you write to us.

• To run your account and let you pay levies from your own phone, by app or USSD.
• To issue receipts and let anyone check that a receipt, shop, vehicle or notice is genuine.
• To keep the State's register of shops, buildings and vehicles accurate, and to stop the same shop being recorded twice.
• To remind you before your cover ends, and to let your Tax Relationship Manager help you stay covered.
• To serve notices and support enforcement under the State's revenue law, where a levy stays unpaid.
• To give the revenue service reports on revenue and compliance, mostly as totals rather than individuals.
• To pay enumerators and Tax Relationship Managers, and to check their work.
• To prevent fraud, protect accounts, fix problems, and meet our legal duties.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not use it for advertising.

• The State revenue service that runs the levy, and the officers it authorises, each seeing only what their role needs.
• Banks and payment providers that receive your top ups and settle payments to the State account.
• Telecom providers that carry USSD sessions and SMS messages.
• Hosting and technology providers that run our systems for us, under contract and confidentiality.
• Courts, police or regulators when the law requires it.

When someone checks a receipt, shop, vehicle or notice, they see only whether it is valid and its dates, not the owner's phone number or balance.

The taxpayer app does not track you. GPS is recorded for shops and buildings, by the enumerator who records them, or by a Tax Relationship Manager standing at the shop. The staff apps use the phone's location only while a capture, a visit route or a mark is being made, and you can refuse location in your phone settings.

Photos are of the shop or building, outside and inside, to show it exists and to help find it. Staff are told not to photograph people where it can be avoided.

We keep payment and register records for as long as the State's revenue laws require, generally at least six years after the last payment, because they are tax records. Account details are kept while your account is open and then for that same period. Website enquiries are kept for up to two years. When data is no longer needed it is deleted or made anonymous.

• All traffic between your phone and our systems is encrypted.
• Passcodes and PINs are stored only in scrambled form; nobody, including us, can read them.
• Each officer sees only what their role allows, and every sensitive action is recorded.
• Repeated wrong passcodes lock the account for a while, to stop guessing.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach puts your data at risk, we will tell the revenue service, the Nigeria Data Protection Commission and, where needed, you, as the law requires.

Under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 you may:

• ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
• ask us to correct anything that is wrong or incomplete;
• ask us to delete or restrict it, where the law allows (tax records the State must keep cannot be deleted early);
• object to uses based on legitimate interests, and withdraw any consent you gave;
• receive data you gave us in a common format, where it applies;
• complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission.

Contact us using the details below. We may ask you to confirm the request from your registered phone number, and we will answer within 30 days.

Many details, such as your name or a vehicle, can be corrected in the Ovend Tax app under Profile. Your Tax Relationship Manager can correct a shop's details for you.

Our website uses no advertising or tracking cookies. The apps keep a small amount of data on your phone, such as your sign-in and work saved while offline, so they work without signal. Signing out removes it.

Our services are for adults who pay levies or work for the revenue service. We do not knowingly open accounts for anyone under 18.

Data is stored on secure cloud servers. Where a provider stores it outside Nigeria, we use one that gives the level of protection the Nigeria Data Protection Act requires, with contracts that bind it to that protection.

We may update this policy as our services or the law change. The date at the top shows the latest version; for important changes we will also tell you in the app or by SMS.

For any question about your data, or to use your rights:

For a payment or a shop, the revenue service of your State is your first contact, through Support in the Ovend Tax app or your Tax Relationship Manager.