U Matter Privacy | Young Caribbean Minds

The U-Matter Privacy Policy

Overview

The U-Matter text-line is a confidential messaging-based text-line being done as a partnership between The Ministry of Health, U-Report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the University of the West Indies. The service is provided by text-line trained postgraduate professionals who were selected as volunteers under a competitive and rigorous process. 

What services do U-Matter volunteers provide?

The selected volunteers provide psychosocial support; however, they do not offer therapeutic or psychiatric treatments. Volunteers are supervised by counselling psychologists. 

How does U-Matter work with U-Report?

The service operates on the platform of UNICEF’s U-Report social messaging service for youth. U-Report provides a space for young people to send and receive written messages via WhatsApp.

How can I use U-Matter?

Youth can access the text-line by messaging the designated number on WhatsApp. Accessing this service is your choice.

My information: how and what is collected?

How do we obtain information about you?

When you receive our welcome message, which includes a link to this Privacy Policy, and answer YES you want to start communication with the U-Matter Chatline, we then send you questions (asking your age, gender etc., but not your name or address) via the messaging application you used to contact us. We then confidentially aggregate this information to best support you.

1. How we utilise information:

(i)             We do not ask for personally identifying information, nor can we view it, since our system and service work anonymously.  For example, we cannot see photos or names of users. To best support you, we ask for demographic information (gender, age) when you opt-in to receive support from one of our volunteers. This information helps us to better understand your current situation and provide you with the appropriate support.

(ii)            Your conversation during the chat session with the volunteer is confidential and anonymous.

(iii)          At the end of your text session with our volunteer, you may receive a form with a quick user satisfaction survey.

2. Information the platform collects:

(i)             To be able to reply to the user’s message, our technology platform will utilize your phone number on the back-end of the platform. That information is anonymized and therefore not accessible to the text-line staff/volunteers.

The counsellors and supervisors of the U-Matter text-line will ensure that the data collection process avoids collecting unnecessary data or special categories of personal data or other intrusive data.

My information: how is it stored and protected?

We use the same trusted third-party application as U-Report – called Weni – that enables us to communicate with you via messaging. Weni providers are under contractual obligation to have in place data protection and privacy safeguards like ours and can only handle your information for specific and necessary purposes following our instructions. 

Please note that your conversation can also be stored on your end on the channel you use, e.g., in your WhatsApp conversation history. You might consider deleting the conversation, selecting disappearing messages or locking your chat to prevent someone else from taking your phone and accessing what you shared.

How long is my information stored for?

We will only use and store your personal information for the length of time required to complete the purpose for which it was collected. We use your personal information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements and rights.  

How and why U-Matter may share my personal information?

Keeping your information confidential is important to us. We will generally only share non-personal and aggregate information captured via the U-Report platform, app, and website. Circumstances where we may share non-personal information include: 

To the U-Matter partners as aggregated information to support health services, youth engagement and inform decision-making, local projects, initiatives, and campaigns. 
To third-party service providers who provide services to us, such as website hosting, data analysis, information technology and related infrastructure provisions, analytics providers to deliver content targeted to your interests and to help us to better understand how you use our site, email delivery, and other services. However, we will never sell your information to a third party.

The limited personal information we hold may be shared only in exceptional circumstances and only for specific and necessary purposes. We may share personal information: 

With your permission. For instance, if you need urgent assistance, a U-Matter counsellor will seek your permission through direct messages.  
To fulfil a legal requirement, enforce our Terms of Use, or protect anyone's rights, privacy, safety, or property and for other lawful purposes.

Any third party that obtains access to personal information is under contractual obligation to have data protection and privacy safeguards like ours. They are permitted to handle the personal information they have access to only for specific and necessary purposes following our instructions. This also holds in situations where personal information is transferred internationally.

How secure is my information processed by U-Matter? 

We use many reasonable measures – physical and electronic – to protect your personal information against unauthorized access and disclosure. However, the possibility exists that third parties may unlawfully intercept or access your personal information or private communications. So, although we work extremely hard to safeguard your information, we cannot guarantee that your information or communications will always remain private. 

We also ask that you do your part to safeguard your personal information. Some suggested ways are:  

 Activate a unique PIN or password code to access your phone or device. Make it personal and not easy for others to guess. Do not use your date of birth or your name, for example.  
 Use a strong password to connect to the channels you use to send messages to U-Report (eg: WhatsApp). Do not share this password with anyone. 
Be careful about connecting to U-Report, using insecure Wi-Fi. Public Wi-Fi, for example, is inherently insecure — so be cautious. 
Set up a feature that will allow you to erase all the data from your device if it's lost or stolen.

What are my rights as a user of U-Matter? 

You have the right to request your personal information stored by U-Matter on the U-Report server. You can change it, delete it, and refuse its use. To do this, please message your request in the text-line.
You have the right to be informed about your rights in the use of U-Matter and U-Report. 
You have the right to request deletion of your registration and stored data at any time. To do this, please message your request in the text-line.
You have the right to decide whether to participate in any activities we will make available.

How do I stop being part of U-Matter and delete my information? 

You have the right to leave and request deletion of your registration and stored information at any time. To do this, please message your request in the text-line.

Notifications of Changes to the Privacy Policy 

We review our security measures and our Privacy Policy at different intervals and we may modify our policies as needed. For this reason, we encourage you to check our Privacy Policy frequently.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please message U-Matter on WhatsApp.