Privacy Policy

Byadala is a video streaming service operating in Uganda, offering films and series narrated in Luganda by Video Jockeys (VJs). In this policy “Byadala”, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Byadala and the people operating it. We are the data controller for the information described below.

Information you give us

• Your phone number, used to create your account and to sign you in by one-time code.
• Your name and, where you provide one, your email address.
• Payment details you submit when subscribing, including the Mobile Money number used.
• Anything you send us directly, such as a support message on WhatsApp.

Information collected automatically

• A device identifier we store on your device and mirror in a cookie, so we can recognise the same browser or phone across visits without requiring you to sign in.
• What you watch and how far you get, including your furthest and most recent position in each title, whether you finished it, and when you last watched.
• Your IP address, browser or app user agent, and platform.
• Your subscription status, payment history and reference numbers returned by our payment provider.
• Referral codes you use or share, and daily reward streaks.
• For the mobile app, a push notification token, if you allow notifications.

We do not ask for and do not want your national identification number, your date of birth, your precise location, your contacts, or any special category data such as your health, religion or political opinions. Please do not send us these.

We process your information to perform our contract with you, to pursue our legitimate interests in running and improving a streaming service, and to meet our legal obligations. Specifically we use it to:

• Deliver playback, remember where you stopped, and let you continue on another visit or device.
• Create and secure your account, and send one-time sign-in codes by SMS.
• Take payment, confirm it, and grant or withdraw access accordingly.
• Recommend titles, decide what appears on your home page, and choose which notifications to send you.
• Measure what is watched, for how long and on what, so we can decide what to acquire and how to encode it.
• Detect and prevent fraud, account sharing, payment abuse and unauthorised access.
• Comply with Ugandan law and respond to lawful requests.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, you may object using the contact channels published on our website, and we will consider your objection, though this may mean we can no longer provide parts of the service.

You can browse and watch without signing in. When you do, we still record viewing activity against the device identifier described above rather than against your name. That identifier is not, by itself, enough for us to know who you are, but it does let us recognise a returning device. If you later create an account, we may link that history to it so your progress and recommendations carry over.

We use a small number of cookies and equivalent browser storage. They are used to keep you signed in, to hold your anonymous device identifier, and to remember playback preferences such as volume and quality. We do not sell advertising on Byadala and we do not run third-party advertising trackers. Blocking these cookies will break sign-in and resume-where-you-left-off.

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with service providers who process it on our instructions, and only as far as needed:

• Video storage, encoding and delivery.
• Mobile Money and card payment processing.
• Delivery of one-time sign-in codes by SMS.
• Push notification delivery to the mobile application.
• Hosting of our servers and databases.

We may also disclose information where we are required to by law, where it is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims, or as part of a merger, acquisition or sale of all or part of our business, in which case this policy will continue to apply to the transferred information until the recipient adopts its own.

Our servers and those of the providers listed above may be located outside Uganda. By using Byadala you agree that your information may be transferred to and processed in those countries. Where we transfer personal data outside Uganda we take reasonable steps to ensure it remains protected to a comparable standard.

We keep account and payment records for as long as your account exists and afterwards for as long as we need them for legal, accounting, tax or dispute-resolution purposes. Viewing history and device analytics are kept for as long as they remain useful for recommendations, reporting and service improvement. We may retain information in anonymised or aggregated form, which is no longer personal data, indefinitely.

We protect your information with measures appropriate to the risk, including encrypted connections, hashed passwords and one-time codes, restricted staff access governed by role-based permissions, and an audit log of administrative actions. No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information you transmit to us. You are responsible for keeping access to your phone number and device secure, and for any activity that takes place through your account.

Under the Data Protection and Privacy Act 2019 you may ask us to give you a copy of the personal data we hold about you, to correct it if it is inaccurate, to delete it, or to restrict or object to how we use it. You may also withdraw consent where we rely on it.

To make such a request, reach us through the contact channels published on our website, and we will respond within a reasonable period. We may ask you to verify your identity first. We may decline a request where the law permits, for example where the information is needed for an ongoing payment dispute, to prevent fraud, or to meet a legal obligation, and we will tell you if we do. Deleting your account does not entitle you to a refund of any unused subscription.

You can delete your account yourself at any time, in the app under Profile, or at byadala.com/delete-account, which also sets out what is removed and the payment records we keep.

Byadala is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. Our catalogue includes titles intended for adults. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it. Parents and guardians are responsible for supervising minors' use of the service.

We may update this policy at any time. The version published on this page is the one in force, and the date at the top shows when it last changed. Where a change is significant we will make reasonable efforts to tell you, but your continued use of Byadala after a change means you accept the updated policy.