Privacy notice

1. Who is responsible for your data

If you take part in a poll (you were sent a link to rank choices), the organisation or person who runs that poll decides how your data is used. They are the controller. Qestra hosts and runs the software for them as their processor, under a written agreement, and only uses your data on their instructions. The organiser's name and contact details are shown on your personal page once results are released, and they should give you their own privacy information. Please send questions about a poll, including requests to see or correct your data, to the organiser first.

Polls are private. Only the poll's managers and the people they invite can see a poll, and each participant sees only their own choices and result.

If you sign in (to run polls, or to see the polls you take part in), or visit this website, Qestra is the controller of your account details and of the records described in section 3.

2. Data used when you take part in a poll

• Your name and email address, and an ID number if the organiser asks for one (for example a registration number).
• Your ranked choices and when you submitted them.
• A priority score, if the organiser uses them, and the random tie-break draw for your poll.
• Your result, and the explanation of why you got it.
• Technical data needed to deliver the page securely, such as your IP address in server logs.

The organiser provides your priority score and sometimes your name and email; everything else comes from you or is created by Prefera. The organiser can see your choices unless they run the poll in Blind Mode, in which case they can't. An organiser may also save your name, email and ID in a private list so they can invite you to a later poll; only they can see that list.

3. Data used when you have an account

• Your email address and sign-in records (we use one-time email links, not passwords).
• The polls you create and a log of actions you take in them, such as running and releasing results and downloading reports.
• Participant lists you save to reuse in later polls. Only you can see them.
• The polls you were invited to under the email you sign in with, so we can list them for you.
• Messages you send us.

We use this to provide the service, keep it secure, and answer you. Our lawful basis is performing our contract with you (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)) and our legitimate interest in keeping Prefera secure and auditable (Art. 6(1)(f)).

4. How results are decided (automated decision-making)

Prefera allocates places with a fixed, published method: deferred acceptance for one placement each, and priority-order selection for several placements. It applies the organiser's priorities and your ranking. It does not use machine learning, profiling or any data beyond what is listed above. You can read how the method works and what it guarantees.

Results are not released automatically. A person at the organiser reviews them first and decides to release them. When you receive your result you also get an explanation of it, and the name of someone you can contact to ask for it to be looked at again and to give your point of view.

5. Who we share data with

We do not sell personal data or use it for advertising. We use a small number of service providers to host and run Prefera, listed on our sub-processors page. Your data is stored in the European Union. Where a provider is based outside the EU, transfers are covered by the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

6. How long we keep data

Poll data is kept for as long as the organiser keeps the poll, and is deleted when they delete it or when their account or contract ends, at the latest within 90 days of that. Account data is kept while your account is open and deleted within 90 days of closing it, unless we need to keep a record to meet a legal obligation. Deleted data leaves our backups as they expire.

7. Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

• see the data held about you and get a copy of it;
• have inaccurate data corrected;
• have data deleted, or its use restricted, in some circumstances;
• object to processing based on legitimate interests;
• receive your data in a portable format;
• not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, and to have a person look at your result again.

For a poll, contact the organiser. For your account or this website, email hello@qestra.io. If a request reaches us about an organiser's poll, we pass it to them and help them answer. We reply within one month.

You can also complain to the Data Protection Commission, 21 Fitzwilliam Square South, Dublin 2, D02 RD28, Ireland (dataprotection.ie), or to the authority where you live or work.

8. Security

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access is controlled in the database itself, so each organiser can only reach their own polls and participants can only reach their own page. Personal links are not indexed by search engines and are not passed to other websites.

9. Cookies

We only use cookies that are needed to sign you in. There are no analytics or advertising cookies. See the cookie notice.

10. Changes

If we change this notice in a way that matters, we'll update the date at the top and tell account holders by email.