Privacy Notice

The Light Project operates this platform and is the personal information controller for the data described here.

To be completed before launch: the registered business name and address of the platform operator, and the name and email address of its Data Protection Officer. RA 10173 requires a contactable DPO, and every right described below has to be exercisable somewhere real.

Different people give us different things, so this is split by who you are.

If you apply to raise funds

• Your name, email address and mobile number — to identify you, to contact you about your application, and to reach you about your fundraiser.
• A photo of your government-issued ID and a short video of you — to confirm you are a real person and that you are who you say you are. Under RA 10173 these are sensitive personal information, which is why we ask for your explicit consent before you upload them, and why they are stored differently from everything else (see below).
• Your fundraiser details — title, category, target amount, story and cover photo. These are published publicly, which is the point of them.

If you donate

• The name and message you choose to give — shown publicly on the fundraiser, unless you tick the box to donate anonymously, in which case your name is hidden from the public page but still visible to us for our records.
• The amount and the payment reference — to record the donation and to reconcile it with our payment provider. Donors do not need an account.
• Your card or e-wallet details are never sent to us. Payment is handled by PayMongo on their own systems; we receive a reference and a result, not your payment credentials.

If you simply visit

• A count of page views and shares per fundraiser, per day. It is a running total, not a log of individuals — we do not build a profile of you, and we do not use advertising or tracking cookies.

For the government ID and the video, our basis is your consent, given explicitly before you upload them. You can refuse — but identity verification is what makes a fundraiser on this platform trustworthy, so we cannot approve an application without it.

For donation records, our basis is the contract between us and the fundraiser, and our legal obligation to keep accurate financial records. You cannot withdraw consent to a completed donation record, because it is money that has to be accounted for.

• Your ID and video: only the platform administrators reviewing your application. They are held in private storage that is not reachable from the internet. Even an administrator does not get a permanent link — the system issues a temporary one that expires after ten minutes, each time they look.
• Your fundraiser story, title, target and cover photo: everyone. They are published.
• Your donor name and message: everyone, unless you donated anonymously.
• Our service providers — Supabase (database and file storage), Vercel (hosting) and PayMongo (payments). They process data on our instructions in order to run the service, and nothing else.
• We do not sell your information, and we do not share it for anyone else’s marketing.

To be confirmed before launch: Supabase and Vercel store data outside the Philippines. RA 10173 permits this, but the operator remains accountable for it, and the arrangement should be reviewed alongside the rest of this notice.

• Rejected applications, including the ID and video: deleted once the decision is final and any appeal is closed. There is no reason to keep the identity documents of someone who is not on the platform.
• Approved fundraisers: kept while the fundraiser is active and afterwards for as long as the financial records require.
• Donation records: kept as long as tax and accounting rules require.

To be confirmed by the operator’s accountant: the exact retention period for financial records under BIR rules, stated here as a number of years.

Under RA 10173 you have the right to:

• be told what we hold about you, and get a copy of it;
• have anything wrong corrected;
• object to how we use it, or withdraw your consent;
• have it erased or blocked where it is out of date, unnecessary, or was obtained without consent;
• be told if your information is compromised;
• claim damages if you are harmed by a misuse of it, and complain to the National Privacy Commission.

Withdrawing consent to identity verification means we delete your ID and video, and can no longer keep your fundraiser approved. Ask us and we will do it, and tell you what was deleted.

Identity documents sit in private storage with no public access; the only route to them is a short-lived link created for a signed-in administrator. Accounts use verified sessions rather than a cookie that can be typed in by hand. Access is restricted at the database itself, so a mistake in the website cannot expose more than the account behind it is entitled to see.

None of that makes a breach impossible. If one happens and it puts you at risk, we will tell you and the National Privacy Commission, as the Act requires.

If we change this notice in a way that affects what you agreed to, we will publish the new version and ask again where the law requires it. Each application records which version was on screen when it was submitted. This is version 2026-08-25.

Ask us anything about this notice, or exercise any of the rights above, by contacting the Data Protection Officer.

To be completed before launch: DPO name, email address and postal address.

See also the Terms of Use.