This policy covers use and operation of the KnowNews extension which is operated, controlled and owned by Media Monitoring Africa (“MMA”).

What is KnowNews?

The KnowNews extension is a simple, yet effective indicator that helps you identify whether the news site you are reading is trustworthy or not. The little plugin icon turns green if you can trust the content, red if you shouldn’t because it is not trustworthy. If the site has yet not been categorised, you will see the blue KnowNews logo, and you will have the opportunity to submit the news site for categorisation by our research team.

Our response to dodgy news is to highlight the positive by asking, what constitutes trustworthy or credible news? We are working on a range of criteria to begin with, credible media are those media that:

  • have a clear URL address.
  • have an ‘About’ section can be contacted and held responsible;
  • have clear processes to ensure that what they report most of the time can be verified;
  • subscribe to self and co-regulatory bodies;
  • adhere to facts rather than speculation;
  • use multiple and diverse sources in stories;
  • are open and transparent about their transformation status.

If you care about sharing and engaging with news that it credible, download and use this extension to help you identify if the site you are browsing contains credible or dodgy news. Assist us by identifying more credible and more dodgy sites.

About MMA:

This extension has been developed by Media Monitoring Africa (“MMA”). We are an independent, non-profit organisation that promotes media freedom, media quality and ethical journalism.

MMA is a Non-Profit Trust registered in South Africa. It is our policy to respect your privacy regarding any information we may collect while operating the Services.

MMA takes privacy seriously. In summary:

  • we don’t collect personal information unless we truly need it;
  • we don’t share personal information with anyone except to ensure that we can properly process your complaint, comply with the law and/or protect our rights;
  • we don’t store personal information on our hosted servers unless required for the on-going operation of one of our Services. If you have questions about your personal data or this privacy policy, please contact us.
  • What information we collect when you download the extension.

In order to identify the site as credible or not, as well as pull minor statistics, we collect some basic user information. This information is related to the news site you visit.

Each plugin user is assigned a random identification token, which allows the KnowNews system to track (1) the origin of reported sites, and (2) which sites have been visited weekly and monthly by plugin users. The sites that are tracked are only those classified/categorised by the KnowNews system. Any activity on ‘unknown’ or unclassified sites will not be tracked by the plugin.

YOUR RIGHTS:

You have:

  • The right to access: You have the right to obtain information about the processing of your personal data and a copy of any of your personal data that MMA stores.
  • The right to restrict or object to processing: You have the right to restrict or object to our processing if we are processing your data based on legitimate interests or performance of a task in the public interest as an exercise of official authority (including profiling) or processing your data for purposes of scientific or historical research and statistics.
  • The right to lodge a complaint: If you think we have processed your personal information unfairly or unlawfully, or we have not complied with your rights under law, you have the right to complain to our national data protection authority, the Information Regulator. Contact details for the Information Regulator, our data protection authority is available here.

CERTAIN USERS RIGHTS UNDER GDPR

If you are a resident of the EEA or Switzerland, the following applies for purposes of processing and legal basis for processing personal information:
As explained above, we process personal information in various ways depending upon your use of the KnowNnews extension.

We process personal information on the following legal bases:

  • with your consent;
  • as necessary to provide the KnowNnews extension to you; and
  • as necessary for our legitimate interests in providing services where those interests do not override your fundamental rights and freedoms related to data privacy.
  • Individual Rights: If you are a resident of the EEA or Switzerland, you have certain rights under the GDPR. To verify your identity, we might need you to provide us with personal data prior to accessing any records containing information about you.
  • The right to access: You have the right to obtain information about our processing of your personal data and a copy of your personal data that we store.
  • The right to rectify your data: You have the right to request that we update your personal data if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
  • The right to request data erasure: You have the right to have your personal information erased from our files if the data is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, you withdraw your consent and no other legal basis for our processing your data exists, or your fundamental rights to data privacy and protection outweigh our legitimate interest in continuing our processing.
  • The right to restrict or object to processing: You have the right to restrict or object to our processing if we are processing your data based on legitimate interests or performance of a task in the public interest as an exercise of official authority (including profiling) or processing your data for purposes of scientific or historical research and statistics.
  • The right to lodge a complaint: If you think we have processed your personal data unfairly or unlawfully, or we have not complied with your rights under GDPR, you have the right to complain to a national data protection authority. Contact details for data protection authorities are available here.
  • To submit any request to us under the GDPR, please contact us at the address in the next paragraph for more information.

CONTACT DETAILS AND PRIVACY POLICY CHANGES
Although most changes are likely to be minor, we may change our privacy policy from time to time at our sole discretion. We encourage visitors to check this page frequently for any changes to the privacy policy. Your continued use of our Website after any change in this privacy policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.

Should you wish to lodge a complaint or enforce your rights in terms of this Privacy Policy, please contact the Data Protection Officer:

Name: William Bird
Title: Director
Organisation: Media Monitoring Africa
Email: info@mma.org.za