Privacy Policy
Kenya Data Protection Act 2019 (DPA) · Kenya Health Act 2017 · Global Data Protection Standards (GDPR / HIPAA Alignment)
Policy Index
Overview & Scope
ClearBay Health Ltd (“ClearBay”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) operates Kenya’s dedicated real-time emergency department off-load coordination, pre-notification, and fleet telemetry platform. This Privacy Policy details our binding commitments regarding the collection, processing, storage, transmission, and safeguarding of data traversing our systems.
This Policy applies unconditionally to all users of the ClearBay platform, including emergency medical service (EMS) dispatchers, paramedics and emergency medical technicians (EMTs), hospital triage and emergency department nurses, clinical administrators, and healthcare facility operators across Nairobi Metropolitan County, the Republic of Kenya, and partner jurisdictions.
Statutory & International Legal Frameworks
ClearBay operates under strict dual-jurisdiction compliance adhering to Kenyan statutory mandates while embedding global data privacy benchmarks:
Kenyan Statutory Regime
- Kenya Data Protection Act, 2019 (Act No. 24 of 2019): Registered Data Controller and Data Processor with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC).
- Kenya Health Act, 2017 (Act No. 21 of 2017): Mandatory adherence to Sections 10 through 13 governing electronic health records, clinician duty of confidentiality, and emergency patient rights.
- Constitution of Kenya (2010): Article 31 (Right to Privacy) and Article 43(2) (Fundamental Right to Emergency Medical Treatment).
- Digital Health Act, 2023: Kenya digital health data exchange and governance standards.
Global Regulatory Alignment
- General Data Protection Regulation (EU/UK GDPR): Strict compliance with Article 5 principles (Lawfulness, Fairness, Transparency, Purpose Limitation, Data Minimization, and Integrity).
- HIPAA Security & Privacy Rule Alignment: Implementation of administrative, physical, and technical safeguards for electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI).
- ISO/IEC 27001 & ISO 27701: International standards for information security management and privacy information management systems.
Categories of Data Processed
In accordance with the principle of data minimization (DPA Section 3 · GDPR Art. 5(1)(c)), ClearBay collects and processes only the specific data fields strictly necessary to coordinate emergency off-loads and protect patient lives:
| Data Category | Data Fields Collected | Purpose & Context |
|---|---|---|
| Clinical Pre-Notification Data | Patient age (numeric years), biological sex, chief complaint description, acuity category (Critical, Serious, Stable), paramedic en-route notes, ETA in minutes. | Informs receiving emergency departments to prepare trauma bays, ventilators, and resuscitation teams prior to ambulance touchdown. |
| Fleet Telemetry & GPS | Ambulance unit ID, plate registration number, assigned EMS agency, real-time latitude/longitude coordinates, speed, and GPS timestamp. | Calculates matrix routing ETAs, dynamically tracks transit delays, and triggers automated off-load delay alarms (>30 min). |
| Hospital Handover Logs | Arrival timestamp, physical bay number, receiving clinician user ID, handover completion timestamp, off-load duration minutes, clinician sign-off notes. | Evidence-based record of patient transfer of care, bay turnaround efficiency, and public health quality assurance. |
| Institutional User Accounts | Clinician full name, institutional work email, encrypted authentication credentials (Argon2id/Bcrypt), role assignment, assigned hospital or EMS provider. | Enforces granular Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), multi-tenant isolation, and audit log attribution. |
| Technical & Telemetry Logs | IP address, browser user-agent, session token, CSRF token, HTTP request headers, and system operation logs. | Platform security, anti-tampering verification, session integrity, and intrusion detection. |
Lawful Bases for Processing
ClearBay processes sensitive emergency health data under explicit statutory grounds defined in the Kenya Data Protection Act, 2019 and international law:
- Vital Interests (DPA Section 30(1)(b) · GDPR Article 6(1)(d) & Article 9(2)(c)): Emergency patient triage data is processed when essential to preserve the life or physical integrity of a patient during an acute medical crisis where the patient is unable to provide direct prior consent.
- Provision of Health Care & Public Health (Kenya Health Act 2017 · GDPR Article 9(2)(h)): Processing is necessary for emergency healthcare management, ambulance bed dispatch, and clinical triage coordination by licensed medical practitioners bound by statutory professional secrecy.
- Contractual & Pilot Agreement Necessity (DPA Section 30(1)(a)): Processing user accounts and fleet telemetry is required to deliver services agreed upon in institutional ClearBay Pilot and Service Agreements with hospitals and EMS organizations.
- Legal Compliance & Regulatory Duty (DPA Section 30(1)(c)): Maintaining immutable audit logs of ambulance arrival and handover times satisfies statutory reporting and clinical audit requirements under Kenyan health law.
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) & Domain Isolation
Data security is structurally enforced at the application and database architecture layer. ClearBay operates under strict multi-tenant boundaries:
Paramedics access only their assigned fleet vehicle and active clinical pre-notification. Cross-paramedic run inspection and cross-unit modifications are cryptographically and logically prohibited.
EMS dispatchers receive telemetry, live maps, and delay alerts filtered strictly by their affiliated EMS organization (ems_provider_id). They cannot access other organizations’ operational records.
ED nurses and facility administrators only inspect handovers and queues addressed to their assigned facility (hospital_id). Cross-hospital queue manipulation triggers boundary violation blocks.
Public Queue Feeds: The public-facing queue API strips all patient identifiable data, clinical notes, and operator identities, returning only sanitized metrics (acuity, wait time, ambulance unit, and hospital destination).
Technical & Organizational Security Safeguards
ClearBay maintains enterprise-grade technical safeguards aligned with Section 41 of the Kenya DPA and ISO/IEC 27001 controls:
- Encryption in Transit: All communications between mobile clients, dispatch centers, hospital workstations, and our servers are encrypted using modern Transport Layer Security (TLS 1.3) with HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS).
- Encryption at Rest: Database volumes, file attachments, and data repositories utilize AES-256 block-level encryption.
- Credential Protection: Passwords are cryptographic hashes produced via modern algorithms (Argon2id / Bcrypt) with per-user salt seeds. Cleartext passwords are never stored or logged.
- Immutable Audit Trails: Every critical clinical action (arrival declaration, bay assignment, status change, handover completion) is immutably logged with timestamp, user ID, and IP address.
- Software Vulnerability Mitigation: The codebase utilizes strict PDO parameterized queries (SQL injection immunity), automatic HTML/attr escaping (XSS prevention), and cryptographic CSRF token validation on all state-altering requests.
Data Retention & Secure Disposal
We store personal and clinical data only for the duration required to achieve clinical coordination, fulfill statutory medical record obligations, and support evidence-based healthcare analytics:
- Active En-Route Telemetry: High-frequency GPS coordinates are purged or converted into generalized route vectors within thirty (30) days of handover completion.
- Clinical Handover Records: Retained in compliance with Kenyan Ministry of Health medical records retention guidelines and statutory hospital documentation periods.
- Analytics Aggregation: Historical data utilized for county-wide off-load analytics and capacity planning is permanently de-identified and aggregated so that individual patients and specific personnel cannot be re-identified.
- Cryptographic Deletion: Upon expiration of statutory retention windows, records are deleted using DoD-compliant cryptographic erasure routines.
Cross-Border & International Data Transfers
ClearBay maintains primary data hosting and database residency within secure African regional cloud facilities and Kenyan data centers. To the extent third-party technical integrations (such as Mapbox GL vector map rendering or global CDN distribution) process transient network data outside Kenya, such transfers comply strictly with Section 48 and Section 49 of the Kenya Data Protection Act, 2019:
- Transfers are governed by Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) guaranteeing equivalent data protection.
- Routing requests to external mapping APIs transmit only coordinate pairs, devoid of patient identifiers or clinical notes.
- Third-party processors are bound by comprehensive Data Processing Agreements (DPAs).
Your Statutory Rights (Kenya DPA & Global Standards)
Under Part IV of the Kenya Data Protection Act, 2019 and Chapter III of the GDPR, data subjects possess the following enforceable statutory rights:
Statutory Limitation: Under Section 51 of the Kenya DPA, certain rights may be limited where processing is strictly mandated by emergency public health duties, medical record archiving laws, or the defense of legal claims.
Data Protection Officer & Regulatory Recourse
For inquiries, data subject access requests (DSARs), or regulatory notifications, contact the ClearBay Data Protection Office:
ClearBay Data Protection Office
Attention: Data Protection Officer (DPO)
Entity: ClearBay Health Ltd
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Email: [email protected]
National Supervisory Authority
Authority: Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC)
Address: Britam Tower, 13th Floor, Hospital Road, Upper Hill, Nairobi
Postal: P.O. Box 30920-00100, Nairobi, Kenya
Complaints: www.odpc.go.ke · [email protected]