PVT Results Terms of Use

1. Introduction

These Terms of Use govern access to and use of PVT Results, a platform for capturing, verifying, tallying, and reviewing polling-station results and for uploading supporting evidence.

By creating an account, accessing a workspace, submitting polling-station results, uploading evidence, verifying submissions, viewing reports, exporting data, or otherwise using the platform, you agree to these Terms and to the PVT Results Data & Privacy Policy.

If you access or use the platform for or on behalf of any organisation, political party, candidate, civil society organisation, observer group, media organisation, campaign, or other entity, you represent and warrant that you have full authority to bind that organisation to these Terms.

These Terms are intended to support lawful election monitoring and platform operation under Zambian law, including:

the Constitution of Zambia, 1991, as amended by Act No. 2 of 2016, including Articles 1, 4, 45, and 229;
the Electoral Process Act, No. 35 of 2016, as amended by the Electoral Process (Amendment) Act, No. 32 of 2021, including section 89(1)(o);
the Data Protection Act, No. 3 of 2021, including sections 12, 14, 19, 20, 21, 46, 48, 49, 70, and 71;
the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act, No. 2 of 2021, including sections 23, 49, 60, 63, 73, and 76;
the Information and Communications Technologies Act, No. 15 of 2009, where applicable to regulated communications services, including sections 67 and 68.

These legal references do not limit any other law, regulation, ECZ direction, court order, contract, or lawful instruction that may apply.

2. Purpose of the Platform

PVT Results helps authorised organisations collect, review, validate, and analyse polling-station results on the basis of documentary evidence.

The platform supports:

collection of results publicly declared at polling stations;
upload of supporting evidence, including polling-station result forms or photographs of results posted for public viewing;
internal review and verification by authorised tenant users;
arithmetic and consistency checks;
identification of discrepancies between submissions;
production of internal parallel-tabulation, monitoring, and analytical reports;
preservation of audit trails for accountability, review, and dispute support.

PVT Results is not an electoral authority. It does not conduct elections and does not declare official or final results.

The platform's monitoring and verification purpose is aligned with the Constitution of Zambia, Article 45, which requires electoral systems and processes to support free and fair elections, independence, accountability, efficiency, transparency, and a practical system for voting and tabulating votes.

3. ECZ Authority and Status of Platform Results

The Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ), or the electoral authority legally mandated for the relevant election, is responsible for administering elections and declaring or publishing official results under law.

The Constitution of Zambia, Article 229, establishes the ECZ and gives it functions that include implementing the electoral process, conducting elections and referenda, registering voters, regulating the conduct of voters and candidates, and accrediting observers and election agents.

PVT Results does not replace, override, amend, certify, or supersede any result declared by ECZ or any other legally mandated authority.

Any tally, dashboard, report, projection, discrepancy alert, internal analysis, pooled validation output, or aggregate generated by PVT Results exists only for monitoring, verification, audit, and organisational decision-support.

Users and tenants must not represent platform output as official, final, legally binding, or ECZ-declared unless that result has been officially declared by the legally mandated authority.

4. Mandatory Public-Results Disclaimer

The Electoral Process (Amendment) Act, No. 32 of 2021, amended section 89(1) of the Electoral Process Act by inserting section 89(1)(o), which makes it an offence to announce and declare election results without lawful authority.

To reduce the risk of unauthorised result announcements, every external publication, communication, report, shared dashboard, press release, social-media post, or similar statement that uses PVT Results data, tallies, dashboards, analyses, reports, or exports must include this notice prominently:

Disclaimer: This is an unofficial parallel tabulation and monitoring report based solely on polling-station data submitted to the PVT Results platform by the relevant tenant organisation. It is not an official election result declared by the Electoral Commission of Zambia or any other body with lawful authority under the Electoral Process Act, No. 35 of 2016, as amended by Act No. 32 of 2021. Official results are declared only by ECZ or another legally mandated authority in accordance with law. These figures are for internal monitoring, verification, and organisational decision-support only and remain subject to verification, correction, and official announcement.

Omitting this disclaimer from external communication is a material breach of these Terms and may result in suspension or termination of access, withholding of exports, preservation of records, indemnity exposure under section 24, and reporting to competent authorities where required or authorised by law.

5. Results Eligible for Submission

Users must submit only results taken from the public polling-station record declared at the polling station.

Acceptable sources include:

the result announced by the Presiding Officer or another authorised election official;
the result form signed or made available under applicable electoral procedures;
the copy of the result form posted outside the polling station for public viewing;
a copy lawfully obtained by an accredited agent, monitor, observer, candidate representative, or other authorised person;
any other source approved in writing by the platform operator and consistent with electoral law and ECZ procedure.

Users must not submit results drawn from rumours, estimates, unverified social-media posts, partisan projections, hearsay, altered documents, manipulated images, or private messages that are not supported by the public polling-station record or other lawful evidence.

Each tenant and user is responsible for holding the accreditation, authorisation, or legal authority required by the Electoral Process Act, ECZ procedures, and any applicable regulation before accessing a polling station, obtaining a result form, or uploading evidence.

6. Evidentiary Support

Where the platform requires evidence, evidence must accompany each submission.

Evidence may include:

a clear photograph or scan of the polling-station result form;
a clear photograph of the result form posted outside the polling station;
a copy of the signed result form lawfully obtained by an authorised agent, observer, monitor, candidate representative, or other authorised person;
metadata or notes requested by the platform to support the audit trail;
any additional verification information required by the tenant administrator or platform operator.

Uploaded evidence must be accurate, complete, legible, and free from any alteration that misrepresents the original record.

The Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act, section 73, recognises that data messages may be admissible as electronic evidence and that evidential weight depends on factors including the integrity of the data message, how it was generated, stored, communicated, and maintained, and how its originator was identified.

7. Image Enhancement and Evidence Integrity

Users may enhance an image only for readability and only through non-destructive adjustments such as brightness, contrast, or sharpening that do not alter the content of the result record.

The original unedited image or scan must remain available in the platform audit record alongside any enhanced version where the platform supports both.

Cropping material content, adding or inferring content through artificial intelligence, changing figures, obscuring signatures or stamps needed for verification, or otherwise altering the integrity of a record is prohibited.

Unauthorised access, interception, or interference with data is addressed by the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act, section 49. Introducing malicious software into a computer system is addressed by section 60, and using a computer system for an offence under any written law is addressed by section 63.

8. Accuracy and Good-Faith Submission Obligations

Each user entering or verifying data must:

record results exactly as they appear on the publicly declared polling-station record;
attach the correct evidence to the correct polling station, stream, ward, constituency, district, province, contest, and candidate;
avoid transposition, inflation, omission, duplication, substitution, or selective entry of figures;
correct any error promptly once discovered;
report suspected manipulation, fraud, coercion, unauthorised access, credential compromise, or data-entry compromise;
follow lawful instructions from the tenant administrator, verifier, or platform operator;
use the platform only for lawful election monitoring, verification, and tabulation;
comply with the Electoral Process Act, the Data Protection Act, the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act, and other applicable Zambian law.

Submitting results while knowing that they are false, manipulated, fabricated, misleading, or unsupported is a material breach of these Terms.

9. Verification Before Wider Dissemination

Before releasing, publishing, circulating, exporting, or relying on platform data across an organisation or to any external audience, each tenant must validate the submissions made by its agents and users.

Each tenant should maintain an internal verification process appropriate to its operations, which may include:

agent-submission review;
evidence review;
verifier approval;
discrepancy resolution;
supervisory sign-off;
audit-log review;
approval before organisation-wide visibility or external reporting.

The platform may provide tools for review, flags, audit trails, arithmetic checks, discrepancy alerts, evidence review, and role-based access. The tenant remains responsible for deciding whether submitted data is sufficiently verified for internal or external use and for documenting that verification process.

Verification obligations support the accuracy, integrity, purpose limitation, and accountability principles referenced in the Data Protection Act, section 12, and help tenants avoid disseminating misleading electoral information contrary to the Electoral Process Act, including section 89(1)(o).

10. Prohibited Conduct

No user or tenant may:

upload false, fabricated, altered, or misleading results;
deliberately enter figures that differ from the publicly declared polling-station record;
impersonate an agent, observer, verifier, ECZ official, candidate, party representative, tenant administrator, or any other person;
interfere with or bypass platform validation, audit, evidence, or access-control mechanisms;
upload malicious code, spam, or unauthorised automated traffic;
attempt to access another organisation's workspace or data without authority;
use another user's login credentials or share credentials with unauthorised persons;
use the platform to incite violence, intimidation, harassment, or unlawful conduct;
falsely claim that PVT Results has officially declared an election result;
use platform output to mislead the public about the status of official results;
remove, obscure, manipulate, or tamper with audit logs or evidence;
submit personal data that election monitoring does not require;
violate electoral, data-protection, cybersecurity, intellectual-property, criminal, or other applicable law.

This includes conduct contrary to Electoral Process Act section 89(1)(o), Data Protection Act sections 12 and 14, Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act sections 49, 60, 63, and 76, and any lawful ECZ procedure or court order.

11. Discrepancies, Flags, and Corrections

The platform may automatically or manually flag submissions where:

arithmetic does not balance;
totals diverge from the evidence;
different tenants report materially different results for the same polling station or contest;
evidence appears incomplete, illegible, duplicated, altered, or inconsistent;
submission patterns suggest manipulation, coercion, unauthorised access, or systematic error;
access, editing, or submission behaviour appears unusual.

A flag is not a final finding of fraud, manipulation, or wrongdoing. It is a risk indicator requiring review.

The platform operator may request explanation, additional evidence, correction, or tenant-administrator review. Tenants must cooperate in good faith with discrepancy resolution.

Flagging and review mechanisms protect data integrity and are consistent with Data Protection Act section 12 principles and the platform's security and evidence-integrity obligations.

12. Suspension or Termination of Access

The platform operator may suspend, restrict, or terminate access where it has reasonable grounds to believe that a user or tenant has:

breached these Terms;
submitted false or manipulated data;
compromised platform security;
represented platform output as official results;
failed to cooperate with a discrepancy review;
used the platform unlawfully or harmfully;
exposed the platform, another tenant, users, or the public to legal, security, or reputational risk.

Except in urgent cases involving security, fraud, immediate legal risk, unlawful results announcement, or risk to election integrity, the operator will give reasonable notice and an opportunity to remedy a material breach where practicable.

The operator may preserve relevant logs, evidence, submissions, audit records, access records, communications, and exports for audit, legal, security, compliance, investigation, or dispute-resolution purposes.

13. Tenant Responsibilities

Each tenant is responsible for:

selecting, training, and supervising its users;
assigning agents, verifiers, administrators, and readers roles appropriate to their functions;
ensuring users understand that only publicly declared polling-station results may be submitted;
ensuring the mandatory disclaimer in section 4 appears on every external communication using platform data;
establishing and documenting internal verification and approval procedures;
reviewing evidence before relying on submitted data;
complying with applicable laws, ECZ procedures, accreditation requirements, and court orders;
ensuring public communication based on platform data is accurate, properly qualified, not misleading, and legally compliant;
keeping account credentials and workspace access confidential;
notifying the platform operator promptly about suspected unauthorised access, credential compromise, data leakage, evidence manipulation, or misuse.

Tenant responsibilities support lawful electoral monitoring under the Electoral Process Act and controller or processor obligations under the Data Protection Act, including sections 12, 14, 19, 20, and 21.

14. Platform Functions and Limitations

PVT Results may provide:

data-entry workflows;
evidence upload;
arithmetic validation;
audit logs;
verification workflows;
role-based access;
dashboards and analytics;
discrepancy detection;
pooled consistency checking across platform submissions as described in the Data & Privacy Policy;
exports and reports for authorised users.

Pooled consistency checking exists to detect discrepancies, verify data integrity, and improve platform reliability. Pooled data and insights are not intended for public release and remain subject to confidentiality, verification, and use restrictions in these Terms and the Data & Privacy Policy.

The platform does not guarantee that:

all submitted data is accurate;
all uploaded evidence is genuine;
every discrepancy will be detected;
the service will be uninterrupted or error-free;
unofficial tallies will match final official results;
users or tenants will comply with their obligations.

15. Public Communications

Tenants and users must exercise care when communicating any platform-derived figures.

Any external publication or communication based on PVT Results data must:

state that the data is based on polling-station submissions received by the tenant;
carry the mandatory disclaimer in section 4 in a prominent position;
state that figures are unofficial unless and until ECZ or the relevant legally mandated authority declares them;
state that figures may change through verification, correction, or dispute resolution;
state that PVT Results is not the body that declares final election results;
include methodology, sample-size, coverage, confidence, or limitation information where relevant.

The tenant is responsible for public communications made by its users. Breach of this section may result in suspension, termination, withholding of exports, preservation of records, reporting to competent authorities, and enforcement of the indemnity in section 24.

16. Intellectual Property and Tenant Licence

The platform, including its software, design, workflows, dashboards, documentation, trademarks, and related materials, belongs to the platform operator or its licensors.

Tenants retain ownership of the data they upload, subject to the rights granted to the operator under these Terms, the Data & Privacy Policy, and any applicable service agreement.

By uploading data, evidence, or other content, each tenant grants the platform operator a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to host, store, process, analyse, validate, secure, display to authorised users internally, back up, transmit, and create anonymised or aggregated derivatives of that content for:

operating and improving the platform;
detecting discrepancies and protecting data integrity;
supporting election-process and integrity research in anonymised form only;
meeting legal, security, audit, and contractual obligations.

This licence is subject to the Data Protection Act, including sections 12 and 14, and to the Data & Privacy Policy.

No person may copy, reverse engineer, resell, sublicense, or commercially exploit the platform except under a written agreement with the platform operator.

17. Data and Privacy

The PVT Results Data & Privacy Policy also governs use of the platform.

By using the platform, each user and tenant accepts that the operator may process submitted data, evidence, account data, audit logs, validation records, usage data, support data, and security data as described in these Terms and the Data & Privacy Policy.

The platform operator processes personal data under the Data Protection Act, No. 3 of 2021. Depending on the arrangement, it may act as a data controller, data processor, or joint controller with a tenant.

The operator maintains or will maintain registration with the Data Protection Commissioner as required by Data Protection Act sections 19, 20, and 21, and will process personal data in line with section 12 principles, including lawfulness, fairness, transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity, confidentiality, and accountability.

Where processing involves sensitive personal data, including political opinions, affiliation, observer roles, campaign roles, or identifiers in uploaded evidence, processing must satisfy a lawful condition under Data Protection Act section 14.

If these Terms and the Data & Privacy Policy conflict on personal-data processing, the Data & Privacy Policy prevails to the extent of the conflict, provided it remains consistent with applicable law.

18. Personal Data Breaches and Cross-Border Transfers

If a personal data breach occurs, the operator will investigate, take remedial steps, and notify the Data Protection Commissioner and affected data subjects or tenants where required by Data Protection Act section 49.

Where personal data is transferred, externalised, stored, backed up, or made accessible outside Zambia, the operator will ensure the transfer is legally effected under Data Protection Act sections 70 and 71, including through an adequate protection basis, informed consent where applicable, approved contractual safeguards, or another condition allowed by law.

Tenants with specific data-residency or cross-border processing requirements must enter into a written agreement with the operator.

19. Documentation, Records, and Retention

Election records, audit logs, evidence, submissions, verification history, exports, discrepancy records, and related platform records may be retained for the period stated in the Data & Privacy Policy unless a different period is required by law, contract, dispute, security investigation, court order, regulatory obligation, or signed enterprise agreement.

Retention is subject to the storage-limitation principle in Data Protection Act section 12 and to legal or procedural time limits that may apply to election disputes or petitions, including Electoral Process Act section 100(3) where relevant.

20. Prohibition on Sale of Data

The platform operator will not sell tenant data, user-submitted election data, evidence, audit logs, or personal data.

This prohibition supports the purpose-limitation and data-minimisation principles in Data Protection Act section 12.

21. Platform Availability and Amendments

The operator may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the platform for maintenance, security, legal, operational, product, compliance, or contractual reasons.

The operator may revise workflows, validation rules, evidence requirements, role permissions, discrepancy-detection features, security controls, and data-processing procedures.

The operator may update these Terms to reflect changes in law, platform functions, operational requirements, risk controls, or legal advice. For material changes, including changes to liability provisions, data-processing practices, core user obligations, or compliance requirements, the operator will provide reasonable prior notice where practicable.

Notice may be given through the platform, by email to tenant administrators, by publication on the platform website, or by another reasonable method. Continued use of the platform after updated Terms take effect constitutes acceptance of those Terms.

If a tenant does not accept a material amendment, it may terminate its agreement by written notice before the amendment takes effect, subject to payment for services already rendered and any surviving legal, security, audit, or retention obligations.

22. Warranties

The platform and all content, features, and functionality made available through it are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.

The operator will exercise reasonable care and skill in operating the platform to the standard expected of professional election-monitoring, data-capture, and verification tools.

Subject to any express service agreement, the operator does not warrant that the platform will be error-free, uninterrupted, immune from attack, or that data submitted to or through the platform will be accurate, complete, or reliable.

Users and tenants remain responsible for independently verifying election data before relying on it.

23. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the platform operator is not liable for:

false, inaccurate, incomplete, or manipulated data submitted by users;
a tenant's failure to verify submissions;
public statements by tenants or users, including failure to include the mandatory disclaimer in section 4;
differences between platform tallies and official results;
loss caused by unauthorised access following user credential compromise;
indirect, incidental, consequential, reputational, political, or economic loss;
loss arising from downtime except as provided in a signed service agreement.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, death or personal injury caused by negligence, gross negligence, wilful misconduct, or any liability that Zambian law does not allow to be excluded or limited, including mandatory obligations under the Data Protection Act or the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act.

24. Indemnity

Each tenant agrees to indemnify and defend the platform operator, its officers, directors, agents, contractors, and affiliates from and against claims, demands, actions, proceedings, damages, penalties, liabilities, costs, expenses, and losses arising out of or connected with:

false, misleading, or unlawful data submitted by the tenant or its users;
misuse of platform outputs or failure to include the mandatory disclaimer in section 4;
unauthorised public communications or misrepresentations;
breach of these Terms by the tenant or its users;
breach of the Electoral Process Act, the Data Protection Act, the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act, the Constitution, or other applicable Zambian law by the tenant or its users;
infringement of third-party intellectual-property, privacy, data-protection, or other rights;
failure by the tenant or its users to verify submitted data before using or publishing it.

This indemnity does not apply to claims arising from the operator's own fraud, gross negligence, or wilful misconduct.

25. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or in connection with them are governed by the laws of the Republic of Zambia, unless a signed agreement states otherwise.

The parties will first attempt to resolve disputes through good-faith discussions.

If a dispute cannot be resolved amicably, it may be referred to the courts or dispute-resolution forum specified in the applicable service agreement or, if none is specified, the courts of competent jurisdiction in Zambia.

26. Compliance with Zambian Law

Each user and tenant must comply with all applicable laws, statutes, regulations, ECZ procedures, court orders, and legal requirements in Zambia while accessing or using the platform.

This includes:

Electoral Process Act section 89(1)(o), as inserted by the Electoral Process (Amendment) Act, No. 32 of 2021, on unauthorised announcement and declaration of election results;
Data Protection Act sections 12, 14, 19, 20, 21, 46, 48, 49, 70, and 71, where personal data is processed;
Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act sections 49, 60, 63, 73, and 76, where computer-system access, data integrity, malicious software, electronic evidence, or disclosure issues arise;
Constitution of Zambia Articles 1, 4, 45, 229, and 266 where relevant to constitutional supremacy, democratic governance, electoral processes, ECZ functions, and children.

Where the operator reasonably believes that a user or tenant has contravened applicable law, the operator may suspend or terminate access, preserve records, and report the matter to competent authorities where required or authorised by law.

27. Cooperation with Lawful Authorities

The operator may disclose account information, user data, logs, submissions, evidence, audit trails, exports, and other records to ECZ, the Data Protection Commissioner, ZICTA, law-enforcement agencies, courts, or other competent authorities in response to a lawful request, court order, statutory obligation, or regulatory requirement.

Such disclosure does not breach these Terms or the Data & Privacy Policy where it is required or authorised by law.

Disclosures to competent authorities will be handled consistently with the Electoral Process Act, the Data Protection Act, the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act, the Information and Communications Technologies Act where applicable, and any court order or statutory requirement.

28. No Interference with Official Electoral Processes

Users and tenants must not use the platform to interfere with, obstruct, delay, misrepresent, or undermine any official electoral process, including polling, vote counting, tabulation, transmission, dispute resolution, or result declaration carried out by ECZ or any other body with lawful authority under the Electoral Process Act.

PVT Results output must remain clearly identified as unofficial monitoring, verification, and decision-support information unless and until the legally mandated authority declares official results.

29. General

These Terms, the Data & Privacy Policy, and any signed service agreement form the agreement between the parties on this subject and replace earlier agreements, representations, or understandings on the same subject, whether written or oral.

If a court or competent authority finds any provision invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in force.

No failure or delay by the operator in exercising any right, power, or remedy constitutes a waiver of that right, power, or remedy.

30. Contact

For questions about these Terms or the platform, contact:

contact form

For data-protection matters, including requests to exercise rights under the Data Protection Act, contact the office using the contact form and include this message: "For the attention of the Data Protection Officer."