Legal notice — Civic Polling

Privacy notice · Terms of use · DSA / AI Act compliance

⚠️ PRELIMINARY DOCUMENT — This text is a technical draft prepared by the MINOMO team. The binding version will be the one validated by the designated counsel (av. Diaconescu, Bucharest bar) before a municipality is activated in production. This draft is made public for transparency and prior review.

1. Privacy notice (Civic Polling)

Data controller

MINOMO Tech S.R.L., based at [address to be filled], CUI [to be filled]. For civic polls, the publishing municipality is a co-controller of data, limited to the decision to call the poll and the wording of question and options; MINOMO is the controller for technical infrastructure, anonymization, and certificate archival.

Data processed

  • Participation data: user↔poll link, present only during the voting period and atomically DELETED at poll sealing. Purpose: prevent double voting.
  • Aggregate data: vote count per option, with no reference to individual voters. Permanent. Purpose: produce the result.
  • Civic push notification: citizen device push token used to deliver the notification. No per-user log associated with the civic notification (unlike other MINOMO notifications).
  • "Civic Voice" opt-in: boolean flag on the citizen profile. Permanent until revocation.

Legal basis

Explicit consent (Art. 6.1.a GDPR) for opt-in and receipt of civic notifications. Performance of a task carried out in the public interest (Art. 6.1.e GDPR) for the registration and publication of the aggregated result, on behalf of the municipality as controller.

Retention

Participation data: only during the voting period, never past sealing. Signed certificate (aggregates only): permanent (including on public IPFS and anchored to Bitcoin via OpenTimestamps), as it is the official document of the result.

Data subject rights

The data subject may at any time exercise the rights provided by Arts. 15-22 GDPR (access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, objection) by writing to [email protected]. Please note that, by design, MINOMO is technically unable to identify a single user's vote in a sealed poll, because the user↔vote link has been removed. Therefore, after sealing, a specific vote cannot be deleted, but the opt-in can be revoked and profile data deleted.

2. Terms of use for municipalities

Who can use Civic Polling

Only municipalities that have signed the MINOMO Atlas agreement with their territorial City Agent, appointed a responsible officer ("municipal_admin"), and accepted these terms. Self-registration is not allowed.

Allowed use

  • Publication of civic polls on matters within the municipality's competence or of general interest to the municipality's citizens.
  • Formulation of clear, neutral, non-discriminatory questions, in compliance with national and European Union law.
  • Compliance with electoral law: Civic Polling is NOT a referendum or election; it is a consultative tool. Answers have no binding legal value.

Forbidden use

  • Political-electoral promotion: Civic Polling may not be used as a campaign tool or to promote lists, candidates, or parties.
  • Illegal content: questions may not incite hate, discrimination, violence, or break the law.
  • Profiling: linking results to identifiable citizen subgroups (neighbourhood, age range, etc.) is forbidden — MINOMO does not technically allow this.

MINOMO's neutrality

MINOMO does not pre-moderate poll content. Any illegal content is handled reactively under the DSA procedure (see §3). The municipal_admin appointment is the responsibility of the territorial City Agent, who is also not a content moderator.

3. Digital Services Act (DSA) compliance

MINOMO role

MINOMO operates as a hosting service under Art. 6 of Regulation EU 2022/2065 (DSA). We do not proactively monitor poll content: the municipal_admin publishes directly.

Notice procedure

Anyone who believes that the content of a poll violates the law may submit a detailed notice to [email protected]. The notice must specify: poll URL, reason for the complaint, contact details of the notifier. Response within 7 working days.

Appeal

If a poll is removed, the municipal_admin receives written reasons and may appeal within 30 days via the out-of-court dispute resolution body. The list of accredited bodies is available at digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu.

4. AI Act notes

The Civic Polling system uses NO artificial intelligence whatsoever. Votes are aggregated by simple counters, the certificate is signed with the standard cryptographic algorithm Ed25519 (RFC 8032), registry integrity is guaranteed by Merkle tree (RFC 6962) and OpenTimestamps on Bitcoin. No algorithmic prediction, automated recommendation, or ML-based decision. The system is therefore out of scope of Regulation EU 2024/1689 (AI Act), while applying its transparency principles by analogy (this note, the /civic/methodology page, independent verifiability of the result).

5. Jurisdiction and applicable law

These terms are governed by the law of the state in which the municipality is based; for Italian municipalities, Italian law applies and the competent court is that of the municipality. For Romanian municipalities, Romanian law and the competent court of the municipality. Rights and obligations under the GDPR and DSA apply directly as Union law.