Privacy Policy · LGU ARMS

The Municipality of Bay, Laguna operates the Archiving and Records Management System (LGU-ARMS) to manage the official records of the Sangguniang Bayan and its barangays. This policy explains what personal information the system handles and the rights you have over it under Republic Act No. 10173, the Data Privacy Act of 2012. It covers both the web portal and the mobile application, which share one database.

1. Who is responsible for your information

The Municipality of Bay, Laguna is the Personal Information Controller (PIC) for all data in LGU-ARMS. It decides what is collected and why, and is accountable for its protection. Questions, requests, and complaints may be directed to the Data Protection Officer listed in Section 11.

2. Who this policy applies to

LGU-ARMS is a closed, internal system. It is not open to the general public. This policy covers:

System users — municipal administrators, secretaries, councilors, and barangay officials and staff who hold accounts.
Applicants — persons who submit a registration request that is still pending approval.
Persons named in official records — officials, attendees, and others whose names appear in minutes, attendance sheets, resolutions, ordinances, and executive orders.
Document verifiers — anyone who scans a QR code on an official document to check its authenticity.

3. What we collect

We collect only what the system needs to operate. We do not collect financial account details, biometrics, or location beyond the barangay/municipality you are assigned to.

3.1 Account and registration information

Data	Why it is collected
Full name (first, middle, last)	Identifies you in records, audit trails, and document signatories
Email address	Login credential; delivery of approvals, temporary passwords, and password resets
Mobile / phone number	Optional. Official contact within the LGU
Department, position, role	Determines what you are permitted to see and do
Barangay, municipality, province	Scopes your access to your own barangay's records
Profile picture	Optional. Display only
Password	Stored only as a bcrypt hash. The plain password is never stored and cannot be recovered by anyone, including administrators

3.2 Security and activity information (collected automatically)

Data	Why it is collected
IP address	Detecting unauthorized access and abuse
Browser / device identifier	Same as above; distinguishing sessions
Login timestamps & failed attempts	Account lockout after repeated failures
Audit trail	A permanent record of who created, edited, approved, or deleted each record, and when. Required for the integrity of official documents
Session & mobile auth tokens	Keeping you signed in; expire automatically
Password reset codes (OTP)	Verifying a reset request; short-lived and single-use

You cannot opt out of the audit trail. It exists so that official records cannot be altered without attribution, and it is a control expected of a government records system.

3.3 Records content

Minutes, agendas, attendance, committee membership, comments, resolutions, ordinances, and executive orders are stored as entered by the secretariat. These are public records under the Local Government Code and typically contain the names, positions, and statements of officials acting in their official capacity.

3.4 Document verification scans

When a QR code on an official document is scanned, the system records the time of the scan and a verification count. No account is required and the scanner is not identified personally. The verification page discloses only whether the document is authentic — never its contents.

4. Why we process it, and on what legal basis

Processing is carried out under Sections 12 and 13 of RA 10173, specifically:

Fulfillment of a mandate of a public authority — the LGU's duty to keep and preserve legislative records under RA 7160, the Local Government Code.
Legitimate interest and contract — providing you an account, securing it, and supporting it.
Consent — for optional items such as your profile picture and phone number.

We do not use your information for advertising, profiling, or automated decision-making that produces legal effects, and we do not sell or rent it to anyone.

5. Artificial intelligence features

Please read this section carefully

LGU-ARMS includes optional AI features: drafting assistance for minutes, and natural-language search across documents. These are powered by the Google Gemini API (model gemini-2.5-flash), operated by Google LLC.

What is sent. Only the text you select or the search query you type — together with the record excerpts needed to answer it — is transmitted to Google for processing. The result is returned to the system and shown to you.
Cross-border transfer. This processing occurs on servers outside the Philippines. Under Section 21 of RA 10173, the LGU remains accountable for information transferred abroad.
Human control. AI output is a draft. Nothing produced by an AI feature becomes an official record until a secretary reviews it and a duly authorized officer approves it.
Your responsibility. Do not paste sensitive personal information — health details, government ID numbers, or information about private individuals unrelated to the proceeding — into any AI feature.

If you prefer not to use these features, simply do not invoke them. Every AI action is optional and manually triggered; nothing is sent to Google in the background.

6. Who we share it with

Your information stays inside the LGU except in the following cases:

Within the LGU — visible only to users whose role and barangay assignment permit it. Barangay users cannot see other barangays' records.
Service providers — Google (AI features, as described above) and the email service used to deliver system notifications. They process data only to perform that function.
Public disclosure of records — official records may be published or released in accordance with law and the LGU's records policies.
Legal obligation — when required by a court, the National Privacy Commission, the Commission on Audit, or another body with lawful authority.

7. How long we keep it

Category	Retention period
Official records	Permanent. Legislative records are archived indefinitely under RA 7160 and National Archives retention rules
Active accounts	For as long as the account is active, plus the period required for audit
Deactivated accounts	Retained rather than deleted, so that past entries in official records remain correctly attributed
Audit trail	Permanent — it is part of the integrity of the records it describes
Rejected registrations	Disposed of once the applicant has been notified and any appeal period has lapsed
Sessions, tokens, OTPs	Expire automatically; OTPs within minutes, sessions within one hour of inactivity

8. How we protect it

Passwords are hashed with bcrypt; plain passwords are never written to disk.
Role-based access control restricts every page and endpoint, and barangay data is scoped so one barangay cannot read another's.
Accounts lock automatically after repeated failed logins; sessions expire on inactivity.
Submitted content is sanitized to prevent script injection, and uploads are validated by file type and cannot be executed on the server.
Requests are protected against cross-site request forgery, and session cookies are HTTP-only.
Configuration files, credentials, and raw data directories are blocked from web access.
All traffic is served over HTTPS in production.
Every change to a record is logged with the user's identity, action, and timestamp.

No system is perfectly secure. In the event of a personal data breach posing a real risk to affected persons, the LGU will notify the National Privacy Commission and the affected data subjects within 72 hours of knowledge of the breach, as required by law.

9. Your rights under the Data Privacy Act

Section 16 of RA 10173 gives you the right to:

Be informed — know that your data is being processed, and why. This policy serves that purpose.
Access — obtain a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
Rectify — correct information that is inaccurate or out of date.
Object — refuse processing, including of optional fields, where consent is the basis.
Erasure or blocking — request removal of data that is incomplete, outdated, false, or unlawfully obtained. This right does not extend to entries in official records or the audit trail, which the LGU is legally required to preserve.
Data portability — receive your data in a commonly used electronic format.
Damages — be indemnified for damage arising from inaccurate, unlawful, or unauthorized use of your data.
Lodge a complaint — file with the National Privacy Commission at privacy.gov.ph.

To exercise any of these, contact the Data Protection Officer below. We will respond within a reasonable period, ordinarily 15 working days. We may ask you to verify your identity first.

10. Cookies and mobile storage

The web portal sets a session cookie to keep you signed in, and an optional "remember this device" cookie if you choose it. These are strictly functional — there are no advertising, analytics, or third-party tracking cookies anywhere in the system.

The mobile application stores an authentication token on your device so you do not have to sign in repeatedly. Signing out deletes it. Uninstalling the app removes all locally stored data from your device; it does not delete your account.

11. Contact us

For any privacy concern, request, or complaint:

Data Protection Officer: Aldwin John D. Quintos
Email: mayor@bay.gov.ph
Telephone: 0917-149-8993
Office

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the system changes or as the law requires. The effective date at the top of this page always reflects the current version. Material changes — for example, a new category of data or a new third-party processor — will be announced in the system, and continued use after the effective date constitutes acknowledgement.

13. Minors

LGU-ARMS is intended solely for authorized government personnel. It is not directed at, and accounts are not issued to, persons under 18 years of age.

LGU-ARMS · Archiving and Records Management System
Municipality of Bay, Laguna · Privacy · Terms