Terms & Conditions of Data Usage

Table of Contents

Last Updated On 28th October, 2024


Definitions

  • Dataset: The collection of voice data provided by NaijaVoices.
  • Non-Commercial Use: Usage for academic, educational, or personal purposes.
  • Commercial Use: Usage for business, product development, or commercial research.
  • User: Any individual or entity accessing the NaijaVoices dataset.
  • Data Contributor/Data Farmers: Individuals who have contributed their voice data to NaijaVoices.
  • Voice Donors

Guidelines & Restrictions

  • Ethical Speech Recognition: The dataset cannot be used to perpetuate stereotypes or biases against any particular group or community.
  • Hate Speech Generation: It should not be used to develop or train models that generate hate speech or promote discriminatory language.
  • Privacy Violation: Any attempt to use the dataset for identifying or exploiting personal information of individuals is strictly prohibited.
  • Surveillance Activities: The dataset should not be utilized for surveillance activities or any form of intrusive monitoring without consent.
  • Political Manipulation: Using the dataset to manipulate political discourse or influence elections is unethical and unacceptable.
  • Unauthorized Commercial Use: Commercial exploitation of the dataset without proper license is unethical and unlawful. Furthermore, the commercial use of this dataset is strictly prohibited from being used to create, or develop another dataset that is substantially similar in content, structure, or purpose, with the intent to sell or distribute the derivative dataset. This restriction ensures that the dataset, in whole or in part, is not copied, modified, or repurposed into another commercially available dataset that mirrors the original in any meaningful way.
  • Cultural Misappropriation: Avoid using the dataset to appropriate or misrepresent cultural expressions or identities. Nigeria is a proudly multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-dialectal country, and our dataset proudly represents that. We do not support any use of the dataset that attempts to misrepresent our cultural identities or instill conflict.
  • Violent Content Generation: It should not be used to develop content that promotes violence or incites aggression.
  • Transparency and Compliance: Users must clearly disclose their use of the dataset and ensure compliance with applicable data protection laws, including the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) Act, in all aspects of data handling and usage.
  • Identifying Voice Donors: You are strictly prohibited from attempting to identify or reveal the identities of the voice donors when using this dataset.
  • Voice Cloning: The community expressly forbids the use of our datasets for voice cloning or the creation of highly accurate voice replicas. Such practices pose significant risks, including but not limited to:
    • Impersonation and Fraud: Cloned voices may be exploited in malicious activities, such as social engineering attacks, where attackers impersonate trusted individuals to deceive others or extract sensitive information.
    • Misinformation and Disinformation: Voice clones can also be weaponized to fabricate fake audio recordings, thereby spreading false information or misleading the public.

License Types & Usage Rights

  • Non-Commercial License: Our dataset, by default, is licensed under the "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International" (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. It permits use of the dataset for academic research, personal study, and non-commercial purposes. If at any time your usage of the dataset or its derivatives turns commercial, you must become a member.
  • Community Commercial License Waiver: Available with community membership via tiered donation levels. Permits use of the dataset for select commercial purposes according to the terms and conditions of data usage.

Attribution

  • Users must attribute the NaijaVoices community in any publications or products resulting from the use of the dataset.
  • For academic papers or publications where the dataset is used, please use the below citation to acknowledge the community: 
@inproceedings{emezue25_interspeech,
  title     = {The NaijaVoices Dataset: Cultivating Large-Scale, High-Quality, Culturally-Rich Speech Data for African Languages},
  author    = {Chris Emezue and NaijaVoices Community and Busayo Awobade and Abraham Owodunni and Sewade Ogun and Handel Emezue and Gloria Monica Tobechukwu Emezue and Nefertiti Nneoma Emezue and Bunmi Akinremi and David Adelani and Chris Pal},
  year      = {2025},
  url       = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/naijavoices/naijavoices-dataset}
}

Updates and Revisions

  • NaijaVoices reserves the right to update these terms and conditions.