Phase 11 Pilot Recruitment and Operations Protocol

Status: APPROVED OPERATING BASELINE — REAL RECRUITMENT BLOCKED UNTIL EXTERNAL ENTRY GATES PASS
Owner: Shadreck Kudzanai Musarurwa
Pilot area: Kabwata Ward + Chilenje Ward, Lusaka District
Maximum cohort: 24 providers + 60 customers

1. Recruitment model

The pilot is invite-only and purposive. It is not an open beta, public signup campaign or representative population survey.

Recruitment channels may include:

  • direct invitations to providers operating in or serving the approved wards;
  • local trade/business/community referrals;
  • provider-to-provider referrals, subject to pathway/category quotas;
  • direct invitations to adult customers who live in, work in or need services in the approved wards;
  • community/contact referrals that do not disclose another person’s private information without permission.

No social-media mass campaign, public search indexing, unrestricted invite links or paid acquisition campaign is permitted in the initial three waves.

2. Provider inclusion criteria

A provider must:

  • be at least 18 years old where the provider is an individual representative;
  • operate in or explicitly serve Kabwata or Chilenje Ward;
  • offer at least one approved pilot category;
  • fit an existing DIREKT provider pathway without forced classification;
  • consent to controlled-pilot processing and the applicable evidence workflow;
  • provide only the evidence required for the specific claims requested;
  • be able to receive support through the approved pilot channels;
  • agree that DIREKT checks are scoped and do not constitute a blanket competence/safety guarantee.

Target mix per category:

  • 2 registered businesses;
  • 2 qualified individuals;
  • 2 experienced informal providers where lawful and where no unverified licence/qualification claim is implied.

3. Provider exclusion criteria

Exclude or defer when:

  • the provider cannot lawfully offer the represented service or required statutory status is unresolved;
  • identity/representation cannot be established to the minimum approved standard;
  • the provider requests a trust claim that DIREKT cannot verify honestly;
  • evidence handling would require an unapproved processor/data flow;
  • there is an unresolved serious safety, fraud or impersonation concern;
  • the provider is outside the approved geography and does not serve it;
  • cohort/category capacity is already full.

Exclusion is not a public fraud finding. Record only the appropriate internal reason and safe participant-facing explanation.

4. Customer inclusion criteria

A customer participant must:

  • be at least 18 years old;
  • live in, work in or have a genuine service-use case in Kabwata or Chilenje Ward;
  • use a supported Android device for app-task testing where app participation is required;
  • provide informed pilot consent;
  • understand that the pilot is controlled and may be paused or stopped;
  • agree not to submit unnecessary third-party personal data in enquiries/reviews.

5. Customer exclusion criteria

Exclude or defer:

  • minors;
  • anyone unable or unwilling to provide informed consent;
  • requests entirely outside the approved area/categories;
  • use cases involving imminent emergencies or services DIREKT is not designed to handle;
  • participation where coercion, undisclosed conflict of interest or unsafe research conditions are present.

6. Conflict-of-interest controls

Recruitment must record, privately and minimally:

  • whether a participant is related to or financially connected with the pilot owner/operator;
  • whether a customer is evaluating a provider they recruited or have a close relationship with;
  • whether a provider/reviewer/field operator has a relationship that could affect an evidence decision.

Conflicted participants may still contribute usability research where appropriate, but their evidence must be labelled and excluded from independence-sensitive conclusions.

High-risk verification decisions retain existing four-eyes/independent-approver controls. The accountable pilot owner cannot use role concentration to bypass those controls.

7. Compensation

Wave 1 has no default monetary compensation for product use, provider verification outcome, positive review, recommendation or favourable feedback.

A later fixed research participation stipend may be introduced only when:

  • budget and tax/accounting treatment are approved;
  • the amount is not contingent on positive feedback, verification approval or continued participation;
  • the participant can withdraw without losing already-earned compensation;
  • the payment method does not activate the DIREKT marketplace payment system.

8. Wave structure

Wave 0 — readiness dry run

Synthetic/non-personal only:

  • final configuration verification;
  • consent/notice walkthrough;
  • support and incident tabletop;
  • Firebase auth canary only after provider/DPC gates;
  • private-storage/upload and deletion canary;
  • device/network smoke tests.

Wave 1 — maximum 8 providers + 20 customers

Goals:

  • onboarding and authentication;
  • provider evidence workflow without field-visit claims;
  • manual area/landmark discovery;
  • trust-card comprehension;
  • tracked enquiry and review/accountability loop where approved;
  • support/withdrawal/deletion drills.

Maps, Sentry, production WhatsApp delivery and real payments remain disabled.

Wave 2 — maximum additional 8 providers + 20 customers

Open only when Wave 1 has no unresolved critical/high blocker and thresholds remain within control.

May expand:

  • provider pathway/category balance;
  • device/network diversity;
  • enquiry/response volume;
  • optional separately approved provider integrations.

Wave 3 — maximum additional 8 providers + 20 customers

Open only after a formal Wave 2 review.

Purpose:

  • validate repeatability at the full 24-provider/60-customer cap;
  • measure queue/support capacity;
  • confirm or reject the initial geography/category/economic assumptions.

9. Supply-before-demand rule

For each category:

  • onboard and make eligible at least 3 discoverable providers before recruiting customer demand for that category;
  • if supply falls below 3 eligible providers, pause new customer invitations for that category;
  • do not fabricate listings or relax trust requirements to avoid empty results.

10. Support and escalation

Support hours, Central Africa Time:

  • Monday–Friday: 08:00–16:00;
  • Saturday: 09:00–12:00;
  • Sunday/public holidays: critical security/privacy response only.

Named accountable owner for initial pilot: Shadreck Kudzanai Musarurwa.

Priority handling:

  • P0: security/privacy/safety — immediate containment and affected-path freeze;
  • P1: trust/auth/evidence blocker — same operating day;
  • P2: workflow/support defect — next business day;
  • P3: usability/request — evidence backlog.

11. Pause and stop thresholds

Apply the stricter of this protocol and the permanent security/privacy immediate-stop rules.

  • any unauthorized evidence/contact/private-coordinate disclosure: stop affected processing;
  • any auth/authz bypass or cross-provider access: stop the pilot;
  • 2+ material privacy/security incidents in 7 days: freeze new invitations;

  • 10% core-task blocking failure over rolling 20 tasks: pause affected journey;

  • 10% unrecoverable upload failures over 10 consecutive real uploads: freeze evidence intake;

  • 25% active verification cases older than 48 hours: freeze provider recruitment;

  • 40% accepted enquiries unanswered after 24 hours in a completed wave: pause affected-category customer invitations;

  • 10 unresolved support cases or oldest normal case >24 support hours: freeze new invitations;

  • fewer than 3 eligible discoverable providers in a category: pause demand recruitment for that category.

12. Field-verification boundary

Wave 1 does not activate a field visited or equivalent public claim.

Before field verification:

  • appoint a Zambia-based field operator/lead;
  • complete identity/role/background/contract/training controls as applicable;
  • approve travel/safety/check-in/escalation procedure;
  • validate evidence capture and private-location handling;
  • preserve reviewer independence/four-eyes requirements;
  • run a synthetic/tabletop exercise before a real visit.

Field observation remains advisory and cannot create a final trust decision by itself.

13. Research evidence rules

Each finding is tagged as:

  • PRIMARY-PILOT — observed from a consented real participant/operation;
  • SECONDARY-OFFICIAL — regulator/statistics/local-government/provider source;
  • SYSTEM-METRIC — measured from the approved runtime;
  • ASSUMPTION — not yet validated;
  • REQUEST — participant preference, not automatically a requirement.

No secondary source may be relabelled as a participant result.

14. External entry gate

Recruitment remains blocked until the checklist records at least:

  • applicable DPC controller registration evidence;
  • applicable DPC overseas storage/transfer authorization;
  • qualified Zambia review of final participant/provider legal/privacy wording;
  • approved final notice/consent version;
  • approved real participant authentication implementation/provider configuration;
  • private-storage/data-path readiness and deletion/withdrawal canary;
  • named internal access list and incident/support contacts.

Repository readiness alone does not authorize invitations.