Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Studify Tutors ("Studify", "we", "us", or "our") is committed to protecting the privacy of our clients, their children, and all visitors to our website. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we use it, and what rights you have in relation to your information.

This policy applies to all personal information collected through our website, booking forms, enquiry forms, email communications, WhatsApp interactions, and any other channels through which you provide information to us.

We comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA) of South Africa. By using our website and services, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this policy.

2. Information We Collect

We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you use our website, book a session, submit an enquiry, or communicate with us. This includes:

2.1 Parent / Guardian Information

Full name, email address, phone number (WhatsApp number), and any additional information you share in booking form notes or in communication with us.

2.2 Student Information

Student's first name, grade, curriculum (IEB, CAPS, or Cambridge), subject(s), and any additional context about learning needs, goals, or challenges provided by the parent or guardian.

We do not collect sensitive personal information about students beyond what is necessary to match them with an appropriate tutor and deliver the tutoring service. We do not collect identity numbers, medical information, or financial details of students.

2.3 Payment Information

Payments are processed through Yoco, a PCI-compliant third-party payment gateway. We do not collect, store, or have access to your credit card number, debit card number, or bank account details. Yoco processes your payment information directly and provides us only with a transaction reference, payment status, and the amount paid. For more information about how Yoco handles your payment data, please refer to Yoco's Privacy Policy.

2.4 Automatically Collected Information

When you visit our website, we may automatically collect certain technical information including your IP address, browser type, device type, pages visited, and the date and time of your visit. This information is collected through standard web server logs and is used to improve the performance and security of our website.

2.5 Session Recordings

Tutoring sessions conducted via Google Meet may be recorded for the purpose of allowing students to review lesson content. These recordings are stored in Google's infrastructure and are accessible only to the student, parent, and assigned tutor. We do not use session recordings for marketing, training, or any purpose other than the student's educational benefit, unless we obtain explicit consent.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the personal information we collect for the following purposes:

We will not use your personal information for any purpose that is incompatible with the purposes listed above without first obtaining your consent.

4. Legal Basis for Processing (POPIA)

Under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), we process your personal information based on the following lawful grounds:

5. Information About Children

Our services are designed for school-aged children from Grade 1 to Grade 12. We collect limited personal information about students (first name, grade, curriculum, and subjects) solely for the purpose of providing the tutoring service. This information is provided to us by the parent or guardian, not directly by the child.

We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under the age of 18 without the involvement and consent of a parent or guardian. All communication about a student's account, progress, and scheduling is conducted with the parent or guardian.

If you believe that personal information about a child has been submitted to us without appropriate parental consent, please contact us immediately and we will take steps to delete that information.

6. How We Share Your Information

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes. We share your information only in the following limited circumstances:

6A. Automated Analysis of Lesson Content

To help us maintain teaching quality and keep track of what has been covered, we use an artificial intelligence (AI) service to read the written transcript of a session and produce a short structured summary for our internal use. This section explains exactly what that involves, because it concerns your child's own words.

6A.1 What we send, and what comes back

Where a transcript of a lesson is available, we send three things: the text of the transcript, the subject of the lesson, and the student's school grade. We also send the report the tutor wrote about that lesson. What comes back is a summary of the topics taught, the points at which the student appeared to struggle, an indication of how engaged they were, and an assessment of the tutor's tone and professional conduct. It also flags anything said during the lesson suggesting a child may be unsafe or unwell, so a person at Studify can look at it promptly.

We do not send the student's surname, the parent or guardian's name or contact details, payment information, or any other record from our database. Video and audio recordings are never sent — only the written text. We cannot remove names that were spoken aloud during the lesson, because those words are part of the transcript itself.

6A.2 Who carries out the analysis, and where

The analysis is carried out by Anthropic PBC, a company based in the United States, through its Claude application programming interface. This means the transcript is transferred outside South Africa. Anthropic acts as an operator on our behalf under POPIA: it may process this information only on our instructions and for no purpose of its own. Anthropic's privacy terms are at anthropic.com/legal/privacy.

6A.3 Not used to train AI models

Under the commercial terms that apply to our account, the content we send to Anthropic is not used to train or improve their AI models. Your child's lesson transcript is read in order to answer our question about that one lesson, and is not added to any model's training data.

6A.4 How long the AI service keeps it

Anthropic retains what we send, and the summary it returns, for up to 30 days for security and abuse-monitoring purposes, after which it is deleted from their systems. This period is a setting on our account and applies to every transcript we send. It is separate from, and shorter than, the period for which we keep the transcript ourselves.

6A.5 A person always decides

No decision about a student or a tutor is ever made automatically on the basis of this analysis. The summary is read by a person at Studify, who decides what, if anything, should be done. The analysis is internal: it is never sent to parents, never shown to other students or tutors, and forms no part of any report you receive.

6A.6 If you would rather we did not

You may ask us not to send your child's lesson transcripts for automated analysis, and we will honour that without affecting the tutoring your child receives. Contact us using the details at the end of this policy.

7. Data Security

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information against unauthorised access, loss, destruction, or alteration. These measures include:

While we take reasonable steps to protect your information, no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security, but we are committed to protecting your information to the best of our ability.

8. Data Retention

We retain your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by law. Specifically:

When personal information is no longer needed, we will securely delete or anonymise it.

9. Your Rights Under POPIA

Under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), you have the following rights regarding your personal information:

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details provided in Section 12 below. We will respond to your request within 30 days.

10. Cookies and Tracking

Nothing optional loads until you say so. The first time you visit, we ask. Until you answer, and if you answer no, no advertising or measurement cookie is set and no third-party tracker is loaded at all. Refusing takes exactly one click, the same as accepting, and it does not affect your ability to browse, book, pay or use the portal in any way. You can change your mind at any time using the Cookie settings link at the bottom of every page.

If you agree, we use a Meta (Facebook) advertising pixel on our public marketing pages only — the home page, packages and booking pages, the free trial and tutor application forms, the workshops pages, and this page. It records that a page was visited, that a booking was started, and that a purchase was completed, together with the amount paid. It sets cookies in your browser (_fbp) and reports to Meta Platforms, Inc.

We use it to measure whether our advertising is working. We do not upload customer lists to Meta, and we do not use it to build profiles of individual people.

It is not on the pages where your child's information lives. The parent portal, the tutor portal, the admin area and the agreement-signing page carry no pixel and no third-party tracking of any kind. Nothing about a named student — their name, grade, subjects, marks, reports or lesson recordings — is ever sent to Meta or to any advertising service.

We also count page views ourselves, in order to see which pages are useful. That count is stored on our own systems, is not shared with anyone, uses no cookie, and forgets you when you close the tab.

Changing your mind: use the Cookie settings link in the footer of any page. Choosing "Essential only" stops the pixel loading from that moment on. Your choice is remembered in your own browser rather than in a cookie, and it is never sent to us or to anyone else. Browser settings and extensions such as uBlock Origin or Privacy Badger will block it as well, and we do not attempt to work around them. You may also email admin@studifytutors.com and we will confirm in writing what we hold.

Other third-party services embedded on our pages (the Yoco payment widget, Google Fonts, and the libraries our pages load) may set their own cookies in accordance with their respective privacy policies.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, services, or applicable laws. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

If we make changes that significantly affect how we use your personal information, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you by email or through a notice on our website.

12. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, want to exercise your rights under POPIA, or have concerns about how your personal information is being handled, please contact us:

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa: