Privacy Notice

This notice explains what personal information TutorMe collects, why, who it is shared with and the rights you have under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA). During the current pilot TutorMe only onboards and verifies tutors; lessons, bookings and payments are not yet available.

1. Who is responsible for your information

[To be completed: registered legal name and entity type] (“TutorMe”), registration number [To be completed: CIPC registration number], [To be completed: physical address]. Information Officer: [To be completed: Information Officer name and contact details]. Contact: [To be completed: support email address].

2. What we collect

• Account details: your name, email address, password (stored only as a hash by our authentication provider) and the type of account you chose.
• Tutor profile: display name, photo, headline, biography, city and province, subjects, grades, languages, qualifications, experience, services and prices.
• Verification evidence from tutors: a profile photo, an identity document and a qualification or certificate, and optionally a police clearance or proof of address. Identity documents contain your ID number. A police clearance is information about criminal behaviour, which POPIA treats as special personal information.
• Records of your acceptance of these documents (which version, when, and the browser used).
• Technical information needed to run the service securely, such as sign-in times and error logs.

3. Why we use it

• To create and secure your account.
• To publish tutor profiles that tutors choose to publish, and show them in search.
• To review tutor verification evidence so that “TutorMe Verified” means TutorMe has checked the required documents.
• To send you messages about your account and verification.
• To meet legal obligations and to protect learners, tutors and TutorMe.

We rely on your consent, on the need to perform our agreement with you, and on TutorMe’s legitimate interest in running a safe service. [Legal review: confirm the lawful basis for each category, in particular special personal information.]

4. Who can see it

• Anyone can see a published tutor’s public profile and profile photo. Verification documents are never public.
• Only the tutor and authorised TutorMe administrators (who must use two-step sign-in) can open verification documents, through links that expire after five minutes.
• Service providers who process information for us: Supabase (database, sign-in and file storage, hosted in London, United Kingdom), Cloudflare (website hosting, global network) and our email provider. [To be completed: email provider and its location.]

Some of these providers store or process information outside South Africa. [Legal review: confirm the basis for these transfers under section 72 of POPIA.]

5. How long we keep it

We keep your information while your account is active. [Legal review: retention periods for verification documents, consent records and closed accounts are still to be set.]

6. Children

TutorMe does not yet offer lessons. Learners under 18 should not create their own account: parent-managed learner accounts and parental consent will be introduced before bookings open. If you believe a child has registered, contact us and we will delete the account.

7. Your rights

• Ask what information we hold about you and get a copy.
• Ask us to correct or delete it, or object to how we use it.
• Withdraw consent where we rely on consent.
• Complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) at inforegulator.org.za if you are not satisfied with our response.

Send requests to [To be completed: support email address]. We will confirm your identity before acting.

8. Security

Files are stored privately, access is restricted by role and checked by the database, and administrator access requires two-step sign-in. If a security compromise affects your information, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.