EduFund Hub ("we", "us", "our") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use it, and the rights you have under South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). By using the Platform, you consent to the practices described here.
1. Information we collect
We collect the following categories of information:
- Account information: your name, email address, and password (stored securely and encrypted) when you register for an account.
- Content you provide: documents you upload to the AI Study Assistant, questions you ask it, comments you post, and bursaries or quizzes you choose to save.
- Usage and progress information: quiz attempts and scores (including per-subject and per-topic breakdown), AI feature usage (to enforce daily limits), and general interaction with the Platform.
- Payment information: if you subscribe to a paid plan, our payment gateway (PayFast) processes your card or banking details directly. We do not store your full card number or banking credentials — we only receive confirmation of payment and a subscription reference token from PayFast.
- Technical information: basic device and browser information, and a locally stored theme preference (light/dark mode) saved in your browser.
2. How we use your information
We use your information to:
- Create and manage your account, and authenticate your logins.
- Provide the features you use — saving bursaries and quizzes, tracking quiz progress and subject/topic strengths, computing your ranking among students, generating AI responses from your uploaded documents, and displaying your comments.
- Process and manage subscription payments and renewals via PayFast.
- Enforce fair usage limits on AI features.
- Maintain the security of the Platform, including detecting and preventing abuse.
- Send you important account or subscription communications (e.g. payment confirmations, price change notices) where necessary.
We do not sell your personal information to third parties.
3. Third-party service providers
We rely on trusted third-party providers to operate the Platform, who process personal information on our behalf:
- Supabase — hosts our database, authentication, and file storage (including uploaded documents).
- Google (Gemini API) — processes the content of documents you submit to the AI Study Assistant in order to generate answers and practice content. Uploaded content is sent to Google's API for this purpose and may involve processing on servers outside South Africa.
- PayFast — processes subscription payments for our Monthly Plan and Exam Season Package. PayFast handles your card/banking details directly under its own privacy and security practices. We recommend reviewing PayFast's own privacy policy for details on how they handle payment data.
- Google Analytics — used, with your consent, to understand how visitors use the Platform. See Section 4 (Cookies) for details.
- Google AdSense — used, with your consent, to display advertising on the Platform. See Section 4 (Cookies) for details.
Where personal information is transferred outside South Africa (for example, to process an AI request via Google), we take reasonable steps to ensure it is handled in a manner consistent with POPIA.
4. Cookies and similar technologies
We use minimal local browser storage to remember your theme preference (light or dark mode) — this is always active and does not require consent, as it is strictly necessary for the site to work the way you've set it up.
With your consent, given through the cookie banner shown when you first visit, we also use:
- Analytics cookies (Google Analytics): help us understand how visitors use the Platform — which pages are popular, how people navigate, and where they run into problems — so we can improve it. This data is processed by Google and may involve servers outside South Africa.
- Advertising cookies (Google AdSense): used to display ads on the Platform and, where consented to, to personalize which ads you see based on your browsing activity. Google independently applies additional protections for visitors it identifies as under 18 via their own Google Account, including disabling ad personalization for those users regardless of the consent choice made on our site.
You can accept or reject analytics and advertising cookies separately, and change your choice at any time via the "Cookie Preferences" option on the site. Your consent choice is stored for 12 months, after which we will ask again.
5. Data retention
We retain your personal information for as long as your account remains active, or as needed to provide the Platform's features. Quiz attempt history and progress data are retained to power your dashboard stats and ranking while your account is active. If you delete your account, we will delete or anonymise your personal information within a reasonable period, except where we are required to retain certain records by law (for example, financial transaction records related to subscription payments).
6. Your rights under POPIA
You have the right to:
- Request access to the personal information we hold about you.
- Request correction of inaccurate or outdated information.
- Request deletion of your personal information, subject to any legal retention requirements.
- Object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
- Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa if you believe your information has been mishandled.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us via our Contact page.
7. Security
We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information against loss, unauthorised access, or disclosure, including encrypted password storage and access controls on our database. However, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
8. Children's privacy
The Platform is intended for use by students, including those under 18, under the guidance of a parent or guardian where required. We do not knowingly collect more personal information from a minor than is necessary to provide the Platform's services. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal information beyond what is necessary, please contact us so we can address it.
9. Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. We will update the "Last updated" date above when we do. We encourage you to review this page periodically.
10. Contact us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal information, please reach out via our Contact page.