Privacy Policy

1. Who is responsible for your information?

Gert Toerien, trading as Future Kids Academy, is responsible for personal information processed through this service. The Information Officer is Gert Toerien.

2. Information the service handles

• Parent or guardian account: email address, password verifier (not the plain-text password), session records, and active Maths grades or Reading and Writing skill levels.
• Payment and membership records: payment reference, email, course or product, grade or reading level, billing period, amount, currency, payment status, subscription code and relevant dates.
• Learner activity: lesson questions, the selected grade or reading level and language, and the current lesson/task when a learner uses Maya or Lumi. The site’s database does not save the tutor conversation. Learning progress is stored in the browser on that device and may be lost if browser/site storage is cleared.
• Technical data: essential request/session data processed to provide, protect and troubleshoot the site.

3. Why we use it

We use account and transaction data to take payment, verify access, provide the selected membership, secure accounts, respond to support or refund requests, prevent misuse and meet legal or accounting obligations. Lesson questions are used to generate a lesson-related answer. We do not ask children for their full name, school, home address, phone number or other identifiers. Please do not include these details in a tutor message.

4. Children’s information and parent consent

A parent or legal guardian must create and manage access and give informed consent for a learner to use the tutor. A child’s lesson question is sent to our server and to the AI provider only to produce the requested explanation. The tutor is instructed not to ask for personal details. A guardian may ask us to stop processing information they identify as a child’s personal information, subject to legal obligations that require us to retain certain records.

South Africa’s POPIA has specific rules for children’s personal information. See the Information Regulator’s guidance on children’s information.

5. Service providers and sharing

• Paystack: processes checkout and payment. The parent email and transaction details are sent to Paystack; card information is handled in Paystack’s payment flow. See Paystack’s privacy policy.
• OpenAI API: receives lesson conversation messages to generate Maya’s or Lumi’s response. Requests are sent with response storage disabled. OpenAI states that API abuse-monitoring logs may be retained for up to 30 days by default, subject to exceptions. See OpenAI API data controls.
• Website hosting and database providers: process the site, account, membership and transaction records to operate the service.

These providers may process information outside South Africa. We will use appropriate safeguards required by applicable law. We may also disclose information when required by law or to protect the service, users or legal rights.

6. Cookies and local browser storage

The member area uses an essential secure session cookie to keep a signed-in parent account authenticated. The classroom stores learning progress in browser storage on the device. This site does not use that progress storage as a server-side learner profile. Clearing cookies or site data may sign you out or remove saved progress.

7. Security and retention

We use reasonable technical and organisational safeguards, including restricted member access and protected session handling. No online service can promise absolute security. We keep personal information only as long as needed for the purposes above, for active memberships and support, or to meet legal/accounting obligations. We then delete or de-identify it where reasonably possible.

8. Your choices and rights

Subject to applicable law, you may ask to access, correct or delete personal information, object to or restrict certain processing, or withdraw consent where consent is the basis. A parent or legal guardian may make a request for a child. We may need to verify identity and may retain information that the law requires us to keep. Contact details for privacy requests are listed below. You may also raise a complaint with the South African Information Regulator.

9. Operator and privacy contact

10. Changes

We may revise this policy as the service or legal requirements change. The current version and effective date will be shown on this page. Material changes will be brought to account holders’ attention where required.