This working draft describes intended data practices for a product in development. The website is pre-launch and the policy requires legal review before publication. It hasn't yet been reviewed by a South African attorney, and specific terms — especially retention periods — are still being finalised as part of our POPIA compliance work.
Last updated: August 2026
This draft sets out intended principles for personal information if and when the Gelezanathi platform is offered to schools. The public website does not currently provide platform accounts or collect learner assessment data. The research-interest form is hosted by Jotform and opens on a third-party website. If you submit it, the information you provide is processed by Jotform and Gelezanathi for the stated research purpose. Review Jotform’s privacy information before submitting. Do not submit learner names, assessment records or sensitive personal information through this research form. The website itself does not currently provide platform accounts or collect learner assessment data.
Your school owns its data. Gelezanathi processes learner and staff information on your school's behalf, to provide the assessment, analytics, and intervention features you've signed up for — not for our own separate purposes.
We collect this information to operate the platform itself: creating and marking assessments, generating performance analytics, drafting intervention plans for teacher review, and keeping accounts secure. We don't collect more than the platform needs to do that.
Where AI drafts something — a practice set, an explanation, a report summary — it works from assessment data already in the platform, and the output is always a draft for a teacher to review, edit, or discard. AI-generated content is not sent to a learner or parent automatically.
We retain a school's data for as long as the school's account with us is active. If a school's account is closed, we aim to delete or de-identify learner and staff data within a reasonable period afterward, except where we're required to keep it longer for legitimate administrative, financial, or legal reasons. We're finalising the specific retention schedule as part of our POPIA compliance work — ask us directly for our current position.
A school can request an export of its own data, or request deletion of specific records or an entire account, by contacting us. We'll confirm what's involved and a reasonable timeframe for either request.
Many Gelezanathi users are minors. We process learner information at the instruction of, and on behalf of, the school — the school remains responsible for obtaining any parental or guardian consent it needs under its own enrolment process. We don't use learner data for advertising, and we don't sell personal information to anyone.
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and access is restricted by role and by school. See our Security page for the full detail, including where we're honest about what's still being built.
We process personal information in line with South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). See our dedicated POPIA Compliance page for how this applies specifically, including data subject rights and how to contact our Information Officer.
Some of the infrastructure providers we rely on to run the platform may process data outside South Africa. Where that happens, we take reasonable steps to ensure a level of protection consistent with POPIA, and we're happy to discuss this in more detail with any school that asks.
We'll update the "last updated" date at the top of this page if this policy changes materially, and we'll aim to tell schools directly about any change that meaningfully affects how their data is handled.
Questions about this policy, or a request to access, export, or delete data, can be sent to privacy@gelezanathi.co.za.