Privacy policy

This policy explains what personal information TeacherStudio (Pty) Ltd (“TeacherStudio”, “we”) collects when you use the TeacherStudio app, why we collect it, and your rights under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA).

Who is responsible

TeacherStudio (Pty) Ltd is the responsible party. Our Information Officer can be reached at roehan13@gmail.com for any privacy question or request.

What we collect

• Account details: your email address and password (stored securely by our sign-in provider; we never see your password).
• Profile: your name, how the app greets you, school, province, grades, subjects, language and display settings.
• Your planning: timetable, lesson topics and notes, reminders, tasks, deadlines and assessment dates.
• What you create: lesson plans, worksheets, tests and other documents, and your messages to the assistant.
• Files you upload: PDFs, Word documents and photos you add to your Library, and the text read from them. Only you can open them.
• Usage information: when you use AI features and how much, so we can apply fair-use limits and keep costs under control.
• Quote requests from schools: if you ask for a school quote on our website, the school’s name, your name, role, email, phone number (if given), number of teachers, province and message. We use these only to reply to you and prepare a quote.

Please don’t enter learners’ names or other personal details about learners or parents. TeacherStudio isn’t designed to store learner information, and you don’t need it to use any feature.

Why we use it

• To run the app: sign you in, show your planner, and create and save the material you ask for.
• To tailor content to your grades, subjects, language and the CAPS curriculum.
• To keep the service safe, fix problems, and understand which features are used so we can improve them.
• To contact you about your account or important changes. We don’t send marketing without your permission.

We don’t sell your personal information and we don’t use it for advertising.

Who we share it with

We use trusted service providers to run TeacherStudio. They process information only on our instructions:

• Supabase stores your account and app data (servers in the European Union).
• Vercel hosts the app.
• Anthropic provides the AI that writes content and powers the assistant. What you type into Create or the assistant, together with the relevant planning details, is sent to Anthropic to produce a response. Under Anthropic’s commercial terms this information is not used to train AI models and is deleted from their systems within about 30 days (longer only if it is flagged for a safety review).

Some of these providers process information outside South Africa (in the European Union and the United States). We use them because they are bound by agreements and laws that give protection comparable to POPIA.

If you create a share link for a document, anyone with that link can see that document and your display name and school. You can stop sharing at any time.

If you join a school on TeacherStudio, the school’s admin can see your name, email address, whether you used the app this week, and how many documents you made (with the time saved). The school cannot see your planning, notes, documents or conversations with the assistant. If you leave the school, it no longer sees anything about you.

If you add your timetable from a photo or PDF, the picture is sent to our AI provider only to read the timetable. We don’t save the picture, and we keep only your own lessons from it. Please use a timetable that shows your lessons only, not other staff members’.

If you upload a file, it is stored privately with your account. When you choose it as material for something new, its text is sent to our AI provider with your request. Photos and scanned PDFs are sent to the AI provider to read the text. Delete a file in the Library to remove it. Please don’t upload documents with learners’ names or marks.

If you turn on phone reminders, we store an address for that device, issued by your browser’s notification service (for example Google or Apple), so that reminders can be delivered to it. The reminder’s title passes through that service. You can turn reminders off on any device in Settings.

If you use the microphone button to speak to the assistant, your phone or browser (for example Google or Apple) turns your speech into text under its own privacy terms. TeacherStudio only receives the text.

How long we keep it

We keep your information while your account is active. If you delete your account (Settings → Delete my account), your profile, planning, documents, uploaded files and usage records are deleted permanently. Backups, where they exist, are overwritten within 30 days. Quote requests are kept while we’re in contact with the school and deleted within 12 months if it doesn’t become a TeacherStudio school, or sooner if you ask.

Your rights

• See the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it (most of it you can change yourself in Settings).
• Ask us to delete it, or delete your account yourself in Settings.
• Object to how we use it, or withdraw your consent, by deleting your account or contacting us.
• Complain to the Information Regulator if you are unhappy with how we handle your information: inforegulator.org.za/complaints.

Security

Your data is sent over encrypted connections and each teacher can only access her own information. No system is completely secure; if a breach affects your information we will tell you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.

Beta

TeacherStudio is currently in a free beta. Features may change and occasional problems are possible, so keep your own copy of anything important (use Download in the Library).

Changes

If we change this policy in an important way, we will ask you to accept the new version in the app.