Privacy Policy | Bateleur Education Online Academy

We use personal information to administer tuition and educational support, communicate with guardians, protect learners and meet legal requirements. Marketing and non-essential tracking are handled separately.

Applies to: Prospective and enrolled learners, parents and guardians, website visitors, customers, applicants, employees and correspondents.

Document reference BE-PRIV-002 · Reviewed annually and whenever the law or our practice materially changes.

Who we are and how to contact us

Bateleur Education (Pty) Ltd (registration 2021/375105/07) is a South African online education services provider. Postal/visiting address: 3 Nahoon Street, Sherwood, Gqeberha, 6034, South Africa. Website: https://bateleureducation.co.za. General enquiries: support@bateleureducation.co.za; additional correspondence: info@bateleureducation.co.za; telephone: +27 71 136 1879.

Bateleur decides why and how personal information is processed for its own educational and business activities. This policy applies to its websites, applications, online teaching and learning services and related communication. It should be read with the POPIA Policy and Cookie Policy.

Information we collect

Identity and enrolment: learner and guardian names, dates of birth/age where relevant, contact details, authority to enrol, programme choices, previous academic information and documents genuinely necessary for enrolment.
Learning information: attendance, lesson participation, assignments, assessment submissions, feedback, progress reports, learning accommodations and recorded lesson content where applicable.
Technical and communications information: account and login details, audit logs, device/browser data, support tickets, online classroom communications and cookie preferences.
Financial information: payer identification, invoices, payment status, receipts and necessary payment-reference data. Card information handled directly by a payment processor, if used, is subject to that processor’s own notice.
Higher-risk information: limited health, disability, safeguarding or family information only when needed, proportionate, and lawfully permitted.

Purposes and legal justifications

We process personal information to review applications; deliver live, recorded or supported tuition; administer Moodle, EduCore and video lessons; provide accommodations; communicate progress to an authorised guardian; invoice and reconcile payments; manage incidents; protect students; comply with law; and resolve complaints.

Depending on the activity, processing may rest on consent, a contract, a legal duty or another justification permitted by POPIA section 11. Children’s data is additionally assessed under section 35 and special personal information under the applicable statutory exceptions. Consent for marketing or publicity is separate from consent or other authority necessary to deliver tuition.

Children's privacy and guardian authority

For a learner under 18, we seek the legally required consent of a competent person or identify an alternative lawful exception before processing the child’s personal information. We may reasonably confirm an adult’s parental rights or legal authority. We do not knowingly use minors’ personal information for behavioural advertising.

Learners can raise privacy concerns directly. Guardians receive education-related information only to the extent lawfully authorised, taking account of court orders, child safety, confidentiality and evolving legal capacity. Emergency or statutory safeguarding disclosures may be made without prior notification where law permits or requires this.

Online lessons, recordings and artificial intelligence

Live lessons may use a video-conferencing service, and certain tuition packages may include replay recordings. We inform participants when recording occurs, limit access to authorised learners/staff and require participants not to re-record, download or publish the material without permission. A participant with a specific privacy concern may request an appropriate alternative where reasonably feasible.

Some programmes may use AI-assisted educational tools. AI output can be inaccurate. Educational decisions with material consequences are subject to human oversight. Identifiable child information or sensitive submissions must not be sent to third-party AI products unless a specific lawful purpose, suitable safeguards and required notices/permissions are in place. We do not sell learner data or license private submissions for unrelated model training.

Sharing and operators

Information is shared only on a lawful, need-to-know basis with authorised educators, administrative staff, hosting and learning-platform providers, video conferencing, communication and billing processors, professional advisers, regulators, police or child-protection authorities, as applicable. External exam centres receive information only as necessary and lawfully authorised for the learner’s separate exam registration.

Vendors acting as operators are contractually required to protect information and act on authorised instructions. A provider outside South Africa may process data only when the conditions of POPIA section 72 are met. Specific supplier identities and transfer details may change; information about a relevant recipient is available on request, subject to lawful limits.

Cookies, direct marketing and public material

Our website uses essential cookies and may offer preference, statistics or marketing categories. Optional processing is governed by the Cookie Policy and the choices presented in the consent tool. A browser may be configured to remove or block cookies, but essential functionality may be affected.

We send direct marketing only where POPIA and other applicable law permit, honour opt-outs and do not make marketing a condition of necessary tuition services. Publishing a learner’s identifiable photograph, testimonial, grades or performance story requires a distinct lawful basis and appropriate permission, with additional protection for minors.

Security, storage and retention

We implement reasonable technical and organisational measures appropriate to risk, including access restrictions, secure connections, confidentiality requirements and backup controls. No electronic system can be guaranteed entirely secure. We keep records only as long as required for the stated purpose or lawful retention duties, and review recording retention separately.

If an information security compromise triggers legal notice duties, we notify the Regulator and affected people under POPIA section 22.

Your privacy rights

You may ask whether we hold your information and seek access through lawful POPIA/PAIA procedures, request correction or deletion where appropriate, object where legally available, or withdraw consent without retrospectively invalidating earlier lawful processing. Contact support@bateleureducation.co.za with "Privacy request" in the subject. We may verify identity and may refuse or defer a request only for lawful reasons.

You may complain to the Information Regulator through its complaints channels, including POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za. The right to use a statutory remedy is not limited by this policy.

Updates

We review this policy when processing practices or the law materially change. A revised version will be dated, made accessible and, where required, notified before materially different processing begins. Changes do not authorise incompatible past processing or override statutory rights.

Legal and operational references

Records from a learner's previous institution

When a parent asks us to receive a learner's records, the parent makes a private link in the portal and shares it with the learner's current or previous institution. That institution may send us reports and academic history and, if it chooses to, notes about conduct, attendance, fees, and learning support or health needs.

Why: to place the learner at the right level, support their learning and keep them safe.
Who sees it: our admissions staff and the parent who made the request. Notes about learning support or health are seen by the admissions office only.
How it is kept: in private storage that is not part of the public website, behind the same access controls as the rest of the portal.
How long: if the learner joins us, the records become part of the learner's file and are kept for as long as that file is kept. If the learner does not join, or the application is declined or withdrawn, we delete them 12 months after the decision. A parent can cancel the link at any time, which deletes anything already sent.
Consent: the parent confirms that they are the learner's parent or guardian and agrees to the request when they create the link. The sending institution confirms that it is authorised to share the records.

Records sent to a learner's new institution

When a learner moves to another institution, the parent can ask us to send their records. Only with the parent's agreement, we give the new institution a private link from which it can download a transfer letter, an attendance summary, the learner's published grade cards and any other documents we choose to add.

Who decides: the parent asks, and our office approves. Nothing is sent without the parent's agreement.
How it is shared: through a private link that is valid for 30 days. The new institution needs no account. Each download is counted.
What we keep: a record that the transfer happened, the date, and who it went to. The learner's file is kept as set out above.