1. Who we are and how to contact us
Tutor Studio (“Tutor Studio”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) is a South African sole-proprietor software service. For this pre-launch version, “Tutor Studio” is the temporary published business name.
Privacy and support contact: kaelscanes2@gmail.com
Information Officer contact: kaelscanes2@gmail.com
For personal information that Tutor Studio processes about its own account holders, support contacts, website visitors, and prospective customers, Tutor Studio is generally the responsible party under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (“POPIA”). For the student, guardian, lesson, and similar information a tutor enters into a workspace, the tutor is generally the responsible party and Tutor Studio acts as an operator on that tutor’s documented instructions.
2. Scope of this notice
This notice applies to the Tutor Studio website, hosted application, support communications, and related services. It explains information practices for:
- visitors to our website and prospective customers;
- tutors and other account holders who use Tutor Studio;
- student, guardian, and other contact information entered by tutors into a Tutor Studio workspace; and
- people who connect a Google Calendar or a Gmail sending account for their own Tutor Studio workspace, or interact with Polar-hosted billing pages.
This notice does not replace a tutor’s own privacy notice to students, parents, guardians, or other contacts. Each tutor is responsible for their own teaching relationship, notices, permissions, and legal obligations.
3. Information we process
| Category | Examples | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Account and business information | Name, business name, email address, password record, phone number, address, branding, logo, preferences, and account activity. | Provided by the tutor or account holder. |
| Workspace content | Student and guardian contact details, lesson schedules and status, homework, notes, teaching goals, invoices, payment instructions, bank details entered by the tutor, resource links, and email history. | Entered, imported, or edited by the tutor. |
| Billing and subscription information | Subscription status, trial/renewal dates, Polar customer and subscription identifiers, invoices/receipts available through Polar, and billing event records. | Polar and the account holder. Tutor Studio does not receive or store full payment-card numbers. |
| Google Calendar information | Selected calendar identifier/name, Tutor Studio-linked lesson event details, and OAuth access/refresh tokens needed to maintain the approved connection. | Google and the tutor after the tutor completes Google’s consent flow. |
| Gmail sending information (if enabled) | The Gmail address connected by that workspace, OAuth access/refresh tokens, send status, and the recipient, subject, message, and attachment data submitted for a Tutor Studio email. Tutor Studio does not request or receive mailbox-reading, search, modify, or deletion access. | Google and the tutor after the tutor completes Google’s consent flow for their workspace. |
| Technical and security information | Session identifiers, IP-related security/rate-limit data, request metadata, device/browser information supplied in ordinary web requests, error records, and audit/log information. | Generated when you use the website or app. |
| Support communications | Messages, questions, attachments, and correspondence sent to our support email. | Provided by the sender. |
Please do not enter special personal information—such as health information, biometric data, religious beliefs, or similarly sensitive data—unless you have a valid legal basis, necessary safeguards, and have confirmed that Tutor Studio is suitable for that use.
4. Why we use personal information
We use information only as reasonably necessary to:
- create and secure tutor workspaces, authenticate users, and provide the requested features;
- store and display tutoring records at the account holder’s direction;
- generate invoices, send requested operational communications through a tutor’s connected Gmail API account or a tutor-configured non-Gmail SMTP provider, and maintain service records;
- create Polar Checkout or Customer Portal sessions, confirm subscription entitlement, prevent fraud, and administer billing;
- connect, maintain, and synchronise only the Google Calendar data a tutor has authorised, and, if enabled, use a tutor’s connected Gmail account only to send messages requested by that tutor’s Tutor Studio workspace;
- respond to support requests, investigate misuse, protect security, maintain backups, and improve reliability;
- comply with legal obligations, enforce our Terms of Service, and establish, exercise, or defend legal claims; and
- send service-related notices. We do not send electronic direct marketing unless permitted by applicable law and you have the required choice or consent.
Depending on the context, our justification under POPIA and other applicable law may include performance of a contract, legitimate interests balanced against your rights, compliance with a legal obligation, consent, or another lawful ground. Tutors must determine and document their own lawful basis for personal information they enter about students, guardians, and contacts.
5. Sharing and service providers
We do not sell personal information. We share information only when necessary to provide the service, at a tutor’s direction, with consent, or where required or permitted by law.
Depending on the configuration in use, recipients may include:
- Vercel, which may host the website and application functions;
- Neon or another managed PostgreSQL provider, which may store encrypted workspace data and account records;
- Polar, which provides hosted checkout, subscriptions, receipts, customer portal functions, and billing-related status information;
- Google, when a tutor chooses to connect Google Calendar or authorizes the separate Gmail API sending connection for that tutor’s workspace; and
- the tutor’s selected non-Gmail email/SMTP provider, when the tutor elects to send a message through that provider; and
- professional advisers, regulators, law enforcement, courts, insurers, or transaction counterparties where lawfully required or reasonably necessary.
These providers may process information in countries outside South Africa. We will take reasonable steps to use appropriate contractual, technical, and organisational safeguards for transfers, but tutors remain responsible for assessing their own cross-border obligations for the personal information they control.
6. Google Calendar and Gmail connections
Google Calendar is optional. When a tutor clicks Connect to Google Calendar, Google—not Tutor Studio—asks the tutor to sign in and approve the requested permissions. Tutor Studio requests permission to view/edit calendar events so it can create and synchronise Tutor Studio-linked lessons, and permission to view the tutor’s calendar list so the tutor can choose a calendar. The service is designed to synchronise only Tutor Studio-linked events; it is not intended to import unrelated personal events as lessons.
Optional Gmail sending is separate. Each Tutor Studio workspace may connect one Gmail account it controls through Connect Gmail sending. Google—not Tutor Studio—handles sign-in and consent. Tutor Studio requests the Gmail gmail.send permission and basic email identity only to associate the selected address with that workspace. It uses that connection to send requested Tutor Studio messages and attachments; it does not request Gmail mailbox reading, search, modify, deletion, or full-mailbox access. To reduce accidental cross-workspace sharing, the same Gmail address may be connected to only one Tutor Studio workspace at a time.
Tutor Studio never asks for a Google or Gmail password, including an app password. A tutor can disconnect Calendar or Gmail sending in Settings. Disconnecting removes Tutor Studio’s stored connection tokens. Existing Calendar events remain in Google Calendar unless the tutor separately changes or removes them; a Google account holder can also revoke either grant from their Google Account.
7. Retention, exports, and deletion
We retain information for as long as reasonably needed to provide the service, meet legal/accounting/security requirements, resolve disputes, and enforce agreements. Retention needs differ by category:
- account and workspace content are generally retained while the account is active;
- billing and transaction-related records may be retained as required by applicable tax, accounting, fraud-prevention, or legal obligations;
- security logs and support records are retained for a limited period appropriate to their purpose; and
- de-identified or aggregated information may be retained where permitted by law.
Within the app, a tutor may clear or reset certain workspace content. For a full account or data-deletion request, email kaelscanes2@gmail.com. We may need to verify authority, coordinate with the tutor who controls the workspace, and retain limited information where law permits or requires.
8. Security
We use reasonable technical and organisational measures appropriate to the nature of the information, including HTTPS in hosted deployments, access controls, password hashing, session protections, encryption for specified integration credentials/tokens stored in the database, and limited access to service secrets. No online service can promise absolute security. Please use a strong unique password, protect your device, and notify us promptly if you believe your account has been compromised.
If we reasonably believe that personal information under our control has been accessed or acquired by an unauthorised person, we will take steps required by applicable law, including notifications where required. Tutors remain responsible for their own notification obligations for data in their workspaces where they are the responsible party.
9. Your privacy rights
Subject to applicable law and verification of your identity/authority, you may request access to, correction of, deletion of, or objection to certain processing of personal information that Tutor Studio controls. You may also withdraw consent where processing depends on consent; withdrawal does not affect processing already lawfully carried out.
If you are a student, guardian, or other contact whose information was entered by a tutor, please contact that tutor first. The tutor generally controls that workspace data and is best placed to verify and action the request. We will assist the tutor as appropriate and as required by law.
10. Children and student information
Tutor Studio is a business tool for tutors, not a service directed to children. Children should not independently create Tutor Studio accounts. Tutors who enter information about a child must ensure they have a valid legal basis and, where required, the prior consent of a competent person such as a parent or guardian. Tutors must provide appropriate notices, minimise what they collect, protect confidentiality, and honour valid access/correction/deletion requests.
POPIA places specific restrictions on processing children’s personal information. The Information Regulator’s guidance and the circumstances of each tutoring business matter. We do not represent that a tutor’s use of Tutor Studio alone satisfies the tutor’s legal obligations.
11. Cookies and similar technology
Tutor Studio uses essential session cookies to keep an authenticated tutor signed in and protect the service. These cookies are not intended for behavioural advertising. Blocking essential cookies can prevent sign-in and core functions from working. If we add optional analytics or marketing technologies in the future, we will update this notice and provide any required notice, choice, or consent.
12. Changes to this notice
We may update this notice when our service, providers, or legal obligations change. We will post the updated version here and revise the “Last updated” date. For material changes, we may also provide additional notice through the app or by email where appropriate.
13. Contact and complaints
For privacy questions, requests, or complaints, contact Tutor Studio at kaelscanes2@gmail.com. Please include enough information for us to understand the workspace and request, but do not send passwords, payment-card details, or unnecessary sensitive information by email.
You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the South African Information Regulator. Current contact information is available at inforegulator.org.za.
You may print or save this Privacy Notice for your records.