1. Data we collect
- Account data: your name, email and password (stored hashed by our authentication provider), and your age band and — for under-18 learners — a one-way hash of a parent or guardian's email and the date consent was given (never the raw address).
- Subscription and payment data: your plan, billing period and payment status. Payments are handled by our providers (including Pesapal and mobile-money operators); we receive confirmation and a reference, not your full card or wallet number.
- Learning and usage analytics: labs opened, steps started, completed or skipped, hints, verification results, challenge scores, certificates, AI-coach usage, and device and session signals. Each event carries a session id and a pseudonymous device id, and your account id only when you are signed in. We redact secrets (passwords, keys, SNMP communities, PSKs) out of any command text before it is stored or sent to the coach.
- Technical data: device type, app version, operating system, language, timezone, approximate region and basic diagnostics (including crash reports).
- Account-security signals: to protect your account from takeover we recognise the devices you normally use. For this we keep a random id for each install, a hash of a few coarse device traits, and a canvas hash computed on your device; only that code is sent, and we store only a further keyed hash of it (HMAC), never the image. We also keep a keyed hash of your IP address (never the address itself), a coarse browser and system family, and a city-level location when our network provider supplies one. These signals are used only to spot unusual sign-ins and decide when to ask for your two-step code. They are never used for analytics, advertising or recommendations, and never joined to your learning data.
- Support data: messages and reports you send us.
- Chat data (only if you use chat): the messages, code snippets and files you share, who is in each conversation, what you have read, blocks and reports you make, and — only if you allow it — whether you are online and which track and lab you are studying. See section 11.
2. Analytics categories and your control
You choose what we collect, in a first-run consent sheet and later in Settings. Nothing beyond the essentials is collected until you choose:
- Essential (always on): keeping you signed in, processing payments, preventing abuse, recording crashes, and remembering your consent choice. This is necessary to provide the Service.
- Product analytics (opt-in): anonymous usage and funnels so we can see which labs and steps help and where learners get stuck, and improve the lessons.
- Learning personalisation (opt-in): using your progress to recommend the next lab and tailor what we suggest to you.
- AI-coach context (opt-in): sharing your current lab, step and secret-redacted console with the AI coach so its help is relevant. For coach questions we record only a mode and a length bucket, never the text.
You can change any category at any time, and withdraw consent, without losing access to essential features.
3. Why we use it (lawful bases)
To provide and secure the Service and your account (performance of a contract); to protect your account with the account-security signals above (our legitimate interest in preventing account takeover and fraud); to process payments and prevent fraud (contract, legitimate interests and legal obligation); and, where you have opted in, to measure and improve learning, personalise recommendations and power the AI coach (consent). Where a law in your country treats a basis differently, that law applies. You can withdraw consent at any time.
4. Recommendations and the right to object
When you enable learning personalisation we use your activity to recommend labs and next steps. These recommendations assist you and never make a decision that has a legal or similarly significant effect on you without human involvement. You may object to this processing at any time by turning off learning personalisation or contacting info@akilizakesho.com; we will then stop using your data for recommendations.
6. International transfers
We and our subprocessors may process data in other countries. Where we transfer personal data across borders — including out of Uganda or the EU/UK — we use appropriate safeguards (such as standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision) and meet the transfer conditions of the applicable law.
7. Retention
- Raw analytics events from an adult (18+) account: kept for up to 13 months, then deleted.
- Analytics events from an under-18 account, an account whose holder has not told us their age, or events recorded while signed out: kept for a maximum of 6 months. If we do not know your age, we treat you as under 18.
- Aggregated and de-identified statistics: kept indefinitely to understand and improve learning.
- Account-security signals: sign-in records are deleted after 180 days; recognised-device entries are deleted with your account.
- Account, subscription and payment records: kept while your account is active and as long as the law requires afterwards. When you delete your account, payment records are kept only in a pseudonymised form for as long as tax law requires.
- Account-deletion receipts: the status page for a completed deletion is removed after 90 days. We keep a permanent, non-personal record that a deletion happened.
We delete or anonymise personal data when it is no longer needed for the purpose it was collected.
8. Your rights
Depending on where you live — including under the Uganda Data Protection and Privacy Act 2019 and the EU/UK GDPR — you may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to processing, to data portability, and to withdraw consent. You can export your own analytics data in the app, delete your analytics data at any time in Settings, and delete your whole account from your Profile. Account deletion erases your profile, learning history, devices, sign-in records, consents and reports, replaces your chat messages with "[deleted]" and deletes your chat files, revokes and anonymises your certificates, destroys the encryption key that protects your personal details, and gives you a receipt; it normally completes within minutes. You can exercise the other rights, or complain to your data-protection authority, by contacting info@akilizakesho.com. We respond within the time the law requires.
9. Security
We use industry-standard measures: encryption in transit; your personal details encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM using a key unique to you, itself protected by a master key that never enters the database; row-level access controls that let you read only your own rows; secrets kept server-side; and optional two-step verification before sensitive actions such as payments, certificates, changing your details, or exporting or deleting your data. Your password is handled by our authentication provider and stored only as a salted hash; we never see it. No system is perfectly secure; we will notify you and the authorities of a breach as required by law.
10. Children and younger learners
Younger learners are welcome with a parent or guardian's consent. During sign-up an under-18 learner provides a parent or guardian email. A typed email is not consent: we send the parent or guardian a link (it works once and expires after 7 days) to a page that explains what they are agreeing to, and their consent is recorded only when they confirm there. The same email has a link they can use at any time to withdraw consent. We keep the address encrypted only until they answer, then only a secure hash of it and the date. For under-18 accounts, learning personalisation and AI-coach context are off by default, and analytics are kept for a shorter period. A parent or guardian may review, export or delete their child's data, or withdraw consent, by contacting info@akilizakesho.com. If we learn we collected a child's data without the required consent, we will delete it.
11. Chat, safeguarding and encryption
What chat stores.
Messages, code snippets and links you send; files you share (up to 10 MB); conversation membership, read positions, mutes, blocks and reports. Every message is encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM using a key unique to its conversation. Photos are re-encoded on your device before upload, which removes hidden location (EXIF/GPS) data. We never fetch or preview outside web links; you are warned before one opens.
Rules that protect younger learners.
Learners under 13 can use chat only after a parent or guardian has given consent. Adults cannot start a private chat with a learner under 18 (our own staff excepted, for support and safety); learners under 18 can start private chats only with learners in their own age group, and everyone can take part in moderated topic channels. Anyone can block, mute or report. Reports go to our trained moderators, who can hide or delete messages and suspend chat for an account.
End-to-end encryption (adults only).
Two adults can turn on end-to-end encryption for their private chat; the private key never leaves your device, so we cannot read those messages. Conversations that include anyone under 18 are never end-to-end encrypted, because keeping children safe requires our moderators to be able to review reported messages.
12. Learning insights and institutions
My Learning Insights.
On paid plans you can see a report of your own learning: time per skill, how your mastery is changing, strengths, gaps and suggested next labs. It is built only from your own activity that you allowed us to collect, it is shown only to you, and you can print or save it.
Institutions (schools, universities, employers).
When your institution pays for your seat, its authorised staff can see cohort insights: counts, completion rates, averages and weekly activity across the institution's learners. These are aggregates only. Any figure that would describe fewer than 10 learners is hidden, and only learners who opted in to product analytics or learning personalisation are counted. Institutions never see individual learners' activity, answers or scores.
Upgrade suggestions.
Occasionally the app may suggest a plan when it would genuinely help. We show at most one suggestion a day and you can turn them off for 30 days. Learners under 18 are never shown upgrade offers or prices.
13. Changes and contact
We will post updates here with a new date. Privacy questions or requests: info@akilizakesho.com. Akili Za Kesho Ventures Company Limited, Mukono District, Uganda.