Privacy and POPIA

What is collected

When a teacher checks in for the first time, Ulwazi records:

Name and surname.: The SACE attendance register has a column for it.
ID number.: The SACE attendance register has a column for it. See below.
SACE registration number.: It is how SACE allocates your points.
Contact number.: The register has a column for it, and it is how a provider reaches you about a session.
Email address, optional.: You do not have to give one.
Your school.: So the register shows where you teach.

Ulwazi also records the time you checked in, which session it was, and whether you scanned or the presenter added you by hand.

That is the whole list. Ulwazi does not collect your date of birth, your qualifications, your job title, your subjects, your employment status, or any demographic information, and it does not hold a photograph of you. SACE's own sign-up forms ask for more than this. Ulwazi does not, because it does not need it.

Why an ID number is needed

Ulwazi asks for it because SACE asks for it. The official Attendance Register for Type 3 Programmes has a column headed Identity Document Number, and a provider who files a register without it has not filed a complete one. Your points depend on that document.

Because it is collected for that one purpose, it is used for that one purpose. Your ID number appears in full on the SACE documents and nowhere else. It is encrypted where it is stored. It is not shown back to you on your phone, it is not on the register your school receives, and a member of the provider's staff sees only the masked form unless an administrator reveals it deliberately, which is logged with their name and the time.

If you check in and the presenter adds you by hand, the ID number is optional. You are never turned away from a session for not carrying a document.

Who sees what

The CPD provider who ran your session

Sees your name, SACE number, contact details, school, and your attendance and points with them. ID numbers are masked. An administrator can reveal one, and every reveal is logged.

Your school

Sees which of its teachers attended which sessions and how many points they earned. The school's register does not include ID numbers. That column is not in the school's template at all.

SACE

Receives the official register and activity profile form for a session, which carry the full details the Council requires, including ID numbers. This is the reason your attendance counts.

Ulwazi

Runs the platform on the provider's behalf. Ulwazi does not sell your data, does not share it with advertisers, and does not use it for anything except running the service the provider is paying for. Each provider's data is kept separate from every other provider's.

Where it is kept

In South Africa. Personal information does not leave the Republic, which means the cross-border transfer rules in POPIA do not come into it.

Connections are encrypted. ID numbers are encrypted again in the database itself. The generated SACE documents contain ID numbers, so they are held in private storage and reached only through links that expire.

How long it is kept

Seven years. Attendance records are compliance evidence, and a provider may be asked years later to show what it reported and when. The consent you agree to at check-in states the period, and the version you agreed to is stored with your record, so a later change to the wording applies only to people who register after it.

Your rights

Under POPIA you can ask to see the information held about you, to have it corrected, and to have it deleted. Ask the provider who ran your session. They can export everything Ulwazi holds about you, as a readable document, and they can delete it.

Deletion removes your personal details and leaves the attendance rows in place without a name attached. This is deliberate. A register that was filed with SACE is a legal record, and rewriting it afterwards would make it untrue. Documents already generated and sent are kept for the same reason.

If a provider does not deal with your request, you may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa.

Consent

Nobody is registered on Ulwazi without ticking a box that is empty when the page loads, next to a plain description of what is collected, why, who receives it, how long it is kept, and what you may ask for. Ulwazi stores the exact wording you saw, not just the fact that you agreed.

If you contacted us through this site

The enquiry form on this site is separate from everything above. It stores the name, organisation, email address and message you send, and we use them to answer you. We do not add you to a mailing list and we do not pass your details on. Ask us at support@ulwazi.app and we will delete them.

What Ulwazi knows about you, and why.