Privacy Policy

Maita is made by Visyn Technologies (Pvt) Ltd, a company registered in Zimbabwe and based in Harare (“Maita”, “we”, “us”). This policy explains how we handle personal information when you use any part of Maita:

• the Maita app for learners and teachers, and the Maita Lite app for parents;
• the school portal used by school staff, and Maita Smart-Schools for groups of schools;
• Maita’s WhatsApp and SMS messages, the Maita Smart Dashboard, ID and gate cards;
• this website, maita.africa, and our help pages.

We follow the Cyber and Data Protection Act [Chapter 12:07] and its regulations, including the Cyber and Data Protection (Licensing of Data Controllers and Appointment of Data Protection Officers) Regulations, 2024 (SI 155 of 2024).

For school records, the school is in charge. When a school uses Maita, the school decides what information about its learners, parents and staff is recorded, and why. In law the school is the data controller for those records, and Maita processes them on the school’s behalf and according to its instructions. The school is responsible for having a lawful reason to hold that information and, where required, for getting consent from parents or guardians.

For your own Maita account, we are in charge. When you create an account yourself in the Maita app, buy a plan, contact us or visit this website, Maita is the data controller for that information.

If you have a question about a school record, the quickest answer usually comes from the school itself.

Information about you and your account

• Name, email address, phone number, username and password (passwords are stored in a scrambled form we cannot read).
• Your role (learner, parent, teacher, school staff), your school, class, level or subjects.
• A profile photo, if you add one. If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address and profile photo from Google, but never your Google password.

School records (added by the school)

• Learner details such as name, student number, class, date of birth, gender and guardian contacts.
• Marks, results, report cards, comments and class positions.
• Attendance, including times recorded when a card is tapped at the gate or in class.
• Fees: invoices, payments, receipts and balances.
• Boarding, discipline and welfare notes the school chooses to record.
• Photographs for ID cards, and the number of each ID or gate card.
• Staff details needed to run the school, such as role, subjects and contact details.

What you create and send

• Messages you send to Maita’s AI helper, and what it replies.
• Lessons, notes, quizzes, homework and files that teachers and learners upload.
• Messages sent through the school to parents by WhatsApp, SMS or in-app notice.
• Reports of problems or inappropriate content, and messages you send to us.

Information collected automatically

• The device, operating system and app version you use, and your IP address.
• Which features are used and when, error reports and security logs, including a record of changes made to school records.
• App analytics that tell us how the apps are used, so we can improve them.

What we do not collect

• We do not use fingerprints or face recognition. ID photos are printed on cards; they are not used to identify anyone automatically.
• Our apps do not track your location. We record where each school is, not where people are.
• We do not store full bank card numbers or mobile-money PINs. Payments are handled by our payment provider, Paynow.

We use personal information only to:

• run Maita for schools: results, report cards, attendance, fees, messages, ID cards and the other features a school uses;
• give parents and learners access to their own or their child’s records, when the school has released them;
• provide the AI helper, and keep AI use within each plan’s limits;
• manage accounts, plans and payments;
• keep Maita secure, prevent misuse and investigate problems;
• send service messages, such as notices, results alerts and allowance warnings;
• understand how Maita is used so we can improve it, using combined or de-identified figures wherever we can;
• meet our legal obligations.

We rely on these lawful grounds: the contract with you or your school; consent, including a parent’s or guardian’s consent for a child; our legal obligations; and our legitimate interest in keeping Maita safe and working, where that does not override your rights.

We do not use personal information for advertising, and we do not sell it or rent it to anyone.

Most learners on Maita are children. Their information deserves extra care, and it gets it:

• Through a school: the school registers learners and is responsible for getting consent from parents or guardians where the law requires it.
• On their own account: a child under 18 should only create a Maita account with the permission of a parent or guardian.
• We never use children’s information for marketing or advertising, and there are no adverts in our apps.
• A parent or guardian can ask to see, correct or delete their child’s information (see “Your rights”).
• AI-written report comments are built only from marks the school entered, are written to encourage, and are checked by the school. No decision about a child is made by AI alone.

If you believe a child’s information was added without the right permission, contact us and we will act on it.

Maita’s AI features (the study helper, quizzes, lesson plans and report comments) use Google’s Gemini AI service. When you use them, the text you send, and for report comments the relevant marks, is passed from our servers to Google to produce an answer.

• We send only what the feature needs. Please do not put personal details you do not want shared into the AI helper.
• We use Google’s service under terms that do not allow Google to use this content to train its AI models.
• Our usage records note which AI feature was used and how much, but not the content of what you asked.
• AI answers can be wrong. Teachers should check AI-made material before using it with a class.

• Within the school: staff see what their role allows. Parents see only their own children’s records.
• School groups: if a school belongs to a group (for example a trust or church), the group’s administrators can see reports about the group’s own schools.
• Service providers who help us run Maita, under contracts that limit what they may do with it:
  • Google (hosting, file storage, sign-in, app analytics and AI);
  • Meta (WhatsApp messages);
  • our SMS provider (text messages);
  • Paynow (plan payments).
• The law: authorities, when the law requires it or to protect someone’s safety.
• A change of ownership: if Maita is sold or merged, information may pass to the new owner, who must keep protecting it as this policy says.

We never sell personal information.

Some of our providers, including Google and Meta, store and process information on servers outside Zimbabwe. We only transfer personal information outside Zimbabwe where the law allows it, and we choose providers that give it a level of protection at least as good as Zimbabwean law requires, backed by their contracts and security commitments.

• Information travels over encrypted connections.
• Each person sees only what their role allows, and changes to school records are logged.
• Uploaded files are kept in private storage and shown through links that expire after a few minutes.
• We keep backups, and limit who on our team can reach live data.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach puts personal information at risk, we will notify the Data Protection Authority within 24 hours of becoming aware of it and, where there is a high risk to you, let the people affected know within 72 hours, as the regulations require. Where the information belongs to a school, we will also tell the school straight away.

• School records: for as long as the school uses Maita. When a school leaves, we give it a copy on request and then delete or anonymise its records, unless the law requires us to keep them.
• Your own account: while it is active. After you ask us to delete it, we delete it within 30 days.
• AI usage records: up to 180 days.
• App analytics: up to 14 months.
• Security logs and reports of misuse: as long as needed to keep Maita safe and meet legal duties.

Under the Cyber and Data Protection Act you have the right to:

• be told how your information is collected and used (this policy);
• see the information held about you;
• have wrong or misleading information corrected, and information that should not be held deleted;
• object to how your information is used, and withdraw consent you have given;
• not be subject to a decision based only on automated processing without your consent, unless the law allows it;
• complain to the Data Protection Authority, the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ).

A parent or guardian can use these rights for their child. For school records, please ask your school first, since the school controls them; we will help the school respond. For anything else, email [email protected]. We may ask you to confirm who you are before we act, and we will reply as quickly as we can.

Our apps keep some information on your phone so they work quickly and, in places, offline: your sign-in, settings, cached lessons and study progress. This website does not use advertising or tracking cookies. It remembers a few small preferences in your browser, such as whether you have already seen the opening animation.

Plans are paid through Paynow’s secure payment page. We receive confirmation of the payment and the plan bought, but we do not see or store full card numbers or mobile-money PINs. Schools on an institutional plan are billed directly.

We will update this policy when Maita or the law changes. If a change matters, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect. The date at the top shows when it last changed.

Questions, requests or complaints about privacy go to our Data Protection Officer at [email protected], or by phone on +263 77 426 6860.

Visyn Technologies (Pvt) Ltd (Maita), Harare, Zimbabwe.