Privacy Policy

Last updated: 29 June 2026

⚠️ Placeholders to complete: items shown in green must be filled in with your real legal details before publishing, and this policy should be reviewed by a qualified South African attorney — especially because Vula processes the personal information of children and shares information with third-party institutions.

This Privacy Policy explains how [Registered company / trading name] ("Vula", "we", "us", "our"), the Responsible Party, collects, uses, shares and protects your personal information when you use the Vula career-guidance service on WhatsApp and this website. We are committed to protecting your privacy in line with the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA).

1. Who we are

Responsible Party: [Registered company name and registration number]
Information Officer: [Name]
Contact email: privacy@vulacareers.co.za
Address: [Physical address]

2. The information we collect

When you use Vula on WhatsApp, we collect the information you choose to share with us, namely:

Information	Why we collect it
Your WhatsApp phone number	To deliver the assessment and your results, and to identify your session
First name	To personalise your experience
School name	To understand and improve reach, and for relevant matching
Age	To tailor guidance and to determine whether parental/guardian consent is required
Suburb / area	To suggest relevant institutions and opportunities near you
Grade	To tailor subject and timing advice
Assessment answers & results	To generate your career profile and recommendations

We do not ask for ID numbers, financial information, or passwords. Please do not send us this information.

3. How we collect it

We collect information directly from you through your WhatsApp conversation with Vula. WhatsApp messaging is provided through our messaging partner (Twilio). We do not buy your personal information from third parties.

4. Why we process your information (purpose)

To provide the career assessment and generate your personalised results;
To recommend careers, school subjects and qualification pathways;
To connect you, with your consent, to colleges, universities, training providers and bursary/funding opportunities that may suit your profile;
To improve and maintain the service; and
To comply with our legal obligations.

5. Our lawful basis & your consent

We process your personal information on the basis of your consent, which you give by choosing to start and continue the assessment, and to perform the service you have asked for. You may withdraw consent at any time (see section 10). Withdrawing consent will stop further processing but does not affect processing already carried out lawfully.

6. Children's personal information (very important)

Vula is designed for high-school learners, many of whom are under 18. Under POPIA, the personal information of a child may only be processed with the consent of a competent person (a parent or legal guardian).

If you are under 18, you confirm that your parent or guardian has given permission for you to use Vula and to share your information as described here.
A parent/guardian may contact us at privacy@vulacareers.co.za to review, correct or delete a child's information, or to withdraw consent.
We will stop processing and delete a child's information on request from a competent person, unless we are legally required to keep it.

7. Who we share your information with

We may share your information with:

Educational institutions and bursary/funding providers — only where you (or your parent/guardian) have consented, so that they can contact you about relevant study and funding opportunities. This is part of how Vula stays free. You can opt out at any time.
Service providers (Operators) who help us run the service under contract, including: Twilio (WhatsApp messaging), Supabase (secure database), Vercel (website & application hosting) and Anthropic (AI processing of assessment text). These providers process information on our behalf and are bound to keep it secure.
Authorities where required by law.

We do not sell your information for advertising, and we do not share it with anyone else without a lawful basis.

8. Cross-border transfer

Some of our service providers store or process information on servers outside South Africa (for example in the European Union or United States). Where this happens, we take reasonable steps to ensure your information is protected by a comparable level of protection, in line with section 72 of POPIA (for example through the provider's contractual data-protection commitments).

9. How long we keep it & security

We keep your information only for as long as needed for the purposes above, or as required by law, after which it is deleted or anonymised. [State your retention period, e.g. "up to 24 months after your last activity."]

We protect your information with reasonable technical and organisational measures, including access controls and encrypted connections. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to keep your information safe and will notify you and the Information Regulator if a breach affects your information as required by law.

10. Your rights (POPIA)

You have the right to:

Access the personal information we hold about you;
Ask us to correct or delete it;
Object to processing, and withdraw consent;
Not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing that significantly affects you; and
Complain to the Information Regulator.

To exercise any right, contact our Information Officer at privacy@vulacareers.co.za. On WhatsApp you can reply STOP to end messages, or DELETE to ask us to remove your information.

11. The Information Regulator

You may lodge a complaint with:

Information Regulator (South Africa)
JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2001
Email: enquiries@inforegulator.org.za / POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
Website: inforegulator.org.za

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will always be available here, with the "Last updated" date shown above.