Privacy Policy

"The platform" means the OS FOR SCHOOLS website, applications, and services. "A school" means an institution that has created an account. "You" means anyone whose information a school has entered into the platform on its behalf — including school owners, administrators, teachers, other employees, students, and parents or guardians.

Most of the information the platform holds about a student or parent is entered by the school itself, not directly by that person. A school that enrolls a student is responsible for having a lawful basis to share that student's information with us, in the same way it would be responsible for any other school record-keeping system.

Depending on how a school configures and uses the platform, this can include:

• Account information: name, email address, phone number, and password (stored as a salted hash, never in plain text).
• School records a school chooses to keep on the platform: student enrolment and academic records, attendance, admissions, staff employment and payroll records, and financial records such as invoices and payments.
• Communications: messages sent through the platform's messaging and notification features.
• Technical information: device and browser type, IP address, and basic usage logs, collected automatically to keep the service secure and working correctly.

We use this information to:

• Provide the features a school has set up — academics, attendance, finance, communication, and the school's public website.
• Authenticate users and keep each person's access limited to what their role at their school allows.
• Send account, security, and school-initiated notifications (for example, an attendance alert a school configures to reach a parent).
• Maintain and improve the reliability and security of the platform.
• Meet legal, safeguarding, or regulatory obligations that apply to school record-keeping in the school's jurisdiction.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not use school, staff, student, or parent data to serve advertising.

Every school on the platform has its own account and its own records. A person's access is always evaluated against their role at a specific school — a teacher, parent, or administrator at one school has no access to another school's students, staff, finances, or communications, and platform staff access to any school's data is limited to what is needed to provide support or keep the service running, and is logged.

An owner who manages more than one school can access each school they own, but data still does not mix between those schools — each school's records remain its own.

• Within a school, only people with an appropriate role can see a given record — for example, a teacher generally sees the classes they teach, not the whole school's finances.
• We work with infrastructure providers (such as cloud hosting, email delivery, and the SMS and voice-call service Arkesel) that process data on our behalf, under agreements that limit their use of it to providing that service to us. For a text or a voice call to a parent, the service receives the phone number and the message or recording.
• Payments made online on the platform are taken by Paystack, on Paystack's own page: Paystack receives the card or mobile money details, and we receive only whether the payment went through, its amount and its reference.
• We disclose information beyond this only when required by law, to protect the safety of a student or other individual, or with the affected school's consent.

A school's records are retained for as long as the school's account is active. If a school's account is closed, we retain records for a limited period to allow recovery of an accidental closure and to meet any applicable legal retention requirements, after which they are deleted or anonymized.

The OS FOR SCHOOLS app for Android phones, iPhone and iPad shows the same school information as the website. It asks for the phone's features below only when you use the part of the app that needs them, and you can refuse:

• Camera: to read the QR code on a pupil's ID card at the gate or when taking fees, and to take a photo you choose to add. Nothing from the camera is kept except a photo you add.
• Microphone: only when the school owner or the school administrator records a voice message for parents. The recording is kept for seven days so the calls can be made, then deleted.
• Photos and files: only when you choose one to add — a pupil's or a staff member's photo, the school's logo, a receipt, or a spreadsheet to import. Only what you pick is sent; the app does not look through your photos or files.
• Location: only at the moment a member of staff presses Clock in, to check they are at school. It is never read in the background.
• Fingerprint or face: checked by the phone itself to confirm it is you when you clock in. It never leaves the phone.
• Notifications: the phone's notification address is kept for your account so the school's notices and messages reach you. It is removed when you sign out.

Information the app keeps for use without internet is stored encrypted on the phone and removed when you sign out, except payments or attendance still waiting to be sent.

You can ask to see, correct, or request deletion of personal information the platform holds about you by contacting your school directly (since your school controls its own records), or by contacting us at support@osforschools.com. We will direct school-record requests to the relevant school where that is the appropriate way to resolve them, and will respond to account-level requests directly.

To have your account deleted, use Settings, then Delete my account, in the app, or ask on the website.

If we make a material change to this policy, we will update the date at the top of this page. Continued use of the platform after a change means you accept the updated policy.

Questions about this policy or how your information is handled can be sent to support@osforschools.com.