Privacy

Who is responsible

NWYou is run by [name, or registered business name], [postal or physical address]. The Information Officer under POPIA is [name], reachable at admin@nwyou.co.za. NWYou is not part of, or endorsed by, North-West University.

If you sign up

We store your NWU email address, a username (generated for you, and yours to change), and anything you choose to add: reviews, study plans and your progress on them. The address is used to check that you are an NWU student and to sign you in. It is never displayed and never attached to anything anyone else can see.

Study plans

Your plan is saved on your account, with the blocks you tick, skip or time, and so is your gradebook: your aim for each module and the marks you enter. Only you see them, and they are never linked to reviews. That is so it is there on every device you sign in on. When your AI builds or changes it, the new plan is saved the same way.

Using your AI on your plan. Your browser sends your plan, your modules and their shared tests and chapters straight to the AI provider you chose, with your own key. We never see the key. The provider does see what is sent, and Gemini's free tier may use it to improve Google's products.

Your plans are private. Nobody else can see them, and they are never linked to lecturer reviews: no review shows what its author studies. Delete your plan from the Plan page, or an earlier one from your account page, at any time, and its progress goes with it.

What stays on your device

These never reach us. They are kept in your browser's storage on the device you use:

• notes and wrap-ups you write on plan blocks;
• everything you do in a study pack: answers, notes, flags, marked concepts and writing;
• a pack file you open yourself;
• your AI key, if you connect one;
• light or dark mode, and similar view settings.

Because we never have them, we cannot recover them. A browser can clear its storage (Safari on iPhone does after about a week away), so use “Save a copy” now and then, or add NWYou to your Home Screen.

AI marking

AI features in study packs run on your own key from Google (Gemini) or Anthropic (Claude). What you send goes from your browser straight to that provider, never through NWYou, so we never see your notes or your key. Your provider does see them, under its own terms. Google's free Gemini tier may use what you send to improve Google's products, so don't send anything you would not want used that way.

If you are a lecturer

Your name, faculty and modules come from information NWU publishes. Reviews are students' opinions about teaching in a professional capacity, published so that students can make informed module choices — the legitimate-interest ground under section 11 of POPIA. Reviews are pseudonymous to readers, not anonymous to the site: the database can link a review to an account, and whoever runs the site can see that link.

You can object to processing, ask for a correction, or report a review that breaks the guidelines, by emailing admin@nwyou.co.za. Complaints are actioned within 24 hours.

Where your data is kept

• The database: Supabase, in Paris, France [confirm region].
• The website: Vercel, running in Paris [confirm function region].
• Sign-in emails: Resend, in Ireland [confirm region].

That means your information is processed outside South Africa, in the EU, where data-protection law gives at least the protection POPIA requires [have this checked].

What we do not do

• No advertising, and no selling of anything to anyone.
• No tracking cookies. Page visits are counted with Vercel Web Analytics, which sets no cookies and is not tied to your account; we see totals, such as how many people opened the Packs page.
• Only one cookie, the one that keeps you signed in.
• If you tell the “My degree” tab what you study, that answer is kept in your browser while you are signed out, and on your account once you sign in so it follows you to other devices. It is used only to show your modules.

Your rights

You can ask what we hold about you, have it corrected, object to its use, or have it deleted, by emailing admin@nwyou.co.za. If you are unhappy with how we handle it, you can complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) at inforegulator.org.za.

Deleting your account

Email us and your account is removed, with your reviews, plans and progress. Reviews cannot be restored afterwards. What is on your device stays there until you clear it.