Privacy policy

Introduction

Blinkseed (PTY) Ltd ("Blinkseed", "we", "our", or "us") builds a learning app for South African families. This policy explains, in plain language, what information we collect from you and your child, why we collect it, and how we look after it. Blinkseed is in early access, and so is this policy — but every promise on this page is one we're already keeping.

Information we collect

From you

When you create a Blinkseed account, we collect:

• Your name and email address, so you can sign in and we can reach you.
• A password, which we protect with strong, salted encryption (Argon2) — we never store it, or see it, in plain text.

About your child

When you add a child to your family, you choose what to tell us. That can include:

• Their first name or a nickname.
• Their grade, and the subjects they're taking.
• A rough age, if you choose to share one — we deliberately don't ask for an exact date of birth.
• Their school, chosen from a list of every school in South Africa — or “not listed” or “prefer not to say”, which are both fine.
• Their preferred language.
• Their gender, if you choose to share it — we only ever use this to soften Chip's tone and examples for your child. It's never shown to anyone, including on any list or profile, and never used for anything else.

Automatically

We don't use tracking cookies, ad pixels, or third-party analytics — on this website or in the app. The only thing we note automatically is which page or link brought you to sign up (so we know founding families are finding Blinkseed, not to track you elsewhere), plus the standard technical logs any online service keeps to run securely.

How we use your information

• To create and run your family's account, and deliver lessons at the right grade and subject.
• To adapt Chip's tone and examples for your child, if you've told us their gender — for that, and nothing else.
• To show you and a co-parent the real picture of how your child is doing: mastery and gaps, subject by subject — never a screen-by-screen record of everything they did.
• To communicate with you about your account, and let you know when your child's grade or subjects go live.
• To keep Blinkseed secure and working properly.
• To meet our legal obligations, including under POPIA.

What we never do

We never sell your or your child's personal information, to anyone, for any reason. We never share it with anyone outside Blinkseed without your say-so — except the handful of service providers who help us run Blinkseed (like hosting), who may only use it to provide that service to us and never for their own purposes, or where the law requires it.

Family and school access

You only ever see your own children — never another family's. If you invite a co-parent, you'll both see the same picture of your child. If your child's school is linked to a school account, their teachers can see how their students are progressing as a class — never your family's contact details, never which guardians are linked to a child, and never a private, session-by-session record of what your child did.

Data security

We use industry-standard technical and organisational measures to protect your information, including salted password encryption and access controls that limit who inside Blinkseed can see what. No system is completely without risk, but we take this seriously and keep improving it.

Children's privacy

Blinkseed is built for school-aged learners, and every child's profile is created and managed by a parent or guardian — a child never signs up on their own, and never has an email address, password, or contact details with us. We collect only what's needed to place lessons at the right level, and nothing more.

Your rights

Under South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), you can ask us at any time to see the information we hold about you or your child, correct anything that's wrong, or delete it. Contact us and we'll respond as quickly as we can.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as Blinkseed grows — for example, as new grades and subjects launch. If we make a material change, we'll update the date below; please check back from time to time.

Contact us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, or want to exercise any of the rights above, contact us at info@blinkseed.com.