Privacy Notice
The short version, for learners
- We only ask for what we need to run your account, your courses and your certificates.
- Your journal is yours. Mentors cannot see it, and it is never put in our reports.
- Your answers to the before-and-after questions are only used to see how the whole group is growing. Reports show totals, not your name.
- If you record a HER Story, only you, your CRF mentor and the CRF team can watch or hear it. If you are under 18, a parent or guardian must agree and be with you.
- We never sell your information or use it for adverts.
- You (or your parent or guardian) can ask to see, correct or delete your information at any time. Just email academy@crfworld.org.
1. Who we are
CRF Academy (academy.crfworld.org) is a free online learning programme run by Compassionate Reach Foundation (“CRF”, “we”, “us”), a non-profit organisation based in Abuja, Nigeria. CRF is the data controller for the personal information collected through CRF Academy. We follow the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 and treat the information of children and young people with extra care.
For any privacy question or request, contact us at academy@crfworld.org.
2. What we collect and why
| Information | Why we use it |
|---|---|
| Name, email address and password (stored in scrambled form; we cannot read it) | To create and secure your account, let you log in, and put your name on certificates. |
| Age range, gender and country | To give you the right courses and safety steps for your age, and to understand who CRF Academy is reaching (shown only as totals). |
| For learners under 18: the name of a parent or guardian, their permission, and the date it was given | Because the law and our own safeguarding rules require a parent or guardian to agree before a child joins. |
| Course progress, quiz results, poll choices and certificates | To save your place, show your progress, award certificates and let your assigned mentor encourage you. |
| Answers to the “My path” questions | To suggest an order of courses that fits you. We save the list of suggested courses, not your answers. Your answer about anything hard in your life is never saved. |
| Journal entries | So you can write and come back to your reflections. Journals are private: they are not shown to mentors and are not included in reports or downloads. |
| Answers to the before-and-after questionnaires and course feedback forms | To measure how much the programme helps and to improve it. In reports and downloads, learners are shown only by an anonymous code, together with age range, gender and country, never by name or email. |
| HER Story audio or video recordings, and the mentor's scores and comments | To assess the final practical step of a pathway and award a certificate with Distinction. |
| For mentors and facilitators: phone number, organisation, role, experience, reasons for applying and a reference | To check that every adult is suitable to work with young people before CRF approves them. |
| Basic technical information (such as your device's internet address, kept in our server logs, and login cookies) | To keep the website working and secure. |
We rely on your consent (and, for under-18s, the consent of a parent or guardian) to provide CRF Academy. We also rely on our legitimate interest in keeping young people safe, for example when we review a safeguarding concern.
3. Children and young people
- Learners under 18 can only join with the permission of a parent or guardian.
- Mentors only see the learners CRF has assigned to them, and only their progress, certificates and HER Story recordings. They never see journals or individual questionnaire answers.
- Every mentor is checked and approved by CRF before they can see any learner, and agrees to our safeguarding promises.
- If something a young person shares makes us worried for their safety, we may need to share it with a parent or guardian, or the right authorities, to protect them. We will only share what is needed.
4. HER Story recordings
- Recordings are audio or video only, and are always optional.
- For learners under 18, a parent or guardian must agree and supervise the recording.
- Recordings are stored in a private, locked folder on our website. They can only be played by the learner, her assigned mentor and the CRF team after logging in. They are never public and never posted on social media.
- A learner can delete her recording herself at any time from her HER Story page. Her score and certificate remain.
- Recordings are deleted automatically one year after they are submitted, unless the learner chooses to keep hers in her portfolio.
5. Certificates
Each certificate has a unique code and a web link so that schools or employers can check that it is genuine. Anyone with that link or code can see the name on the certificate, the course or pathway, and the date. Please only share it with people you choose.
6. Who we share information with
We do not sell personal information or use it for advertising. We only share it:
- with your assigned CRF mentor, as described above;
- with the companies that host and run our website and send our emails, who may only use it to provide that service to us;
- with a parent, guardian or the right authorities if we need to protect someone's safety, or if the law requires it.
Some lessons include videos from YouTube. We show them in YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, but when you play a video, YouTube (Google) receives information such as your device's internet address. The website also loads its fonts from Google Fonts. These services may process data outside Nigeria under their own privacy policies.
Reports that we share with partners or funders only contain totals and percentages, never names, emails or journal entries.
7. How long we keep information
- Account and learning information is kept while your account is open, so you do not lose your progress and certificates.
- HER Story recordings are deleted after one year, unless the learner chooses to keep hers.
- When you ask us to delete your account, we will remove your personal information within 30 days. We may keep anonymous totals that cannot identify you.
8. Keeping information safe
The website uses a secure (HTTPS) connection, passwords are stored in scrambled form, recordings are kept in a locked folder, and only approved CRF staff have administrator access. No system is perfectly secure, so please keep your password private and log out on shared phones or computers. If we ever discover a breach that puts your information at risk, we will tell you and the Nigeria Data Protection Commission as the law requires.
9. Your rights
You, or your parent or guardian if you are under 18, can:
- ask for a copy of the information we hold about you;
- ask us to correct anything that is wrong;
- ask us to delete your account and information;
- withdraw consent at any time (this will not affect anything we did before);
- object to or ask us to limit how we use your information;
- complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (ndpc.gov.ng) if you are not happy with how we have handled your information.
To make a request, email academy@crfworld.org from the email address on the account. We will reply within 30 days.
10. Cookies
We only use the cookies needed to log you in, keep you logged in and protect the site from automated attacks. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies. YouTube may set its own cookies if you play a video.
11. Changes to this notice
If we change this notice, we will update the date at the top. If the change is important, we will tell learners and parents in the portal or by email.
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