Introduction

Malawi does not have a comprehensive data protection law, but the Electronic Transactions and Cybersecurity Act No. 33 of 2016 replicates some provisions seen in data protection laws.

Under Act No. 33 of 2016, individuals have the right to:obtain all of their personal data in an understandable form, as well as any available information as to the origin;oppose, for legitimate reasons, the processing of personal data concerning them;object to the processing of their personal data for prospecting purposes; and rectify or erase personal data concerning them where it is inaccurate, incomplete, equivocal, out of date, or if collection, use, communication or conservation is prohibited.

Hence, Ponya Technology Inc. (“Ponya School”, “we”, “us”) hereby adopts this Privacy Notice in compliance with the Electronic Transactions and Cybersecurity Act No. 33 of 2016. This Privacy Notice will discuss in detail how Ponya School handles data from our students from collection, to sharing, and down to destruction.

Privacy Statement

The data privacy rights of our students (“data subjects”, “you”)are of utmost importance to Ponya School. Through strict implementation of this Privacy Notice and our Privacy Manual, we are duty bound to take care of all the data we collect and to comply with all the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Data Privacy Act and other issuances of the National Privacy Commission. We operate within the guiding privacy principles of transparency, legitimate purpose and proportionality.

We are committed to respecting your privacy and recognizes your need for appropriate protection and management of any personally identifiable information of any nature(collectively “Personal Data”) you share with us. The purpose of this Privacy Notice is to let you know what kind of information we collect, how we use it, with whom it may be shared, what choices you have regarding our use of your information, and how you may review and change some of the data you provide to us. If you do not agree to be bound by all the terms of this Privacy Notice, please do not provide us any of your Personal Data, join or use any of our services. This Privacy Notice shall cover students and graduates of Ponya School.

We may, at any time and at our sole discretion, amend, and update this Privacy Notice, without notice to you. You are responsible for regularly reviewing this Privacy Notice. Any such amendments, modifications, and/or updates will be effective immediately upon posting of such updated Privacy Notice or the amended policies (if any) or supplemental terms (if any) on the applicable services or activity. Your continued access or use of our services or entry to any of our activities after posting such amendments, modifications and/or updates confirms your acceptance and consent to be bound by the Privacy Notice, as amended.

You are responsible for regularly reviewing this Privacy Notice. We will not be held liable for any changes in the manner of processing your data as indicated here. Any such amendments, modifications and/or updates will be effective immediately upon posting on our website. Your continued access or use of our website and/or services after the posting of such amendments, modifications and/or updates confirms your acceptance and consent to be bound by the Privacy Notice, as amended.

Personal Information Controller

Ponya School is the personal information controller of any personal data that you have, which means that it determines the purposes for which your personal data is being collected and processed.

1. Processing of Personal Data

The following end to end processes are involved in Ponya School’s operations which are relevant to personal and non-personal data collected from you.

2. Use of Collected Personal Data

Please note that we will not use your personal information for purposes related to marketing and advertising of any third party goods or services. We use the personal information for our business and activities which shall include the following purposes:

a. Documentation purposes;
‍ b. For purposes related to fees collection;
‍ c. To contact you by email, telephone calls, SMS, or other equivalent form of communication;
‍ d. To provide and maintain our service;
‍ e. For our performance of our legal obligations to you;
‍ f. For Ponya School to establish, execute, and defend legal claims;
‍ g. To enable Ponya School to offer or improve their respective services or products;
‍ h. To disclose to organisations and service providers who need to know the information in order to process it on behalf of Ponya School and/or to help Ponya School provide its Services, to the extend needed to perform their duties and their functions, provided that the third party signed an agreement not to disclose it to others;
‍ i. To comply with Government authorities, in response to legal requests (like a search warrant, court order or subpoena) if Ponya School has a good faith belief that it is required to do so under the law;
‍ j. To transfer to Purchases or potential purchases of Ponya School’s right and obligations to the services it provides. In this case, all information collected are deemed assets that may be transferred to such third parties
‍ k. When Ponya School deems, in its sole discretion that disclosure is reasonably necessary for prevention of illegal activity, to enforce our Terms of Service, to protect the property rights of the company or the general public, or to prevent financial harm or loss;
l. For other purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our services and in general, to improve our service and your experience; and
‍m. When required by law.

3. Storage, Retention and Destruction

Please note that we will not use your personal information for purposes related to marketing and advertising of any third party goods or services. We use the personal information for our business and activities which shall include the following purposes:

a. Storage. The company will see to it that all information collected in relation to our students and graduates, both in physical and electronic format, shall be stored inorganization and safe storage facilities, either physical or electronic, depending on the type of data. To prevent unlawful or accidental modification, destruction, and access, we have set up and will continue to ensure implementation of strict security measures.
Your personal information shall be retained for as long as the purpose for which it was collected, and such other purposes that you may have consented to from time to time, remains in effect until such time as it is no longer required nor necessary to keep your information for any other legal, regulatory, or business purposes.
‍ b. Retention. All data gathered shall not be retained for periods longer than necessary. Personal Data relating to our students and graduates will not be retained longer than18 months after expiration of the Income Share Agreement or a period of five (5) years after the completion of the course program, unless, otherwise necessary for collection of unpaid dues and processing of relevant documentation.
c. Destruction. If we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information and upon the expiry of the above archiving period, we will either irreversibly delete or anonymize such information.

4. Access

All information which we collect may only be accessed on a need-to-know basis. Listed below are the entities allowed to access data and the purpose of access:
a. Access by Owner of the Information. The data subject who is the owner of the personal or sensitive personal information can access his/her information upon request from the management team of Ponya School or directly when making modifications and update, for any purpose, except for reasons contrary to the law, morals, public policy, or public order.
b. Access by Authorized Personnel. Authorized personnel or representatives of Ponya School are given access to personal information by the company. Information can be accessed by authorized personnel for those purposes listed in this Privacy Notice, or for any purpose, except for reasons contrary to law, morals, public policy or public order.

5. Disclosure, Sharing and Transfer of Personal Informatio

Subject to any limitation and consistent with the guidelines set under all applicable laws, you consent that we may provide any information you provide and made available to us about you and in connection with your services, and of your participation in any of our activities, to third parties which include the following:
a. To authorized personnel within the company and its affiliates;
b. With third parties to provide the services requested, if any and as applicable;
c. With third parties with whom you choose to let us share information;
d. With our subsidiaries and affiliated entities and their employees that provide services or conduct data processing, data centralization and/or logistics purposes on our behalf;
e. With vendors, consultants, marketing partners, and other service providers who need access to such information to carry out work on our behalf, such as work related to:
compliance with legal requirements;
enforcing our terms of use or such other applicable policies with respect to the services that we provide including credit checking and collection;
addressing fraud, security, or technical issues, to respond to an emergency or otherwise to protect the rights, property or security of our customers or third parties; or
carrying out all other purposes set out above;
f. With any other entity in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, consolidation or restructuring, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by or into another company;
‍ g. When Ponya School deems, in its sole discretion that disclosure is reasonably necessary for prevention of illegal activity, to protect the property right of the company or of the general public, or to prevent financial harm or loss;
‍ h. With third parties with whom you choose to let us share information;
d. To Government authorities, in response to a legal request (like a search warrant, court order of subpoena) if we have a good faith belief that we are required to do so under the law; and
e. When required by Malawi law.
The personal information Ponya School collects through our Service may further be transferred or transmitted to, stored and processed in other countries where our subsidiaries’ facilities, employees, contractors, or other affiliated organizations are located. While these countries may not have the same data protection laws as Malawi, Ponya School shall use contractual or other reasonable means to provide a comparable level of protection while the information is being transferred to and processed in those countries. The written agreements to be executed shall specify the rights and obligations of each party and will provide that the third party has adequate security measures in place and will only process your personal information on the specific written instructions of Ponya School.

6. Collection of Other Information

When you visit our site or use our Service, some information are automatically collected. These data may include: a. Your IP address;
b. The type of browsers you use;
c. The websites you linked to our site;
d. The computer language you use;
e. Your operating system;
f. Your access time;
g. Information on your activity on our site; and
h. The data from Projects, which shall include web development course outputs and submission the students.
The above information may be used by us for website analytics and other evaluations of site performance or of user activities to help us improve our service. Moreover, data from your projects may be collected and analyzed to help us in product evaluation and in conceptualizing features and innovations that aim to further help our users.

7. Use of Cookies

Cookies are small pieces of information stored in your computer by your browser. This identifies your device and helps you navigate through a website. They cannot collect personal information from you or your computer. We may use cookies to understand better how our users navigate through and interact with the content of our website. You may opt to block cookies by checking and changing your browser settings.

8. Protection of data and site security

a. Ponya School fully recognizes the value of your Personal Data particularly as it may include Sensitive Personal. Appropriately, we strive to maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your personal information by employing physical, technological, and procedural safeguards. We are committed to implement physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect your Personal Data against loss, misuse, damage and unauthorized processing, access, disclosures, or modifications of Personal Information. We train our employees to properly handle your information. Whenever we engage other companies to provide services for us, we require them to protect personal information aligned with our own security standards and with the applicable laws. We continuously review and enhance our security policies and security measures to consistently maintain a high level of security.
b. Our site and/or our social media platforms may contain links to other websites, applications, and social media pages of third parties that are not owned or controlled by Ponya School. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other websites, applications, or third parties and we encourage you to read the corresponding privacy statements and policies.
c. We also have no control over third-party advertising companies that serve ads when you access or use our service. They may use information about your visits to our website and other websites to provide advertisements about goods and services that may be of interest to you. While we will not provide them your personal information, we do not control their collection of information
d. We will strive to implement commercially reasonable administrative, technical, and physical controls to secure your Personal Data, to minimize the risks of theft, damage or loss of Personal Data, or unauthorized access, use, alteration or disclosure. However, the security of your Personal Data also depends on you. Any transmission of your Personal Data by you is made at your own risk.

9. Updating of Personal Information

Although we take reasonable steps to ensure that all data we use is accurate, we depend on you to update or correct your personal data whenever necessary. You may update your personal information by sending us an email at [email protected] or by contacting the Ponya School team directly through other means of communication.

10. Data Privacy Rights

Under the law, you are entitled to the following data privacy rights –
a. The right to be informed whether your Personal Information shall be, are being, or have been processed;
b. The right to object to the processing of your Personal Information;
c. The right to reasonably access your Personal Information;
d. The right to dispute the inaccuracy or error in your Personal Information and have us correct it immediately and accordingly;
e. The right to suspend, withdraw, or order the blocking, removal or destruction of your Personal Information from our records;
f. The right to file a complaint with the NPC for any violation of your data privacy rights
g. The right to be indemnified for any damages sustained due to such inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, false, unlawfully obtained or unauthorized use of your Personal Information not in accordance with this Statement; and
h. The right to data portability of your Personal Information.
The above information may be used by us for website analytics and other evaluations of site performance or of user activities to help us improve our service. Moreover, data from your projects may be collected and analyzed to help us in product evaluation and in conceptualizing features and innovations that aim to further help our users.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may, at any time and at our sole discretion, amend, and update this Privacy Notice, without notice to you. You are responsible for regularly reviewing this Privacy Notice. Any such amendments, modifications, and/or updates will be effective immediately upon posting of such updated Privacy Notice or the amended policies (if any) or supplemental terms (if any) on the applicable Services, campaign, or activity. Your continued access or use of our Services after posting such amendments, modifications and/or updates confirms your acceptance and consent to be bound by the Privacy Notice, as amended.

Contact Us
Please contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions regarding this Privacy Notice or if you wish to exercise any of your data privacy rights.