Safety & Privacy
RoboCode.Africa was built from day one for young learners. Every architectural decision — accounts, communication, data storage — was designed to protect children, not as an afterthought.
Our commitments to you
Six pillars of child safety — each backed by technical controls, not just policy.
Mandatory account approvals
Access control- No student can access any content until a verified teacher or school administrator approves their account.
- Approval decisions are logged with a full audit trail — who approved, when and why.
- Rejected accounts receive a clear reason and can re-apply after correction.
- Platform moderators provide a secondary layer of oversight for all school tenants.
Parental consent for minors
COPPA / GDPR-K- Any student who is under 13 (or where the platform is unable to verify age) triggers an automatic email to the guardian address provided at registration.
- The student account is locked to read-only until the guardian clicks the consent link.
- Guardians can revoke consent at any time, which immediately suspends the account.
- Consent records are stored securely and available on request.
Moderated communication
Chat safety- Team chat is the only in-platform communication channel — no direct messaging between students.
- All chat messages pass through a content-filter before delivery. Flagged messages are held for human review.
- Accounts that repeatedly send inappropriate content are automatically suspended pending admin review.
- No external links are rendered in chat — only plain text.
Data minimisation
Privacy by design- We collect only the fields required for learning: name, email, school, and learning progress.
- No advertising, no interest profiling, no third-party tracking pixels on any page used by students.
- Uploaded files (e.g. avatars) are scanned for malware and stored in isolated, access-controlled buckets.
- Data is encrypted at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.3+).
Transparent audit trail
Accountability- Every meaningful action in the platform generates an immutable audit log entry — account changes, approvals, content actions, moderation decisions.
- School admins can access their tenant audit log at any time. Platform staff can access the global log.
- Logs are retained for a minimum of 12 months for compliance purposes.
Incident reporting & escalation
Rapid response- Any user can report a concern via the in-app flag button. Reports go directly to our moderation queue.
- Serious incidents (suspected abuse, harm to minors) are escalated to a dedicated safeguarding officer within 2 hours.
- We cooperate fully with lawful requests from law enforcement and child protection agencies.
- We publish a transparency report annually detailing moderation actions taken.
Regulatory compliance
We operate across multiple jurisdictions and meet the child-protection provisions of each.
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (USA)
- Parental consent required for children under 13
- No behavioural advertising to minors
- Parental access to and deletion of child data on request
General Data Protection Regulation — child provisions (EU / UK)
- Age-appropriate design enforced at platform level
- Data minimisation and purpose limitation
- Right to erasure ('right to be forgotten') supported
Protection of Personal Information Act (South Africa)
- Lawful processing with explicit consent
- Information Officer appointed
- Breach notification within 72 hours of discovery
Data Protection Act 2021 (Zimbabwe)
- Registration of processing activities with the Cyber & Data Protection Authority
- Cross-border transfer restrictions respected
- User rights to access, correction and deletion honoured
We regularly review our practices against evolving regulations and engage external legal counsel in each jurisdiction. Our full privacy policy is available at /privacy.
Report a concern
If you have witnessed or suspect any harm to a child on our platform, please contact us immediately.
In-app report
Use the flag button on any content or profile to file an instant report to our moderation queue.
Safeguarding officer
Email safety@robocode.africa — serious incidents are escalated within 2 hours, 24/7.
Data requests
Parents and guardians: email privacy@robocode.africa for access, correction or deletion of a child's data.
Confident in our commitment?
Join thousands of schools and families who trust RoboCode.Africa as a safe STEM learning environment.