Welcome to Shongololo Language School (“we”, “our”, or “us”). We operate the website www.shongolololanguageschool.com and provide online English language tuition. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use and protect your personal information in accordance with applicable data protection laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
1. Who we are
Shongololo Language School is an online language school offering English lessons to Slovak speakers, operating between South Africa and Slovakia. Our services include Conversation Practice, Exam Preparation, Business English, Job Interview Preparation, and English Editing & Proofreading.
For any privacy-related questions, email us at stefanie@shongolololanguageschool.com.
2. Information we collect
We may collect the following personal data when you visit our website or use our services:
- Contact information: first name, last name and email address, provided through our contact form, our booking page or by email.
- Booking details: the lesson you book and the time you choose.
- Payment information: payments are handled by Stripe. We receive confirmation of your payment, but we do not see or store your full card details.
- Communications: messages you send us through the contact form, by email or on WhatsApp.
- Technical data: basic, anonymous information about how the website is used (such as pages visited and the type of device), collected by Cloudflare Web Analytics without cookies.
3. How we use your information
We use your personal data to:
- respond to your enquiries;
- schedule and manage your lessons;
- provide the language services you have booked;
- send booking confirmations, reminders and service-related updates;
- improve our website and services;
- comply with legal obligations.
We process your data on the legal bases of: (a) performance of a contract, when you book a lesson; (b) our legitimate interests, to operate and improve our business; and (c) your consent, where required.
4. Who we share it with
We do not sell, rent or trade your personal data. We share it only with the service providers we need to run the school:
- Cloudflare — hosts our website, protects the contact form from spam (Cloudflare Turnstile) and provides privacy-friendly website statistics.
- Google — our email (Google Workspace) and lesson booking page (Google Calendar).
- Stripe — processes lesson payments.
- WhatsApp (Meta) — if you choose to contact us on WhatsApp.
- Our email delivery provider — delivers messages sent through our contact form to our inbox.
- Legal or regulatory authorities — if required by law or to protect our rights.
These providers may only use your information to provide their service to us.
5. Cookies
Our website does not use advertising or tracking cookies, and our website statistics are collected without cookies. The contact form uses Cloudflare Turnstile to check that a real person is sending the message; this check is necessary for the form to work.
When you open our booking page or pay for a lesson, you use Google’s and Stripe’s own pages, which are covered by their own cookie and privacy policies.
6. How long we keep your data
We keep personal data only as long as necessary for the purposes above, or as required by law. In general:
- contact enquiries are kept for up to 2 years;
- booking and payment records are kept for up to 7 years for legal and accounting purposes;
- website statistics are anonymous and kept according to Cloudflare’s policies.
7. Your rights
Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have the right to:
- access a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
- have inaccurate or incomplete data corrected;
- have your data deleted, subject to certain conditions;
- restrict how we use your data;
- receive your data in a commonly used format;
- object to processing based on our legitimate interests;
- withdraw your consent at any time, where processing is based on consent.
To exercise any of these rights, email stefanie@shongolololanguageschool.com. We will respond within 30 days. You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority; in Slovakia this is the Office for Personal Data Protection of the Slovak Republic.
8. Data security
We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, loss or disclosure. Our website is served securely over HTTPS. No transmission over the internet is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.
9. International transfers
Shongololo Language School operates across South Africa and Slovakia, and some of our service providers are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA). Where data is transferred outside the EEA, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision.
10. Children’s privacy
Our services are designed for adults and individuals aged 16 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 16 without appropriate parental consent. If you believe a child has given us personal information, please contact us so we can delete it.
11. Third-party links
Our website links to other websites, including our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those websites.
12. Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page.
13. Contact us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or your personal data, email stefanie@shongolololanguageschool.com or use our contact page.
Questions about this page? Email stefanie@shongolololanguageschool.com.