Privacy policy

ScholarVoya runs the ScholarVoya platform and is responsible for the personal data described here. We built it for applicable Rwandan data-protection law (Law No 058/2021 relating to the protection of personal data and privacy) and, where they apply, the EU and UK GDPR.

For any question about your data, send a request from Help & support in your account.

Only what the platform needs, mostly what you give us yourself:

• Account: your name, email address, phone or WhatsApp number, country, preferred language and password (stored only as a secure hash), and your two-step verification settings.
• Profile: your education, grades, languages and test results, work experience, skills, goals, budget and study preferences, and any passport details you choose to add.
• Documents: the files you upload, such as transcripts, certificates and identity documents, and the checks we run on them.
• Applications: the programmes you apply to, your answers, the documents you attach, the status of each application and any offer.
• Career Navigator: your assessment answers and the evidence you add to your portfolio.
• AI features: your questions, coach conversations, drafts and feedback.
• Communication: messages, notifications, tasks, appointments and support requests.
• Security records: when and from which device and IP address you sign in, so we can alert you to new devices and protect your account.

• To provide the service you ask for: your profile, matches, applications, documents and AI tools. This is necessary for our contract with you.
• To share your profile with an agency or other partner, only when you agree. You can withdraw that consent at any time.
• To keep the platform safe: preventing fraud, detecting forged documents and protecting accounts. This is our legitimate interest.
• To meet legal obligations, such as keeping certain records or answering lawful requests from authorities.

We do not sell your personal data and we do not use it for advertising.

• ScholarVoya staff whose role needs it, such as the officer reviewing your application or the person answering your support request. Staff actions are recorded in an audit log.
• Institutions: when ScholarVoya sends your application, the institution receives that application and the documents attached to it.
• Agencies: only an agency you have agreed to share your profile with. You can change this in Account → Privacy.
• Service providers who run parts of the platform for us under contract: hosting (Railway), file storage and network (Cloudflare), email delivery, and AI models (OpenAI). OpenAI receives the text needed to answer your request; according to OpenAI, data sent through its API is not used to train its models by default.
• Authorities, when the law requires it.

Some of these providers process data outside your country. When they do, we rely on contracts and safeguards that protect it as the law requires.

SmartMatch scores, career-fit indicators and AI drafts are suggestions computed from your profile. No decision with legal or similarly significant effects on you is made by automated means alone: ScholarVoya officers review applications, and admission, visa and scholarship decisions are made by institutions and authorities. See Guidance, not guarantees.

Questions about sensitive situations, such as a visa refusal or financial hardship, may be passed to a ScholarVoya officer so that a person can help.

We keep your data while your account is open. When you ask us to delete your account, an administrator reviews the request and we delete or anonymise your personal data, except records we must keep by law or to settle disputes, such as the record of an application sent to an institution.

Security records and audit logs are kept for as long as they are needed to protect the platform and meet legal obligations.

You can:

• see and correct your data in your profile and your account;
• download a copy of your data from Account;
• ask us to delete your account from Account;
• withdraw consent you gave, for example to share your profile with an agency;
• object to some uses of your data, or ask us to limit them;
• complain to the data-protection authority. In Rwanda this is the National Cyber Security Authority (NCSA); elsewhere, the authority in your country.

To exercise any other right, send a request from Help & support in your account.

• Encrypted connections (HTTPS) for everything you send and receive.
• Two-step verification, required for staff and available to everyone.
• Access by role, so people see only what their work needs, and an audit log of staff actions.
• Virus scanning of every uploaded file, private storage and short-lived download links.
• Alerts when your account is used on a new device, and a list of your sessions you can sign out of.

ScholarVoya is for people preparing for further study or work. If you are under 16, a parent or guardian must agree to your use of ScholarVoya.

We use only what the platform needs to work: cookies that keep you signed in and remember your language, and your browser's storage for your display preferences, the programmes you are comparing and uploads you have not finished. Your browser also keeps a copy of the app's files, never your personal data, so pages load faster and a message appears when you are offline. We use no advertising or tracking cookies, so there is nothing to accept or refuse.

When we change how we use your data, we update this page and its date, and tell you in the platform before an important change takes effect.