Privacy Policy

Last updated: 28 July 2026

Draft pending legal review. This policy has been prepared as a working draft and has not yet been reviewed by a qualified legal practitioner. Because ChanzoPlay is directed at children, it carries obligations under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA) that require professional review before the business relies on this document.

1. Who we are

ChanzoPlay is an educational content service operated from 22 Bromoel Road, Birch Acres, Kempton Park, Johannesburg, 1618, South Africa. We create illustrated stories, narrated read-alouds and picture puzzles for children. In this policy, "we", "us" and "our" mean ChanzoPlay, and "you" means the person using the service — in most cases a parent, guardian, caregiver or teacher.

2. Information we collect

We collect only what the service needs in order to work.

Account details. When you create an account we store your name, email address and a securely hashed password. We never store your password in a form we can read.
Google Sign-In. If you choose to sign in with Google, Google sends us your name, email address, profile picture URL and a Google account identifier. We do not receive your Google password and we cannot access anything else in your Google account.
Activity within the service. Which stories are opened and which puzzles are played, so we can show reading progress and improve the content we produce.
Messages you send us. If you use the contact form we receive the subject, your name, your email address and your message.
Technical information. Standard server logs recording IP address, browser type and the pages requested, kept for security and diagnostics.

3. Children's information

ChanzoPlay is written for children but is intended to be set up and managed by an adult. We ask that accounts be created by a parent, guardian or teacher, and we do not ask children for personal information beyond a display name.

We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from a child without the consent of a competent person, as POPIA requires. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information without that consent, contact us and we will delete it.

4. How we use your information

To create and secure your account and sign you in.
To deliver stories, narration and puzzles, and to remember progress.
To reply to enquiries you send us.
To keep the service working, diagnose faults and prevent abuse.
To understand which content is useful, so we can produce more of it.

We do not sell your personal information. We do not use children's information to serve behavioural or targeted advertising.

5. Service providers

Some processing happens through third parties acting on our instructions. These currently include Google (sign-in) and ElevenLabs (converting story text into narration audio). Story text sent for narration is our own published content and contains no personal information about you. Our email is delivered through our hosting provider's mail service.

Some of these providers process information outside South Africa. Where that happens we rely on the provider's contractual data-protection commitments as contemplated by section 72 of POPIA.

6. Cookies and local storage

We use a session cookie to keep you signed in, and an optional "remember me" cookie if you ask us to. We also use your browser's local storage to remember which story you were opening when you were asked to sign in. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

7. How long we keep information

Account information is kept while your account is open. If you ask us to delete your account we remove your personal information within 30 days, except where we are required by law to keep records for longer. Server logs are retained for a short operational period and then discarded.

8. Security

Passwords are stored using a one-way hash. Access to the administration area is restricted to authorised staff. Credentials for third-party services are held in server configuration outside the public web root. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect your information, and we will notify you and the Information Regulator of a compromise where POPIA requires it.

9. Your rights

Under POPIA you may ask us to:

confirm what personal information we hold about you;
give you a copy of it;
correct or complete it if it is inaccurate;
delete it where we have no lawful basis to keep it;
stop processing it for a particular purpose.

To exercise any of these, contact us using the details below. You also have the right to complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa.

10. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of this page. Where a change materially affects how we use your information, we will tell account holders directly.

11. Contact us

ChanzoPlay
22 Bromoel Road, Birch Acres
Kempton Park, Johannesburg, 1618
South Africa

Questions about this policy, or a request about your information, can be sent through the contact form.