Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Hitimu Academy is an online learning platform operated by Forum Kenya Development Foundation. Hitimu provides digital courses, lessons, quizzes, learning resources, progress tracking, certificates, educational articles, discussions and related learner services.

References to “Hitimu”, “Hitimu Academy”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this policy refer to Hitimu Academy and its operator.

2. Information we collect

Account and profile information

When you create or manage a Hitimu account, we may collect information such as your name, email address, password in securely protected form, country, preferred currency and account preferences.

Learning and account activity

We may record information about how you use Hitimu, including course enrolments, lessons opened or completed, progress, quiz attempts and results, certificates, saved lessons, saved EduHub posts, comments, discussions and other learning interactions.

Technical and security information

Our systems may automatically receive technical information needed to operate and protect the service, such as IP address, device or browser information, timestamps, application version, server logs, error information and security-related activity.

Communications

If you contact Hitimu for support or communicate through available platform features, we may retain the information you provide so that we can respond and maintain appropriate records.

3. How we use information

We use information to:

• Create, authenticate and manage learner accounts.
• Provide courses, lessons, quizzes and educational resources.
• Track learning progress and course completion.
• Issue and verify eligible certificates.
• Remember saved lessons and saved EduHub content.
• Support discussions, comments and learner participation.
• Provide notifications relevant to learning and account activity.
• Process and verify course purchases and enrolments.
• Provide learner support and respond to enquiries.
• Maintain security, prevent abuse and investigate technical problems.
• Improve the reliability, usability and educational quality of Hitimu.
• Comply with applicable legal, regulatory and accounting obligations.

4. Learning records and educational activity

Hitimu maintains learning records so that learners can continue courses, view their progress and access eligible certificates. These records may include enrolment dates, completed lessons, assessment results, course completion status and certificate information.

Learner-created content such as discussion posts, replies and EduHub comments may be visible to other learners or platform administrators depending on the feature in which it is posted.

5. AI Tutor and artificial intelligence features

Hitimu may provide AI-assisted learning features, including an AI Tutor. When you use these features, your questions, the relevant lesson context and recent conversation history may be processed to generate a response.

AI Tutor conversations may be stored in your Hitimu account so that you can continue or review your learning conversations.

6. Payments and Google Play purchases

Android app purchases

Paid digital courses purchased inside the Hitimu Android app are processed through Google Play Billing where required. Google processes the payment method and checkout transaction under Google's own terms and privacy practices.

Hitimu does not receive or store your full bank-card number through Google Play Billing. We may receive and store information needed to verify a purchase and grant course access, including the Google Play product identifier, purchase token, order identifier, purchase status, relevant price tier, learner account identifier, course identifier and verification records.

We use this information to confirm that payment is valid, prevent reuse or fraud, maintain an audit trail and enrol the correct learner in the course purchased.

Website payments

Where Hitimu offers payment methods on its website, payment information may also be processed by the applicable payment provider. Hitimu receives only the information necessary to confirm payment, maintain transaction records and provide purchased access.

7. When information may be shared

We do not sell learner personal information. Information may be shared only where reasonably necessary, including with:

• Service providers that help us host, secure, operate or support Hitimu.
• Payment providers such as Google Play where needed to process and verify purchases.
• Technology or AI service providers used to deliver specific platform functionality.
• Professional advisers, auditors or regulators where reasonably required.
• Public authorities where disclosure is legally required.

We expect service providers handling personal information on our behalf to use it only for the purpose of providing the relevant service and to apply appropriate safeguards.

8. Security

Hitimu uses administrative and technical measures intended to protect learner information against unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure or loss. These measures include access controls, authenticated accounts, server-side purchase verification and restricted storage of sensitive system credentials.

No internet-connected service can guarantee absolute security. Learners should use strong passwords, keep login credentials private and sign out when using shared devices.

9. How long we keep information

We retain information for as long as reasonably needed to provide Hitimu services, maintain learning records, honour purchases, verify certificates, resolve disputes, prevent abuse and meet legal, tax, audit or accounting requirements.

Some records, such as transaction, enrolment, certificate or security records, may need to be retained after an account is closed where there is a legitimate operational or legal reason to do so.

10. Your choices and data rights

Depending on applicable law and the circumstances, you may request access to personal information associated with your account, ask for inaccurate information to be corrected, or request deletion of information that we are not required to retain.

You may also update certain account information directly from your Hitimu profile where those controls are available.

11. Children and younger learners

Hitimu is designed as a general educational platform. Where a learner is below the age at which they can independently consent to use an online service in their jurisdiction, a parent, guardian, school or other authorised adult should provide any consent required by applicable law.

We do not knowingly encourage children to submit unnecessary sensitive personal information.

12. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this policy when Hitimu's services, technology, legal obligations or data practices change. The updated version will be published on this page with a revised “Last updated” date.