Privacy policy

Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Nigeria ("RAIN," "we," "us," or "our") operates www.rainigeria.com (the "Platform"), a learning management system through which students enrol in, register for, and complete academic programmes in Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning (AIML) and Robot Development & Automation (RDA), including related scholarship, examination, and tutoring services.

This Privacy Policy explains what personal data we collect through the Platform, why we collect it, how it is used and protected, and what rights you have over it. This policy is issued in compliance with the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) 2023 and its General Application and Implementation Directive (GAID).

By registering on, or otherwise using, the Platform, you confirm that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.

1. Who This Policy Applies To

This policy applies to:

• Prospective and enrolled students of RAIN's AIML and RDA programmes
• Scholarship applicants and scholarship-track candidates
• Alumni of RAIN's academic programmes
• Parents, guardians, next-of-kin, and referees whose details are submitted on a student's behalf during registration
• Staff, tutors, and administrators who use the Platform's admin functions

2. Personal Data We Collect

We collect the following categories of personal data through registration, admission, scholarship, examination, and academic activity on the Platform:

2.1 Identity & Personal Information

• Title, first name, middle name, last name
• Date of birth, sex, and nationality
• Government-issued identification (e.g. National ID, Driver's Licence, International Passport) and a copy of the uploaded ID document
• Passport photograph

2.2 Contact & Address Information

• Mobile phone number and home phone number
• Permanent residential address and term/current address, including YardCode geo-address references where applicable
• Email address

2.3 Next of Kin & Referee Information

• Next-of-kin full name, address, phone number, and relationship to the student
• Referee names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses

2.4 Educational Background

• Prior institution attended, course of study, qualification obtained, and academic status (graduated or in progress)
• Current year of study and graduation year, where applicable

2.5 Health Information

Where a student voluntarily discloses that they have a medical condition relevant to their participation in the programme, we record this disclosure and any accompanying details provided. This is sensitive personal data under the NDPA, and we collect it solely to enable appropriate accommodation and support — for example, during practical sessions or examinations.

2.6 Academic & Assessment Data

• Course registrations, semester and programme placement, and academic results
• Examination scores, attempts, retake eligibility, and related scholarship academic records
• Certificate and registration numbers issued by RAIN

2.7 Payment Information

Tuition, scholarship acceptance fees, and other payments made through the Platform are processed via Paystack. We do not store full card numbers or banking credentials on our servers — these are handled directly by Paystack under its own security and privacy standards. We retain only the payment reference, status, and amount associated with a transaction for our own academic and financial records.

2.8 Communication Data

Where a student engages with RAIN's WhatsApp-based tutoring service (AutomatedLearning), we process the phone number used, message content exchanged with the tutoring system, and associated session activity, in order to deliver tutoring content and track learning progress.

Emails sent to students (such as registration confirmations, OTP verification codes, results notifications, and broadcast communications) are dispatched through our email service provider, Mailtrap, acting solely as a transmission service on our behalf.

2.9 Technical Data

• Login session data necessary to keep you signed in to the Platform
• Uploaded file metadata (e.g. ID documents, passport photographs) and their storage location on our servers

3. Why We Collect and Use This Data

We process personal data on the Platform for the following purposes:

• To process applications, registrations, and admissions into RAIN's academic and scholarship programmes
• To verify identity and prevent registration fraud, including through OTP email verification
• To place students in the correct programme, semester, and courses, and to track academic progress, results, and eligibility for advancement or graduation
• To process tuition and fee payments and maintain accurate financial records
• To issue admission letters, certificates, and other official academic documents
• To communicate with students regarding their registration, results, scholarship status, and programme updates
• To deliver WhatsApp-based tutoring content where a student has opted into that service
• To contact next-of-kin or referees only where necessary for verification or in the event of an emergency
• To comply with our own academic record-keeping obligations and any applicable regulatory requirements

4. Legal Basis for Processing

Under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, we rely on the following legal bases:

• Consent — for example, when you voluntarily provide medical condition information, or opt into WhatsApp tutoring
• Performance of a contract — processing necessary to admit, register, and provide academic services to you as a student
• Legitimate interest — for academic record-keeping, fraud prevention, and maintaining the integrity of our examination and certification processes

5. Third Parties We Share Data With

We do not sell personal data. We share limited personal data only with service providers who help us operate the Platform, strictly for the purposes described below:

• Paystack — to process tuition and fee payments. Paystack receives the payment details necessary to complete a transaction and operates under its own privacy and security policies.
• Mailtrap — acting solely as our email delivery infrastructure, to transmit registration confirmations, OTP codes, results, and broadcast communications.
• Our own visitor counts — on public pages we count visits with a random identifier stored in a cookie (rv), to see how many people visit and which pages help them. We do not link it to your name, email or IP address, and visits older than about 13 months are deleted. This stays on our own systems and is not shared.
• Google Ads — on our public pages (not inside signed-in accounts) we use Google's advertising tag to measure how people who see our adverts use the site, for example whether they go on to apply. Google may set cookies for this. It does not receive your application details, results or payment information. You can limit ad personalisation at adssettings.google.com.
• Neon (PostgreSQL database hosting) and Render — our infrastructure providers, who host the database and application that store your personal data securely.

Health/medical information is never shared with any of the above third parties and is restricted to internal RAIN administrative access only, as stated in Section 2.5.

We may disclose personal data where required by law, regulation, or a valid order from a competent authority.

6. Data Retention

RAIN retains student personal data indefinitely, even after a student graduates, defers, withdraws, or otherwise leaves the Platform. This is because the data forms part of RAIN's permanent academic and alumni records, including for the purposes of verifying past certificates, academic transcripts, and alumni status on request.

If you wish to request the deletion of specific personal data that is not required for these record-keeping purposes, you may contact us using the details in Section 8 below, and we will assess it in line with our obligations under the NDPA.

7. How We Protect Your Data

We apply reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal data on the Platform, including:

• Password-protected and role-based access controls for staff, tutors, and administrators
• OTP-based identity verification during registration and key account actions
• Encrypted transmission of data between your device and our servers
• Restricted internal access to sensitive personal data, including health and identification information, on a need-to-know basis

No system can guarantee absolute security, but we take active steps to safeguard personal data against unauthorised access, loss, or misuse.

8. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at:

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, the Platform's features, or applicable law. Where changes are significant, we will take reasonable steps to notify enrolled students through the Platform or via email. The "Effective Date" at the top of this policy indicates when it was last revised.