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Privacy Policy

Last updated: 12 June 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how ML.1 ("ML.1", "we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects your personal information. ML.1 is operated by Susan Volschenk as an individual, based in South Africa, who is the responsible party for the purposes of the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 ("POPIA").

ML.1 is available at https://www.ml1.help. By using ML.1, you agree to the practices described here.

1. Information we collect

Account information. When you create an account, we collect your name, email address, and your age or date of birth. If you are under 18, we also collect a parent or guardian email address (see Section 6).

Study profile. Your grade or year, curriculum (for example CAPS, IEB, Cambridge, or IB), and the subjects you select.

Content you provide. Notes, documents, photos, and PDFs you upload, and lecture audio you record through the platform, together with the flashcards, summaries, and other study material generated from them.

Usage information. Basic technical and usage data such as log-in activity, feature usage, device and browser type, and error reports, used to operate, secure, and improve the platform.

Payment information. If you subscribe, payment is handled by our payment provider, Paystack. ML.1 receives confirmation of your subscription status but does not collect or store your full card details.

We do not use your information for third-party advertising, and we do not sell your personal information.

2. How we use your information

We use your information to:

  • Create and manage your account.
  • Provide ML.1's features — sorting notes, generating flashcards, answering questions through the AI tutor, and transcribing lectures into notes.
  • Process subscription payments and manage your trial, Free tier, and paid access.
  • Communicate with you about your account, including trial reminders and service updates.
  • Keep the platform secure and diagnose technical problems.
  • Improve ML.1's features and reliability.

3. How AI features process your data

ML.1's core features rely on artificial intelligence. It is important to us that you understand how this works:

  • Note and document processing. When you upload notes, a photo, or a PDF, the content of that file is sent to a third-party AI service so it can be read, structured, and turned into organised notes and flashcards.
  • Lecture transcription. When you record a lecture through the platform, the audio is sent to a third-party transcription service (Deepgram) to convert speech into text, and the transcript is then structured into notes.
  • AI tutor. When you ask the AI tutor a question, your question and relevant material from your notes are sent to a third-party AI service so it can generate an answer.

This processing happens so that we can provide the feature you asked for. Your content is not used to train these third-party AI providers' models, is not used for advertising, and is not sold.

4. Third-party services we share data with

To run ML.1, we share limited personal information with the following service providers ("operators" under POPIA), who are only permitted to process it on our instructions:

  • Anthropic (Claude AI) — processes uploaded notes and documents, and AI tutor questions, to generate study content and answers.
  • Deepgram — processes lecture audio you record to produce transcripts.
  • Supabase — provides the database and file storage where your account and content are kept. Data is hosted in the European Union.
  • Vercel — hosts and serves the ML.1 application.
  • Paystack — processes subscription payments.
  • Resend — sends account and service emails, including notification emails to a parent or guardian.

We may use additional reputable service providers in future and will keep this list updated.

5. Cross-border transfer of information

Some of our service providers process or store data outside South Africa — for example, our database hosting is located in the European Union, and our AI providers operate in the United States. Where we transfer your personal information across borders, we do so in line with POPIA, and only to providers who are required to protect it under contractual and legal safeguards comparable to those in South Africa.

6. Children and users under 18

ML.1 is designed for school students, and we know that many of our users are under 18. We take the protection of their personal information seriously.

Under POPIA, a child's personal information is given special protection, and processing it generally requires the consent of a competent person — usually a parent or legal guardian.

To support this, when a user indicates during signup that they are under 18:

  • We require a parent or guardian email address to be provided.
  • We require confirmation that a parent or guardian has reviewed and approved the creation of the account.
  • When the account is created, we send a notification email to the parent or guardian at the address provided, letting them know the account exists and how to contact us.
  • We use the guardian email address to provide information about ML.1 and to allow a parent or guardian to contact us about the account.

In addition, if an under-18 user wants to start a paid subscription, we require a parent or guardian to give confirmed consent before any payment is taken. We email the parent or guardian a secure, single-use confirmation link, and the subscription cannot proceed until they open it and confirm. No payment is processed until that consent is recorded.

A parent or guardian may, at any time, contact us at support@ml1.help to ask what information we hold about their child, to request access to it, to ask us to correct it, or to ask us to delete the account and its data. We will act on verified requests from a parent or guardian.

We are continuing to strengthen how we verify parental consent as ML.1 grows. If you are a parent or guardian and have any concern about your child's use of ML.1, please contact us.

7. How long we keep your information

We keep your personal information for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, we delete or anonymise your personal information and content within a reasonable period, except where we are required to keep certain records (for example, payment records) to comply with the law.

8. Your rights

Under POPIA, you have the right to:

  • Ask what personal information we hold about you and request a copy.
  • Ask us to correct or update inaccurate information.
  • Ask us to delete your information or close your account.
  • Object to certain processing of your information.
  • Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@ml1.help.

The Information Regulator can be contacted at the details published on https://inforegulator.org.za.

9. How we protect your information

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your information, including access controls on our database and encryption in transit. No online service can be guaranteed to be completely secure, but we work to keep your information safe and will notify you and the Information Regulator if a security compromise affects your personal information, as required by law.

10. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make significant changes, we will notify users through the platform or by email.

11. Contact

For any privacy question or request, contact us at support@ml1.help.