Riza Education & Welfare Foundation ("Riza Foundation," "we," "us," or "our") provides online Quran and Islamic Studies education to students around the world. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect through our website and mobile application (together, the "Platform"), why we collect it, how we use and protect it, and the choices available to you.
This Policy applies to visitors, prospective students, enrolled students, parents and guardians, teachers, and staff who interact with the Platform. By using the Platform, you agree to the practices described here. If you do not agree, please do not use the Platform, or contact us so we can address your concerns before you proceed.
We are a small, sincerely-run educational organisation, not a data broker or advertising business. We collect only what is reasonably needed to run classes, manage enrolments and fees, and keep in touch with our community — nothing is collected to build advertising profiles or to be sold to third parties. Riza Foundation is a non-profit initiative; any fees we collect go toward sustaining and expanding our educational mission, not toward private profit.
This Policy has been prepared with reference to India's Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.
Information We Collect
We collect different categories of information depending on your relationship with the Platform — as a visitor, a student or parent, or a teacher. We only ask for what is genuinely needed to provide the service in question.
Account & Identity Information
When an account is created for you on the Platform — whether you register yourself (currently available to teachers) or an account is created for you by our administrative staff (currently how students, parents, and Accounts users join) — we hold your full name, email address, and a securely hashed password. We never store passwords in plain text; they are encrypted using industry-standard hashing before being saved.
Your account also records your role on the Platform (student, parent, teacher, or staff), which determines what you can see and do.
Student Information
For enrolled students, we maintain records reasonably necessary to run classes and track academic progress: name, date of birth or age group, enrolment and course details, assigned teacher and class schedule, attendance records, and, where applicable, notes on progress recorded by the teacher.
Where a student is a minor, this information is collected and managed on behalf of, and with the involvement of, a parent or guardian — see "Children's Privacy" below.
Parent/Guardian Information
Where a student is a minor, we collect the parent or guardian's name and contact details (phone number and, where provided, email address) so that we can communicate about enrolment, scheduling, fees, and the student's progress. Parents may also be given their own dashboard access to view this information.
Teacher & Applicant Information
Prospective teachers who apply through our website or registration form provide their name, contact details, teaching background, and academic or Islamic qualifications. Where a teacher application proceeds, we may also collect certificates or qualification documents that the teacher chooses to upload for verification.
Once approved, a teacher's Platform account additionally tracks the classes and students assigned to them, attendance they record, and, where relevant, salary or compensation records tied to their teaching activity.
Fee & Payment-Related Information
Course fees are currently collected via direct bank/UPI transfer rather than through an in-app card payment gateway. The Platform can display our UPI payment details (including a scannable QR code) to make this easier, but the transfer itself takes place through the student's or parent's own banking or UPI app — we do not receive or store card numbers, UPI PINs, or banking credentials.
Our Accounts staff manually record that a payment has been received, along with the amount, billing period, and payment date, so that fee and salary records stay accurate. We do not process or store any payment card data on our own systems.
Some students are sponsored, either by Riza Foundation itself or by a personal sponsor arranged with our team. Where a personal sponsor covers a student's fees, we record the sponsor's name, contact details, and relationship to the student, entered by our administrative team, so that billing and communication go to the right person.
Uploaded Files
Where the Platform allows it, users may upload files such as a profile photo/avatar, a teacher's qualification certificates, or images used in blog articles published by our team. These files are stored with a reputable cloud storage provider and are only accessible to the people and roles who legitimately need them (for example, certificate documents are visible only to the teacher who uploaded them and to administrators reviewing the application).
Cookies & Analytics
We use a small number of strictly necessary cookies to keep you securely signed in and to remember your session while you use the Platform. These are essential to the site functioning and are not used for advertising.
We also use Google Analytics to understand, in aggregate, how visitors use our website — for example, which pages are viewed and how people found us — so we can improve the Platform. We have disabled Google's ad-personalisation and cross-site advertising signals, so this analytics data is not used to build advertising profiles or shown to you as targeted ads elsewhere on the web.
Your device or browser settings let you block or delete cookies at any time; doing so may affect how well parts of the Platform work (for example, staying signed in).
How We Use Your Information
We use the information described above to:
- Create and manage student, parent, teacher, and staff accounts
- Schedule, run, and record attendance for one-to-one and group classes
- Communicate about enrolment, scheduling changes, fees, and academic progress
- Track and reconcile fee payments and, for teachers, compensation
- Verify teacher qualifications during the application process
- Respond to enquiries submitted through our contact form
- Maintain the security, integrity, and proper functioning of the Platform
- Understand, in aggregate, how our website is used so we can improve it
- Meet our legal, regulatory, and safeguarding obligations
How We Communicate With You
We keep in touch with our community mainly through two channels, described below. We do not send marketing messages to people who have not engaged with us. Where you give us a phone number — for example, through the contact form — you agree that we may contact you about your enquiry or enrolment by call, SMS, or WhatsApp.
Our website includes links that open WhatsApp with a pre-filled message — for example, to book a free demo class or ask a question. Opening these links takes place entirely within your own WhatsApp application; our website does not read, store, or have access to your WhatsApp messages or contact list. Any conversation that follows happens directly between you and our team on WhatsApp, subject to WhatsApp's own privacy practices.
We use a reputable third-party email delivery service to send account-related messages (such as notifying our team of a new contact-form submission) and, where relevant, communications about your enrolment, classes, or fees. We do not use email for unsolicited marketing, and we do not sell or share your email address with advertisers.
Data Storage & Security
Your information is stored on secure, access-controlled servers and cloud infrastructure operated by reputable providers. Access within our organisation is limited by role — for example, a teacher can see only their own assigned students, and Accounts staff can see financial records but not, say, private teaching notes.
We use industry-standard measures to protect your information, including encrypted password storage, encrypted connections (HTTPS) between your device and our servers, and rate-limiting and monitoring to guard against abuse. No method of storage or transmission over the internet is ever completely risk-free, but we take reasonable, ongoing steps to protect the information you share with us.
If we ever become aware of a data breach that puts your information at meaningful risk, we will notify affected users and take prompt steps to contain and remediate it, in line with applicable law.
We treat the information entrusted to us as an amanah (trust) in the fullest sense. The Qur'an instructs: "Indeed, Allah commands you to render trusts to whom they are due... and when you judge between people, judge with justice." (Qur'an 4:58). Safeguarding what our community shares with us is something we take as both a legal and a moral obligation.
Third-Party Service Providers
We rely on a small number of trusted third-party service providers to operate the Platform — for example, providers of website hosting, database hosting, cloud file storage, email delivery, and website analytics. These providers process information on our behalf, only as needed to provide their service to us, and are not permitted to use your information for their own independent purposes.
We do not sell your personal information to anyone, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing purposes.
Children's Privacy
Much of what we do is teaching children the Quran and Islamic Studies, so protecting the privacy of minors is something we take seriously. Student accounts for minors are created and managed with the involvement of a parent or guardian, who can access the student's dashboard, review the information we hold, and contact us with any concerns.
We collect only the information about a student that is reasonably necessary to enrol them, schedule and run their classes, and track their attendance and progress. We do not knowingly collect information from children through open, unsupervised sign-up — enrolment is always initiated and overseen by a parent, guardian, or our administrative staff, and we treat that involvement as constituting verifiable parental consent for the student's information to be collected and used as described in this Policy.
If you are a parent or guardian and believe we hold more information about your child than is necessary, or would like it corrected or removed, please contact us using the details below.
Data Retention
We retain account, enrolment, attendance, and fee/salary records for as long as an account is active and for a reasonable period afterward, so that we can maintain accurate academic and financial history, respond to queries, and meet any legal or accounting obligations.
If a student discontinues or an account is closed, we may retain a reduced set of historical records (such as past attendance or payment history) rather than deleting them outright, as this history can be relevant to fee reconciliation and re-enrolment. You may ask us about what we retain and request deletion of information that is no longer needed, as described below.
Your Rights & Choices
Depending on your relationship with the Platform, you may:
- Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you or your child
- Ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or out of date
- Ask us to delete information we no longer need to retain
- Withdraw consent to non-essential communications, such as promotional messages, at any time
- Ask how a particular piece of information is used or with whom it has been shared
To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the details in "Contact Us" below. We will respond within a reasonable time and may need to verify your identity before making changes to protect against unauthorised access.
Grievance Officer: if you have a complaint or grievance about how we have handled your personal information, you may raise it with our Grievance Officer at rizafoundation.org@gmail.com. We aim to acknowledge grievances within 24 hours and resolve them within 15 days, in line with Indian data protection practice.
Sharing & Disclosure of Information
Beyond the trusted service providers described above, we disclose personal information only in limited circumstances: where required by law or a valid legal request, to protect the safety of a student or the public, to enforce our Terms & Conditions, or with your explicit consent.
We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes.
Voluntary Participation & Freedom of Belief
Enrolment on our Platform is entirely voluntary, chosen by the student (if an adult) or by a parent or guardian on behalf of a minor. We only hold the information described in this Policy about people who have chosen, or whose guardians have chosen, to engage with our educational services. Our full statement on freedom of belief and conscience, including the Islamic principles that inform it, is set out in our Terms & Conditions.
International Use & Mobile Application
Our students, parents, and teachers join us from many countries. Wherever you access the Platform from, your information is handled in line with this Policy and stored with the providers described above, which may process data in a country other than your own.
Our companion mobile application uses the same underlying account and data systems as the website and is covered by this same Policy. Signing in on the mobile app issues a secure access token to your device rather than a browser cookie; you can sign out at any time to revoke it. If push notifications are enabled on your device, we use them only to notify you of Platform-related updates (such as class reminders), never for advertising.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time — for example, as our Platform grows or as laws change. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision. Where a change is significant, we will take reasonable steps to bring it to your attention, such as an announcement on the Platform. Continued use of the Platform after an update means you accept the revised Policy.
Contact Us
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, or would like to exercise any of the rights described above, please reach out — we read and respond to every message personally.
rizafoundation.org@gmail.comOr reach us through our contact form →