Terms of Service

1. Agreement overview

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) form a binding legal agreement between you and Stardy. By creating an account, accessing, or using any feature of the Stardy platform (the “Platform”), you agree to be bound by these Terms, our Privacy Policy, and any supplemental terms referenced herein. If you use the Platform on behalf of a school, business, or other legal entity, you warrant that you have the authority to bind that entity to these Terms, in which case “you” refers to that entity.

If you do not agree to these Terms you must not use the Platform. We may decline to provide the Platform to any person or school at our discretion, and we may terminate accounts that breach these Terms as described in clause 14.

2. Eligibility and user roles

The Platform is intended for use by South African primary and secondary schools, their educators, and their enrolled learners in grades 7 to 12. Users under the age of 18 require a competent person (parent, legal guardian, or authorised school representative) to have reviewed these Terms and consented to the processing of their personal information as described in the Privacy Policy.

Learners may optionally provide a parent or legal guardian’s WhatsApp phone number during account registration to enable teachers to send performance updates and educational communications. This phone number is stored securely and used only for this purpose, as described in the Privacy Policy.

You warrant that all information you supply when creating an account is accurate, current, and complete, and that you will promptly update it if it changes. You must not create an account using another person’s identity, impersonate another user, or permit any third party to use your credentials.

3. School verification

Teachers and learners may only register under a school that we have verified and approved. Verified schools are issued a unique school code and are bound by a separate schools agreement with Stardy. Where this process has not completed, account creation under that school will be refused. Stardy reserves the right to withdraw a school’s verification for material breach.

4. Your use of the Platform

Subject to these Terms, Stardy grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to access and use the Platform for lawful educational purposes within the Republic of South Africa. The Platform is provided as a service: you do not acquire ownership of any part of the Platform, its source code, or its intellectual property.

You agree not to, and not to permit any third party to:

• use the Platform to distribute unlawful, hateful, harassing, or obscene content;
• circumvent, disable, or otherwise interfere with the Platform’s security features;
• attempt to reverse engineer, decompile, or extract the source code of the Platform;
• use the Platform to train or fine-tune a competing AI model;
• use automated scrapers, bots, or crawlers to harvest content from the Platform;
• use the Platform in a way that interferes with any other user’s experience;
• violate any applicable South African law or the intellectual property rights of a third party.

The quiz integrity controls in the Platform, including tab-switch detection and auto-submission on focus loss, are part of the service. Attempts to defeat these controls are a material breach of these Terms.

5. Your content

You retain ownership of the documents, images, text, and other content you upload to the Platform (“Your Content”). By uploading Your Content you grant Stardy a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to host, store, cache, reproduce, and distribute Your Content strictly to the extent necessary to provide the Platform to you and the other users you have authorised. This licence ends when you delete the relevant content, subject to retention periods described in the Privacy Policy and to backups that age out within 90 days.

You warrant that you own Your Content or that you have the rights necessary to grant the above licence, and that Your Content does not infringe any third-party intellectual property, privacy, or publicity right. You are solely responsible for Your Content and the consequences of sharing it on the Platform.

6. Stardy content and third-party material

Stardy provides AI-generated study aids, including quizzes, lesson plans, flashcards, and explanations. This AI-generated content is owned by Stardy and protected by South African and international copyright law. You may view, print, and store Stardy content for your own educational use within an enrolled class, but may not redistribute it publicly without our prior written consent.

Curriculum context provided through the Platform is derived from public CAPS (Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement) documents published by the South African Department of Basic Education. CAPS documents remain the property of the Department of Basic Education. Past-paper metadata and references are provided for educational context only and do not imply ownership by Stardy.

References to third-party services (for example, Agora, OneSignal, Google AI) are for identification only and do not imply endorsement. Your use of a linked third-party service is governed by that service’s own terms.

7. AI-generated output

The Platform uses large language models to generate quizzes, lesson plans, flashcards, explanations, and marking aids. AI output is offered as a starting point; it may contain inaccuracies, mis-stated facts, or content that is not appropriate for your particular learners. You acknowledge that:

• AI output is a study aid, not a substitute for qualified instruction;
• educators are responsible for reviewing AI-generated content before relying on it in assessments or teaching;
• AI output may be regenerated and may differ between runs, even for the same prompt;
• Stardy does not warrant that AI output will be error-free, CAPS-compliant in every case, or suitable for any particular learner cohort.

Where Stardy ingests past papers or other educational resources provided by a school, those resources remain the property of the school and are used only as described in the Privacy Policy and in our Data Processing Addendum.

8. Fees, invoicing, and the CPA

Where a school licenses the Platform for its educators and learners, the fees, term, payment schedule, and cancellation rights are set out in the schools agreement signed with that school. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, no fees are payable directly by learners.

Consumer schools are entitled to the statutory cooling-off right in section 44 of the ECT Act where it applies. Under section 16 of the CPA, fixed-term agreements may be cancelled with 20 business days’ notice subject to a reasonable cancellation penalty. Stardy will not enforce automatic renewals without giving the notice required by section 14 of the CPA.

Where payment is by credit or debit card, processing is handled by a certified payment service provider. Stardy does not receive or store full card numbers.

9. Suspension and termination

You may close your account at any time from the Settings page. A school administrator may close the accounts of learners or educators associated with that school. On closure we disable access immediately and remove personal information in accordance with the retention periods in the Privacy Policy.

We may suspend or terminate your account without notice if you materially breach these Terms, if we reasonably believe you are infringing the rights of a third party, if required by law, or if we discontinue the Platform. Where practicable we will give you 14 days’ notice and an opportunity to export your content before termination.

10. Warranties

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Platform is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranty of any kind, whether express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. Nothing in these Terms limits the implied warranty of quality in section 55 of the CPA where that warranty cannot be excluded by law.

We do not warrant that the Platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of viruses or other harmful components, or that any given piece of AI-generated content will be suitable for your purpose. We do not warrant the accuracy of marks entered by teachers or administrators.

11. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Stardy, its directors, officers, employees, and agents will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, or goodwill, arising out of or related to your use of the Platform, even if Stardy has been advised of the possibility of such damages. Our aggregate liability for any claim arising out of or related to these Terms is limited to the greater of (a) the fees actually paid to Stardy for the Platform in the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) ZAR 1,000.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability for (i) death or personal injury caused by gross negligence; (ii) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; or (iii) any other liability that cannot be limited by South African law, including under the CPA and the POPIA.

12. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Stardy and its representatives from and against any claim, loss, damage, cost, or expense (including reasonable attorney’s fees) arising out of (a) Your Content, (b) your use of the Platform in breach of these Terms, (c) your breach of any warranty in these Terms, or (d) any infringement by you of any applicable law or of any third party’s rights.

13. Privacy

Our collection and use of personal information through the Platform is described in our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms. The Privacy Policy explains your rights under POPIA and how to exercise them.

14. Changes to these Terms

We may amend these Terms from time to time to reflect changes in the law, the Platform, or our business. Material amendments will be communicated by email to the address on file and by an in-app banner at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued use of the Platform after that period constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms. If you do not accept the revised Terms you must close your account before the effective date.

15. Governing law and dispute resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa. Any dispute arising out of or related to these Terms will first be referred to good-faith negotiation between the parties for 30 days. If unresolved, the dispute will be submitted to arbitration under the Expedited Arbitration Rules of the Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa, seat Johannesburg, conducted in English. Nothing in this clause prevents either party from applying for urgent interim relief in a competent South African court.

16. General

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any schools agreement or supplemental terms referenced, constitute the entire agreement between the parties and supersede all prior agreements on the same subject matter. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of that provision. If any provision is held invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect. You may not assign these Terms without our prior written consent; we may assign these Terms to a successor in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of substantially all of our assets.

17. Contact

Questions about these Terms can be sent to stardyLMS@gmail.com. The postal address for formal notices will be published in our PAIA manual and on the schools agreement.