What we keep about you
Your email and the name you choose. Your date of birth (to know your age group), grade, subjects, goals and how much time you have. Where you live: your province and, from the address picker, your suburb, town and an approximate location. Your school, if you add it. Your profile photo, if you add one. When you agreed to these terms (with your internet address and device). The phones signed in to your account, so you can sign one out.
What you do on TRY
Your practice and progress. In Community: your posts, questions, answers, comments, photos and videos; your connections, the people and pages you follow, the places you asked to be notified about, your hearts and saves; reports you make and people you block or mute. In Explore: the videos you open (to count views, show your watch history and suggest lessons). In Practice: the subjects you study, your answers and scores, and the study files you download or report. In My toolkit: the marks you type in, your exam dates and the tools you keep, so they are there on any phone. In Play: your game scores and progress, and the certificates you earn.
Why
To run your account, personalise your learning and your For You feed, remind you about application dates you asked for, and keep Community safe. We never sell your information and we do not show adverts based on it.
Who sees what
You choose who sees each post: everyone, your grade, or your connections. You are on the friends game leaderboard only if you turn it on; then your friends see only the name and photo you already allow in Community. You can turn it off at any time. Your school and grade on your posts follow your settings in Me > Privacy. People you block cannot see your posts and you cannot see theirs. TRY staff can see what is needed to keep Community safe.
Study files and downloads
Past papers, guides and books come from the Department of Basic Education, Siyavula and other publishers. For most, TRY only keeps the link: your phone downloads the file from the publisher's own website, which can see the visit like any website does, and TRY keeps no copy. A few files TRY holds itself, and you get them through a short private link. Downloaded files are saved on your phone, under your account: you can remove them in My downloads. When you flag a file as broken or unclear, we keep that you did and why, so the team can fix it.
Checks before others see a post
Our own filters look for contact details and harmful words. Photos and videos are checked by an image-checking service before others see them. The text of a post, without your name, is checked by a text-checking service. Some of these services are outside South Africa.
Services that work for us
Companies that check and resize photos and videos, store and deliver files, send our emails (codes and notices) and check post text; Google, only if you use Continue with Google; and YouTube, for videos in Explore (see below). They may use your information only to do this work for TRY.
YouTube videos in Explore
Explore shows YouTube videos chosen by TRY. TRY uses YouTube API Services to read public facts about them (titles, lengths, pictures), never anything about you. When you play one, it plays in YouTube's own player, and Google may collect information as described in its Privacy Policy (policies.google.com/privacy) and YouTube's Terms of Service (www.youtube.com/t/terms). Pictures come from YouTube's servers. You can see and remove Google's access through your Google account settings (security.google.com/settings/security/permissions) if you ever signed in to YouTube.
How long we keep it
What you open and save, used for For You, and the Explore videos you open are deleted after 180 days. When you delete a post, its photos and videos are kept for 30 days in case someone reported it, then deleted. Reported content is kept as evidence while the report is handled. When you close your account, your information is deleted; posts made for TRY Learning or TRY Help stay, because they belong to TRY.
Children
TRY is for learners aged 12 and older, and most are under 18: a parent or guardian agrees for learners under 18. We protect their information as POPIA requires, collect only what TRY needs, and keep learners and unknown adults apart in For You.
Your choices
Change your name, your date of birth (you can correct it, but not make yourself older) and the rest of your details in Me. Change your email (we send a code to the new address first) and your password, and turn on an extra code at sign-in, in Me > My account. Choose your privacy settings in Me > Privacy. Close your account at any time. To get a copy of your information, ask TRY Help in the app and we will send it to you. Parents and guardians can ask the same.
This website (trylearn.co.za)
Reading this website needs no account and sets no cookies. To see how many people visit and which pages help, we count visits with a tool that uses no cookies and does not identify you. We show no adverts.
When you contact us
The contact form asks for your email and what you choose to tell us: your name, and for organisations your organisation, role, phone and website if you add them. We use them only to answer you, never for marketing, and delete your message after 12 months. Ask us to delete it sooner at any time, on the contact page.
Questions?
Ask TRY Help in the app, or contact us.