Privacy Policy

Boitekanelo College

Effective date: 18 August 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how Boitekanelo College collects, uses, stores and protects personal information when you visit our website, contact the College, make an enquiry, apply to study, use a College service or otherwise interact with us. It should be read together with any service-specific notice shown when information is collected.

Who We Are

Boitekanelo College is the data controller for the personal information covered by this policy. The College can be contacted at Plot 5824 Masetlheng, Tlokweng, Gaborone, Botswana, by telephone at (+267) 3980-500, or through the Contact Us page. Mark a request “Data privacy request” so it can be directed to the authorised privacy contact.

Information We Collect

The information we collect depends on how you interact with the College and may include:

• Identity and contact details that you choose to provide, such as your name, email address and telephone number.
• Application, enrolment, academic, funding and student-support information needed to provide College services.
• Enquiry, complaint, event registration and other correspondence records.
• Website and service information such as page visits, date and time, browser or device information, response times and security logs.
• Questions submitted to online services, including Kanelo, together with the answers provided and any optional follow-up details submitted with consent.

Do not submit bank or card details, account numbers, CVV, PINs, passwords, identity or passport numbers, medical records, or a home address through Kanelo or another general website enquiry channel. Sensitive information should be provided only through an authorised secure College process when it is genuinely required.

How We Use Your Information

The College may use personal information to respond to enquiries, process applications, provide education and student services, communicate important updates, manage events and support requests, meet legal and regulatory obligations, protect College systems, understand service performance and improve approved information and support.

Our Lawful Basis

Depending on the interaction, the College processes personal information with consent, to take requested steps before or during enrolment, to meet a legal obligation, to protect a person’s vital interests, to perform a task in the public interest, or for a legitimate institutional interest that does not override the rights of the individual. Where processing is based on consent, consent may be withdrawn at any time without affecting earlier lawful processing.

When We Share Information

Personal information is available only to authorised College staff and approved service providers who need it for their work. The College may also share information where required by law, regulation, accreditation, funding or sponsorship arrangements, or where necessary to protect people, systems and legal rights. We do not sell personal information.

Automated and Online Services

Kanelo is the College’s virtual assistant and is one of the online services covered by this policy. It searches College-approved answers and knowledge resources to respond to questions. It does not make admission, funding, sponsorship, payment, disciplinary, medical or other formal decisions; those decisions remain with authorised people and organisations.

Relevant Kanelo chat context may be sent to OpenAI as an artificial-intelligence service provider, which may involve processing outside Botswana. Kanelo uses the OpenAI Responses API with response storage disabled. Under OpenAI’s default API policy, API content is not used to train its models unless the customer opts in, while limited abuse-monitoring logs may be retained for up to 30 days. College knowledge files placed in the managed vector store remain there until an authorised administrator deletes them.

International Processing

Some approved service providers may process information outside Botswana. Where this happens, the College is responsible for applying the safeguards required for an international transfer and for limiting access to what is necessary for the service.

How Long We Keep Information

The College retains personal information only for as long as it is needed for the purpose for which it was collected, or for a longer period where a lawful, regulatory, contractual, complaint, security or record-keeping requirement applies.

• Optional Kanelo follow-up contact details are currently retained for up to 90 days and are then anonymised. Staff may anonymise them sooner when the enquiry has been resolved.
• Identifiable Kanelo chat records are currently retained for up to 365 days. Identifiers are then removed while non-personal statistics may be retained for service planning and trend analysis.
• An email address supplied only to receive a requested transcript is used for that delivery and is not added to a follow-up record unless separate consent is given.

Security and Data Minimisation

The College limits collection to information reasonably needed for an approved purpose, restricts backend access through staff permissions, uses pseudonymous references where appropriate and provides processes for retention and anonymisation. No online service can promise absolute security, so sensitive information should be submitted only through an authorised secure College channel.

Your Privacy Rights

Subject to the Botswana Data Protection Act, 2024 (Act 18 of 2024) and applicable exceptions, a data subject may request access, correction, erasure, restriction or portability of personal information; object to processing; withdraw consent; and ask for information about recipients and retention. A person may also lodge a complaint with Botswana’s Information and Data Protection Commission.

Changes to This Policy

The College may update this policy when its services, providers, legal requirements or retention practices change. The effective date at the top identifies the current version.

Contact Us About Privacy

Submit privacy questions or rights requests through the Contact Us page, call (+267) 3980-500, or write to Boitekanelo College at Plot 5824 Masetlheng, Tlokweng, Gaborone, Botswana. Mark the correspondence “Data privacy request”.