Fran-el International School ("we", "us", "our") is committed to protecting the privacy of our students, parents and guardians, staff, applicants and website visitors. This policy explains what personal data we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the rights you have over it.
Last updated: 3 August 2026
1. Who we are and what this policy covers
Fran-el International School is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. We are a school established and operating in Ghana, and we process personal data in accordance with the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843).
This policy applies to every channel through which we handle personal data:
- our public website and any forms on it (admissions enquiries, contact, careers, newsletter);
- our school management portals for administrators, teachers, students and parents/guardians;
- our mobile applications for Android and iOS;
- messages we send and receive by WhatsApp, SMS, email and in-app notification;
- records we keep in the ordinary course of running the school.
Our school management system is the Educare platform, supplied and hosted on our behalf by Henapp Infocom Technologies, who act as our data processor. They process personal data only on our documented instructions and are bound by confidentiality and security obligations. They do not use your data for their own purposes and do not sell it.
2. The personal data we collect
2.1 Students
- Identity and contact details: full name, date of birth, sex, photograph, admission number, nationality, home address.
- Academic records: class and stream, subjects, scores, assessments, examination results, report cards, transcripts, promotion history.
- Attendance and conduct: daily attendance, punctuality, behaviour and disciplinary records, commendations.
- Health and welfare: clinic visits, allergies, chronic conditions, medication, emergency contacts, and any special educational need or disability disclosed to us. This is sensitive personal data and is handled with additional care.
- Financial records: fees invoiced, payments received, balances, optional services subscribed to (transport, feeding, boarding).
- Activity data: library borrowing and reading, club and house membership, co-curricular participation, awards.
- Where our system is used to record it: pick-up authorisation, and time-stamped attendance capture which may include a photograph and location taken at the moment of check-in.
2.2 Parents and guardians
- Name, relationship to the student, occupation, address, telephone and WhatsApp number, email address.
- Portal account details and communication preferences, including opt-in and opt-out choices.
- Payment records and correspondence with the school.
2.3 Staff and job applicants
- Recruitment records: application, curriculum vitae, references, interview notes and scores, qualifications.
- Employment records: contract, role, department, payroll and tax details, bank details, leave, appraisals, training and certificates, attendance and duty rosters.
2.4 Website visitors and app users
- Information you submit through a form (enquiry, contact message, newsletter subscription, online admission application).
- Technical data collected automatically: IP address, browser and device type, operating system, pages viewed, and the date and time of the visit.
- Session cookies necessary to keep you signed in and to protect forms against abuse.
3. Children's data and parental consent
We are a school, so most of the data we hold concerns children. We treat it with particular care:
- Personal data about a student is provided by, and account access is granted to, a parent or legal guardian at enrolment.
- Student portal accounts give a student access to their own academic information only.
- We do not knowingly collect personal data directly from a child through our public website, and our messaging channels are directed at parents, guardians and staff.
- We do not use children's data for advertising, profiling or any automated decision that produces a legal or similarly significant effect, and we never sell it.
- A parent or guardian may at any time ask to see, correct or restrict the data we hold about their child.
4. How and why we use personal data
We use personal data only for purposes connected with running the school:
- to admit, register and educate students, and to record and report their academic progress;
- to take attendance, safeguard students, and manage pick-up, health and welfare;
- to invoice and collect fees, issue receipts, and keep proper financial records;
- to communicate with parents and guardians about their child and about the life of the school;
- to recruit, employ, pay and develop staff;
- to meet our legal and regulatory obligations, including reporting to education authorities and examination bodies;
- to keep our systems secure, investigate misuse, and maintain audit trails of who accessed what.
Our lawful bases under Act 843 are: performance of the contract of enrolment or employment; compliance with a legal obligation; the legitimate interests of running a school safely and efficiently; the protection of a person's vital interests in an emergency; and consent where consent is the appropriate basis — notably for optional WhatsApp, SMS and email messaging, for the use of photographs in publicity, and for newsletter subscriptions. Where we rely on consent you may withdraw it at any time, without affecting anything done before you withdrew it.
5. WhatsApp messaging
We use the WhatsApp Business Platform, provided by Meta Platforms, Inc., to communicate with parents, guardians and staff. This section explains exactly how that works.
5.1 How you opt in
We send WhatsApp messages only to people who have given us their number for that purpose and have agreed to be contacted this way. Consent is captured in one or more of the following ways:
- on the enrolment or admission form, where you supply a WhatsApp number and tick the box agreeing to receive school messages;
- in your portal profile, where you can switch WhatsApp messaging on or off yourself;
- in writing to the school office; or
- by messaging us first on our published WhatsApp number.
We do not buy, rent or scrape phone numbers, and we do not add anyone to WhatsApp messaging without their agreement.
5.2 What we send
- attendance alerts, including notification that a student is absent;
- fee invoices, payment reminders and receipts;
- notification that a report card, result or statement is ready;
- academic calendar dates, term notices, events and meeting reminders;
- admissions and application status updates;
- urgent safety, health and closure notices;
- occasional school news and greetings, where you have agreed to receive them.
We do not send third-party advertising, and we never share your number with anyone for marketing.
5.3 How to stop
You can opt out at any time by replying STOP to any WhatsApp message from us, by switching WhatsApp off in your portal communication preferences, or by contacting the school office. We action opt-outs promptly and, once you have opted out, we will use email, SMS or the portal instead. We will still contact you by another channel where we are legally obliged to, or in a genuine emergency concerning your child.
5.4 What Meta receives
To deliver a WhatsApp message, your telephone number and the content of the message pass through Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform. Meta processes that information as described in the WhatsApp Privacy Policy, and their handling of it is governed by their own terms, not by this policy. Standard carrier message and data rates may apply to you.
6. SMS, email and in-app messages
We send the same categories of message by SMS, email and in-app notification, through our messaging providers. Every marketing or newsletter email carries an unsubscribe link, and you can turn optional SMS and email off in your portal preferences. Operational messages that we must send you as a parent, guardian, student or employee — a fee invoice, an exam timetable, a safeguarding notice — are not marketing and continue regardless of marketing preferences.
7. Our mobile applications
Our Android and iOS apps give parents, students, teachers and administrators access to the same information as the web portal. The apps request device permissions only for features you use, and you can refuse or later revoke any of them in your device settings:
- Camera and photo library — to upload a profile photo, submit homework, or attach a document.
- Storage / files — to download report cards, invoices, timetables and library material.
- Notifications — to deliver alerts you have subscribed to.
- Location — only where your school uses location-verified attendance check-in, and only at the moment you check in. We do not track device location in the background.
The apps contain no third-party advertising software and no advertising trackers. We do not sell app data.
8. Payments
Fee payments made through the portal are processed by regulated payment providers. Card numbers and mobile-money PINs are entered on the provider's own secure page and are never stored on our systems. We retain only the transaction reference, amount, date, method and status, which we need in order to credit your account and keep proper accounts.
9. Who we share personal data with
We do not sell personal data. We share it only where necessary, and only with:
- Henapp Infocom Technologies, as our software provider and hosting processor;
- Meta Platforms, to the extent needed to deliver WhatsApp messages you have opted in to;
- our SMS gateway and email delivery providers;
- payment processors and our bankers, for fee collection and reconciliation;
- education authorities, examination councils and other regulators, where we are required to report;
- a student's parents or legal guardians;
- medical or emergency services, where a person's health or safety requires it;
- our professional advisers, auditors and insurers, under a duty of confidentiality;
- a purchaser or successor, if the school is reorganised or transferred, subject to the same protections;
- law enforcement or a court, where we are legally compelled.
10. Transfers outside Ghana
Some of our providers — including Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform and our email and hosting infrastructure — operate servers outside Ghana. Where personal data is transferred abroad we satisfy ourselves that it remains protected by contractual safeguards, and we transfer only what is necessary to deliver the service.
11. How we keep data secure
- All traffic to our website, portals and apps is encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS).
- Passwords are stored only as irreversible cryptographic hashes.
- Access is role-based: a user sees only the records their role requires, and a parent sees only their own children.
- Sign-in attempts are rate-limited, sessions can be revoked, and administrative actions are written to an audit log.
- Data is backed up regularly, and restores are tested.
- Staff are trained on confidentiality and are given access only for as long as their role requires it.
No system can be guaranteed perfectly secure. If a breach occurs that is likely to affect your rights, we will notify you and the Data Protection Commission as Act 843 requires.
12. How long we keep data
- Student academic records — retained long-term, so that transcripts and testimonials can be issued to former students.
- Financial records — at least six years, as tax and audit law requires.
- Employment records — for the duration of employment and for six years afterwards.
- Unsuccessful job applications — up to twelve months, unless you ask us to delete them sooner.
- Website enquiries and contact messages — up to twenty-four months.
- Messaging logs (WhatsApp, SMS, email delivery records) — up to twenty-four months, as proof that a required notice was sent.
- Marketing and newsletter subscriptions — until you unsubscribe.
13. Your rights
Under the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) you have the right to:
- be told whether we hold personal data about you, and to be given a copy of it;
- have inaccurate or incomplete data corrected;
- have data erased or its use restricted, where we no longer have a lawful reason to keep it;
- object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and to stop direct marketing at any time;
- withdraw a consent you previously gave, including consent to WhatsApp messaging;
- complain to the Data Protection Commission of Ghana.
Write to us using the details below. We will respond within the period required by law, and we may ask you to confirm your identity first so that we do not disclose a child's records to the wrong person. Exercising these rights is free.
14. Cookies
We use only the cookies our site needs to work: a session cookie that keeps you signed in, a security token that protects forms against cross-site request forgery, and a preference cookie that remembers your chosen language and theme. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. You can clear or block cookies in your browser, but the portals will not be able to sign you in without them.
15. Links to other sites
Our site and messages may link to third-party sites, such as examination bodies, payment providers or partner organisations. We are not responsible for their content or privacy practices, and we encourage you to read their policies.
16. Changes to this policy
We review this policy periodically and will publish any update on this page with a revised "last updated" date. Where a change materially affects how we use your data, we will tell you directly.
17. Contact us
For any question about this policy, or to exercise any of the rights described above, contact us:
