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Zelus International

Privacy Notice

Version 5.0 · Effective June 8, 2026

1. About this notice

This Privacy Notice explains how Zelus International FZCO ("Zelus", "we", "us", "our") and our affiliated brands (including Zelus Academy at learn.zelusinternational.com) collect, use, and protect personal information when you use our websites, services, and learning platforms.

This notice applies globally. The same protections, the same rights, the same standards, regardless of where you live or where our servers happen to be located. Where local law gives you stronger rights than what we describe here, those local rights also apply automatically.

Zelus Academy is designed primarily for adult learners and professionals. Minor learners may also use the Services, subject to verifiable parental or guardian consent obtained by attestation at signup. See Section 9 for the full framework.

2. What we collect

We collect only what we need:

For minor learners (under 18), we collect the minimum needed to deliver educational content and do not enrich the data with information from third-party sources. See Section 9 for additional protections.

For students enrolled through a school program, the institution may provide account-creation information (name, year group, course assignment) on the student''s behalf under a School Service Provider Agreement.

We do not collect:

3. Why we collect it

Six purposes only:

  1. To deliver the service: so you can sign up, log in, take courses, and receive certificates
  2. To improve the service: aggregated usage patterns help us decide what content to add and how to improve the experience
  3. To communicate with you: course updates, certificates, billing, support responses (for school-enrolled students, communications go to the school administrator; for minor accounts where parental consent has been revoked, communications route to the parent or guardian)
  4. To protect the service: detecting fraud, abuse, automated bots (for example, the captcha on our signup form), and breaches of our Terms of Service including breaches of the eligibility and parental consent representations
  5. To comply with law: tax records, regulatory reporting, lawful requests from authorities
  6. To enforce our terms: investigating violations including false eligibility or parental consent representations made at signup

We will never sell your personal information. Not now, not later, not in aggregate, not for any reason. We also never sell, share for advertising purposes, or use for targeted advertising any data about a minor learner. If we ever change this commitment, we will notify you in advance and give you the opportunity to delete your data before the change takes effect.

4. Lawful basis for processing

We process your personal information only when we have a lawful basis to do so. The bases we rely on are:

This corresponds to Article 6 of the EU/UK GDPR and the equivalent grounds under UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 on the Protection of Personal Data (PDPL).

5. Who we share it with

We use a small set of carefully chosen service providers to operate our services. Each one is contractually bound to protect your data and process it only on our instructions, under Data Processing Agreements that meet GDPR, UAE PDPL, and equivalent international standards.

Named subprocessors:

ProviderPurposeData they see
Google reCAPTCHABot detection on signup formIP address, browser fingerprint, behavioral signals at the moment of signup
Google AnalyticsAnonymous traffic analysisPage views, referrer, IP address (anonymised; disabled for accounts flagged as minor learners)
Web hosting and CDN providerServer infrastructureAll data we store, encrypted at rest
Email delivery providerTransactional emails (verification, certificates, notifications); for school-enrolled students, only to school administrator; for minor accounts where parental consent has been revoked, only to parent or guardianRecipient email address, message content
Payment processorCard payments (only if you make a paid purchase)Your name, billing address, card details (we never see the card number directly)

We do not share your personal information with anyone else, except when the law requires it (subpoenas, court orders, tax authorities) and only the minimum required to comply; when you explicitly direct us to share (for example, linking your account to a third-party tool); or in a business transfer (merger, acquisition, sale of assets) and only if the same protections continue to apply.

We never share minor learner data with advertising networks, data brokers, social media platforms for marketing, or any third party not strictly necessary to deliver the educational service.

6. Your rights

These rights apply to everyone, everywhere, regardless of your country of residence:

  1. Access: get a copy of what we hold about you
  2. Correction: fix anything that is wrong
  3. Deletion: we will erase your data when you no longer need our services
  4. Portability: download your data in a machine-readable format
  5. Restriction: limit how we use your data while a complaint is being resolved
  6. Objection: say no to specific uses, especially marketing - you can opt out at any time
  7. Withdrawal of consent: where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time
  8. No automated decision-making: we do not use algorithms to make decisions about you that produce legal or similarly significant effects without human review
  9. Complaint: lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority
  10. No retaliation: we will not deny service, raise prices, or reduce service quality because you exercised any of these rights

To exercise any of these rights: email support@zelusinternational.com with the subject line "Privacy request" and a brief description of what you need. We respond within 30 days. For sensitive requests we may verify your identity before fulfilling them. For minor learners and school-enrolled students, we respond within 14 days as a priority handling commitment. Parents and legal guardians can exercise these rights on behalf of an under-18 user (see Section 9).

7. How we protect your data

Technical and organisational measures:

We honour the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal. If your browser sends it, we treat that as an opt-out request from non-essential data sharing.

8. How long we keep it

Active account dataAs long as your account is open, plus 6 months after closure
Minor learner account dataDeleted within 7 days of a verified deletion request from the learner or their parent/guardian; otherwise within 30 days of account closure
School-enrolled student dataPer the School Service Provider Agreement; typically deleted within 30 days of institutional account termination
Certificates and academic records7 years (industry standard for educational credentials)
Payment records7 years (tax law requirement in most jurisdictions)
Marketing dataUntil you opt out, then deleted immediately. We never collect marketing data on minor learners.
Support tickets3 years after resolution
Log files90 days

9. International transfers

Our primary operations are based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Your data may be processed in other countries where our service providers operate (mainly the European Union, United Kingdom, and United States).

When data leaves the country where you provided it, we use Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) or equivalent legal mechanisms approved by your local data protection authority to ensure the same level of protection follows the data wherever it goes.

10. Minor learners, age, and parental consent

Service design and minimum age

Zelus Academy is designed primarily for adult learners and professionals. While the educational content may be of value to minor learners aged 13 and older, our default user is an adult.

We do not knowingly accept users below 13 years of age, anywhere in the world. In jurisdictions where local law requires a higher minimum age for consent to data processing without parental involvement (for example, 16 in some European Union member states under GDPR Article 8; 18 in the United Arab Emirates under the PDPL; 18 in India under the DPDP Act 2023), users below the local threshold may not create accounts without obtaining verifiable consent from their parent or legal guardian.

Parental consent attestation for users under 18

If you are under 18 years of age, you may use the Services only with the consent of your parent or legal guardian. You provide this consent through a contractual attestation made at signup by accepting our Terms of Service (see Terms of Service, Appendix A.2 for the full warranty text).

By creating an account, an under-18 user represents and warrants that:

We rely on this attestation in good faith. We do not technically verify parental consent at signup. The attestation is a legally binding warranty made as part of the Terms of Service contract; a false attestation is a material breach with the consequences described in the Terms.

Reservation of right to verify. We reserve the right to request verification of age, parental consent, or identity at any time if we have reasonable basis to believe a representation may be inaccurate, and to suspend an account pending such verification.

Enhanced protections for minor learners (under 18)

For users identified as minor learners (under 18), the following protections apply automatically:

Revocation of parental consent

If a parent or legal guardian becomes aware that their under-18 child has signed up to the Services and wishes to revoke their consent, the parent or guardian may contact support@zelusinternational.com with the subject "Parental consent revocation". The request should include enough information to identify the account (the child''s email address or username; if unknown, a description of the circumstances and we will work with you to identify the account). We may ask for verification of your identity and your relationship to the under-18 user.

On verified revocation:

Parents and legal guardians may also exercise any of the rights in Section 5 on behalf of an under-18 user without first revoking consent. Use subject line "Minor learner request" for routine data requests; we respond within 14 days.

School Use program (institutional enrolments)

Schools, universities, accredited learning programs, and similar educational institutions can enrol students aged 13 and above through our School Use program. Under this program:

Schools interested in the School Use program may contact support@zelusinternational.com with subject "School Use enquiry".

Compliance frameworks recognised

We design our age policy and minor learner protections to meet or exceed the following frameworks:

Reporting an underage account

If you believe a person below the applicable minimum age has created or accessed a Zelus Academy account, please contact support@zelusinternational.com with the subject "Underage account report". We investigate promptly and, where appropriate, suspend the account within 24 hours and delete the associated personal data within 7 days of a verified report.

11. Updates to this notice

When we change this notice in any material way, we will:

  1. Update the "Version" and "Effective" date at the top
  2. Email registered users at the address tied to their account (for school-enrolled students, this notice goes to the school administrator; for under-18 accounts where parental consent has been revoked, to the parent or guardian)
  3. Display a notice on our websites for at least 30 days
  4. For material changes that reduce your rights (or reduce minor learner protections), give you a meaningful opportunity to delete data before the new terms take effect

12. Contact us

For any privacy question, request, or complaint:

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

Zelus International FZCO · Dubai, United Arab Emirates

This notice covers all Zelus brands including Zelus Academy. Designed primarily for adult learners; minor learners welcomed with verifiable parental consent.