1. Information we collect
- Account details. Your name, date of birth, and a phone number (verified by a one-time code) or a Google account. If you link both, they sit on one account. We also store your preferred language.
- Profile details (teachers and institutes). Bio, subjects, lesson modes (online, home tuition, teacher's place), fees, trial settings, city, state and country, optional LinkedIn or website link, and an optional photo. This is public, see section 2.
- Photo. Any user can add a profile photo. BSL staff review each new photo before anyone else can see it.
- Location. With your permission, your device's approximate or precise location, used to show teachers and learners near you and to search within 3, 7 or 14 km. You can also type a city instead. We store the location you list on your profile, not a history of where you go.
- Messages. What you send to other users in the app.
- Bookings and reviews. Lesson and trial requests, their status, and any rating or comment you leave.
- City feed. Posts, comments and likes you make.
- Calendar. If you allow it, the app adds confirmed lessons to your phone calendar. We do not upload your calendar to our servers.
- Support and reports. Anything you send through Contact BSL, and any report you file about a user, post or message.
- Referrals. Your referral code and which accounts joined through it.
- Safety and activity records. When you accepted the safety notice, which teacher phone numbers you viewed each day (to apply the daily limit), and a log of staff access to messages and bookings.
- Usage data. Pages and profiles viewed, link clicks, and whether you used Android, iOS or the web. We do not use advertising trackers.
We do not collect payment card or bank details. Nearby Teacher does not process payments.
2. How we use your information, and what is public
We use your information to:
- Show learners nearby teachers and institutes, and the reverse.
- Let users message, book and review each other, and send booking emails and notifications.
- Verify your phone number or Google account when you sign in.
- Keep the platform safe: review photos and reports, limit repeated OTP requests, and suspend accounts that break our Terms.
- Rank listings (BSL Verified first, then referral points, then rating) and measure how the service is used, in aggregate.
- Count how many different people each user has contacted, for internal review. This counts conversations, not their content.
What is public
A teacher's or institute's profile is public, in the app and on a web page created automatically at www.teachers.britishschooloflanguages.com. Search engines can index these pages, including pages for a village, district or subject. Only add details you are happy to be public. Phone numbers are not shown to anonymous visitors: a teacher's number is visible only to signed-in users, up to 5 different teachers per day.
We do not sell personal data, and we do not use it for third-party advertising.
4. Children and under-18 accounts
We ask for your date of birth when you sign up. Nearby Teacher is not intended for children under [13]. If you are under 18, a parent or guardian must give consent, and we collect their contact details, before you can message or book teachers.
A parent or guardian can ask to see, correct or delete a child's data by writing to teachers@britishschooloflanguages.com. If we learn we hold data of a child under the minimum age without consent, we will delete it.
5. Your rights, retention and security
Your choices
You can edit your profile in the app at any time, and turn off location or calendar access in your phone settings.
Access, correction and deletion
You can ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, or to delete your account and its data. Write to teachers@britishschooloflanguages.com or use Contact BSL in the app. We will respond within 30 days. Where you are covered by the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (India), the GDPR (EU/UK) or similar law, you have the rights those laws give you, including withdrawing consent.
Retention
We keep account and profile data while your account is active. One-time codes expire after 10 minutes. Messages, bookings and reviews are kept so both sides keep their history, until you ask for deletion. We may keep limited records where the law requires it or to handle a safety report. When your account is deleted, your public profile page is removed.
Security
One-time codes are stored only as a hash. Data travels over HTTPS. Access to the database is limited to authorised staff. No system is perfectly secure, so please protect your phone and account.