Singapore PDPA Compliant • Privacy-by-Design Architecture

Privacy Policy & Data Protection Notice

At TutorsNearMe.app (TutorsNearMe Singapore), protecting the privacy of Singapore parents, students, and educators is engineered directly into our codebase. This policy explains how we collect, use, mask, and safeguard your personal data in accordance with the Singapore Personal Data Protection Act 2012 (“PDPA”).

Effective Date: 1 January 2026Last Updated: 28 October 2026Jurisdiction: Republic of Singapore

Pre-Confirmation Masking

Zero Public PII on Job Boards & Shortlists

Parent phone numbers, full names, and exact 6-digit block/unit numbers are strictly redacted on our Live Jobs Board and Telegram broadcasts. Only the 2-digit postal sector (e.g., 53xxxx) is shown until a parent confirms a tutor.

Private Credential Vault

Encrypted Tutor Certificate Storage

MOE/NIE PGDE and university degree certificates uploaded via @tutorsnearme_bot or web are stored in a private, non-public object vault (tutor-certs). They are never indexed or shared publicly.

PayNow SGQR Security

No Credit Card or Bank Login Harvesting

Parents pay $0 upfront deposit. Post-Lesson 2 placement invoices use official Singapore PayNow SGQR codes with masked payer initials (e.g., Mrs. R***). We never collect or store card numbers.

Singapore PDPA Compliant

Zero Third-Party Data Brokering

We collect personal data solely to match families with neighbourhood tutors within 15 minutes of their block. We never sell, rent, or trade parent, student, or tutor lists to third-party marketers.

Section 01

1. PDPA Statement & Scope of This Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to all visitors, parents, legal guardians, students, and tutors who access or use TutorsNearMe.app (including our web application, interactive rate calculators, @tutorsnearme_bot on Telegram, @tutorsnearme_sg broadcast channel, and our WhatsApp Matching Concierge).

We are committed to complying with the Singapore Personal Data Protection Act 2012 (No. 26 of 2012) and its advisory guidelines issued by the Personal Data Protection Commission (“PDPC”). By submitting a tuition request, claiming or registering a tutor profile, or interacting with our messaging bots, you acknowledge and consent to the collection, use, and limited disclosure of your personal data as described in this policy.

Section 02

2. Personal Data We Collect

We practice strict data minimisation—we only ask for information required to compute postal-sector proximity, verify tutor qualifications, and coordinate tuition lessons:

A. Parents, Guardians & Students

Contact Identifiers: Parent/guardian salutation and name (e.g., “Mrs. Rachel Tan”), WhatsApp mobile number, or Telegram username.
Location & Proximity Data: 6-digit Singapore postal code (used to resolve your 2-digit postal sector, HDB/condo estate name, and MRT corridor). Full unit numbers are only needed once a home tutor is confirmed for Lesson 1.
Student Tuition Requirements: School level (e.g., P4–P6 PSLE, Sec 3–4 O-Level, JC H2), subjects, preferred tutor qualification tier, target hourly budget (SGD), preferred weekly time slots, and optional learning notes.
Billing Verification Data: Case reference code, PayNow transaction reference number, and payment confirmation status after Lesson 2.

B. Home & Online Tutors

Identity & Messaging Handles: Full name, mobile number, email address (optional), Telegram username, and Telegram numeric chat_id when linked via @tutorsnearme_bot.
Teaching & Corridor Profile: Qualification tier (Undergrad, Full-Time Grad, or Ex/Current MOE NIE), university/school background, subjects taught, minimum hourly rate (SGD), 2-digit postal sectors served, and short bio pitch.
Academic & NIE Certificates: Images or PDFs of university degree scrolls, transcripts, or NIE PGDE certificates submitted for verification (note: please mask your NRIC number before uploading any certificate).

Important Note on Singapore NRIC / FIN Numbers (PDPC Advisory Guidelines):

In compliance with Singapore PDPC Advisory Guidelines on the PDPA for NRIC and other National Identification Numbers, TutorsNearMe.app does NOT collect NRIC or FIN numbers from parents, students, or tutors. Tutors uploading MOE/NIE or university certificates should obscure or crop out any NRIC digits if printed on older scrolls.

Section 03

3. How We Use Your Personal Data (Purposes)

Your personal data is collected and processed strictly for the following operational purposes:

Hyper-Local Proximity Scoring: Mapping 6-digit Singapore postal codes to 2-digit postal sectors (01–82) and MRT/LRT corridors to score and rank tutors living within 15 minutes of the student's block (100 points for exact sector match; 85 points for adjacent sector match).
Curated Shortlisting & Priority Dispatch: Sending anonymized assignment alerts to nearby verified tutors via @tutorsnearme_bot and delivering 2 vetted tutor profiles to parents via WhatsApp or Telegram within 24 hours.
Credential Verification: Reviewing tutor academic and MOE/NIE certificates so parents only receive authentic, qualified educators.
Lesson 1 Handover & Replacement Guarantee: Exchanging contact details between the parent and the confirmed tutor for Lesson 1, and administering our Free Lesson 1 Replacement Guarantee if the first session is not a fit.
Post-Lesson 2 Commission Billing: Generating official Singapore PayNow SGQR invoices after Lesson 2 is completed (50% of Month 1 for standard matches or 35% of Month 1 for Founding Tutors) and reconciling payment references.
Platform Security & Abuse Prevention: Enforcing API rate limits, verifying stateless anti-bot captcha challenges, and preventing unauthorized scraping or tutor poaching.

Section 04

4. Strict PII Redaction & Stage-by-Stage Masking

Unlike traditional tuition forums or public job channels that post unmasked parent phone numbers or full block addresses, TutorsNearMe.app enforces automated server-side PII redaction at every stage of the matching lifecycle:

Matching Stage	Parent / Student Data Exposure	Tutor Data Exposure
1. Rate Check & Parent Intake /signup · /api/intake	6-digit postal code resolves locally/server-side to 2-digit sector & MRT corridor; API response redacts parent_contact as [REDACTED].	Benchmark rate bands & sample anonymized corridor profiles.
2. Job Broadcast & Live Jobs Board /jobs · @tutorsnearme_sg	Masked postal sector only (e.g., 52xxxx Tampines), academic level, subject, and hourly budget. Full postal code, unit number, name, and phone are hidden.	Tutors apply privately via @tutorsnearme_bot or their Founding Tutor Pass token.
3. Curated Parent Shortlist /case/[case_code]	Parent name masked (e.g., Mrs. R***) and postal partially masked (e.g., 520xxx).	First name/initials, verified credential tier badge, proximity score, hourly rate, and bio. Surname, phone number, and Telegram handle remain hidden.
4. Mutual Lesson 1 Confirmation Confirmed Match (1-to-1)	Contact details and lesson address shared exclusively with the single parent-selected tutor to conduct Lesson 1.	Selected tutor's verified full name and contact number shared with the confirming parent.
5. Post-Lesson 2 PayNow Invoice /invoice/[case_code]	Payer name masked to initials (e.g., Mrs. R***); displays only case reference, lesson count, and locked PayNow SGQR payload.	Assigned tutor first name and rate summary only.

Section 05

5. Tutor Certificate Verification & Private Vault Security

When tutors submit photos or PDFs of their university degree certificates or MOE/NIE PGDE credentials via @tutorsnearme_bot or our onboarding portal:

Non-Public Object Storage: Files are ingested into a restricted, private storage bucket (tutor-certs) with public access disabled and strict MIME-type and file-size validation (max 10 MB; JPEG, PNG, WebP, or PDF only).
Time-Limited Signed Inspection URLs: Certificate files can only be viewed by authorized verification admins via short-lived, cryptographically signed URLs.
Badge Display Only: Parents and public visitors only see the resulting verification status badge (e.g., “NIE PGDE Verified” or “Local Uni Honours Verified”)—never the raw certificate image or document.

Section 06

6. AI Matching Coordinator (“Chloe”) & Human-in-the-Loop Safeguards

TutorsNearMe.app utilizes an AI-assisted Matching Coordinator (“Chloe”) on WhatsApp and Telegram to structure intake requirements, validate 2026 Singapore rate bands, and score tutor applications based on postal proximity and subject fit.

Hard Privacy Guardrails: The AI Coordinator is bound by strict system-level instructions and database tool boundaries that prevent it from disclosing unconfirmed tutor surnames, phone numbers, or parent unit addresses.
Mandatory Owner Approval Gate: Tutor shortlists are reviewed and approved by our human operations team before being dispatched to parents.
No Model Training on Your PII: Conversations and personal contact details are never used to train public foundation models.

Section 07

7. Third-Party Sub-Processors & Infrastructure

To deliver reliable, low-latency matching across Singapore, we engage trusted infrastructure providers bound by strict data security obligations:

Cloudflare Edge & Workers

Application hosting, TLS encryption in transit, DDoS mitigation, and edge routing.

Neon Serverless Postgres (Singapore / AP)

Encrypted database storage (AES-256 at rest, TLS in transit) for tuition cases, tutor profiles, and audit logs.

WhatsApp Cloud API & Telegram Bot API

Used exclusively to deliver transactional matching updates, shortlist notifications, and tutor job alerts you initiate.

OneMap Singapore Postal API

Used to resolve 6-digit postal codes into HDB block/town names. Only the 6-digit postal code is queried—zero personal identifiers are sent.

Where any sub-processor processes data outside Singapore, we ensure that transfers comply with Section 26 of the Singapore PDPA (Transfer Limitation Obligation) through legally enforceable contractual protections and industry security certifications (SOC 2 Type II / ISO 27001).

Section 08

8. Cookies, Stateless Captcha & Technical Security

We do not use invasive third-party advertising cookies, cross-site retargeting pixels, or behavioral fingerprinting scripts:

Stateless HMAC Anti-Bot Verification: Our forms use a privacy-preserving, stateless math/challenge token signed with HMAC-SHA256 rather than intrusive third-party behavioral tracking CAPTCHAs.
IP Rate Limiting: Public API endpoints apply short-window IP rate limiting to prevent automated spam and scraping.
Crawl Exclusion on Private Routes: Our robots.txt explicitly blocks search engines and AI crawlers from indexing /case/*, /invoice/*, /admin, and /api/*.

Section 09

9. Data Retention & Archival Policy

In accordance with the PDPA Retention Limitation Obligation (Section 25), we retain personal data only for as long as it is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by Singapore law:

Unmatched / Cancelled Parent Requests: Personal contact identifiers on unfulfilled or cancelled tuition requests are anonymized or purged within 12 months of inactivity, or immediately upon a parent's written deletion request.
Active Tutor Bench Profiles: Retained while you remain an active tutor on our postal-sector bench. You may pause alerts or request full profile and certificate deletion at any time.
Invoice & Accounting Records: Completed placement invoice records and PayNow transaction references are retained for 5 years in compliance with Singapore Inland Revenue Authority (IRAS) record-keeping requirements.

Section 10

10. Your Rights Under the Singapore PDPA

Under the Singapore Personal Data Protection Act 2012, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

1. Right of Access

Request a copy of your personal data in our possession and information about how it has been used or disclosed within the past 12 months.

2. Right of Correction

Request that we update or correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal data (such as your covered postal sectors, hourly rate, or contact number).

3. Withdrawal of Consent

Withdraw your consent to receive job broadcasts or matching messages, or request complete deletion of your profile and stored certificates.

We respond to all verified PDPA access, correction, and withdrawal requests within 14 business days (and in all cases within the 30-day statutory period prescribed by the PDPA).

Section 11 · Data Protection Officer (DPO)

11. Contact Our Data Protection Officer

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, wish to exercise your Singapore PDPA rights (Access, Correction, or Withdrawal of Consent), or want to report a privacy concern, please contact our designated Data Protection Officer:

Email (DPO Desk)

privacy@tutorsnearme.app

Include your mobile number or case/tutor reference for fast verification.

Telegram Bot (Tutors)

@tutorsnearme_bot

Send /stop or message our coordinator to pause alerts or delete your bench record.

Governing Entity & Law

TutorsNearMe Singapore

Governed by the laws of the Republic of Singapore (PDPA 2012).