Privacy policy

What personal information STUACCO collects, why, who can see it and what your rights are. Last updated 15 October 2026.

1. Who we are

STUACCO is a student accommodation company. We are the “responsible party” for the personal information of our students, the people who pay their rent, their visitors and the people who ask about our rooms, under South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA).

This policy covers this website and the Rentlink Students app, which we use to run our residences: finding a room, the student records, the gate, repairs, messages, the rent and the Panic Button. “Find a room”, “Student Login” and “Security Desk” on this website open that app.

2. This website

This website has no forms, uses no cookies and no tracking or advertising tools, and we do not keep records of visits to it. The social media icons open our pages on those networks, which have their own privacy policies.

3. What we collect in the app, and why

We collect only what is needed to house our students: giving them their rooms, collecting rent, fixing problems, controlling who comes into a residence and getting help to them in an emergency.

Information	Who it is about	Why we need it
Name, username, phone number, e-mail address, role and student number	Everyone with an account	To create your account, let you sign in, and let the residence contact you
Password	Everyone with an account	To sign in. It is stored only in a scrambled (hashed) form that cannot be read
Residence, room, and the dates you moved in and out	Students	To manage rooms and who lives in them
Enrolment details: whether the enrolment fee is paid and the lease signed, whether you pay cash or have a bursary, and the bursary's provider, reference, contact, amount and dates	Students	To enrol you
Name, relationship, ID number, phone number and e-mail address of the person responsible for the rent	The student, or a parent, guardian, sponsor or other person who pays for them	For the lease and for collecting rent
Rent instalments and the payments recorded against them	Students	To keep the rent account
Tickets: what you reported, comments, who fixed it and what it cost	Students, staff, contractors	To get problems fixed and keep a record
Messages, chat rooms, polls and votes	Everyone who uses chat	To let you communicate
The photo on your student card, and a record of each time the card is checked	Students	So security can confirm that a card belongs to its holder
Visitor passes: the visitor's name and, if given, phone number and vehicle registration; the date and time of the visit; when they came in and left	Visitors and the students they visit	To control who enters a residence
Panic Button alerts (Armed Response and Ambulance) and requests for security support: when you sent it, what you said it was about, the type of device, who responded and what happened; for an alert, your location while it is open (see section 4)	Students; the security guards who respond	To get help to you quickly
The spoken phrase you chose for the Armed Response alert, if you chose one	Students who have the security service	So that your phone can send an Armed Response alert when it hears you say it
Whether you have the ambulance service and the security service, and whether you have asked for one	Students	To provide the services you chose
Your medical aid (the provider and your membership number), and the name and contact number of your next of kin, which you give under My Account	Students and their next of kin	So that the ambulance that comes to you has them, and your next of kin can be told
Name, phone number, e-mail address and message	People who ask about a room from its advert	So the residence can contact you
Technical records: the internet address (IP) of each request to the app, the time and what was asked for	Everyone who uses the app	To keep the app secure and find faults

We collect this information from you, from our office when it registers you, and (for the person responsible for the rent) from the student. If you give us someone else's information, please make sure they know.

4. Your location

Students who have the ambulance service or the security service have a Panic Button, and the app asks permission to use the phone's location when they open it. Until an alert is sent, only whether the phone allows location is recorded, never where it is.
While an alert is open, the phone sends its position so that help can find you: to the security control centre for an Armed Response alert, to the ambulance control centre for an Ambulance alert. While help is on its way, you see where it is on a map in the app.
Every position is deleted when the alert is closed, whether the control centre resolves it or you cancel it.
A request for security support (at a residence with security guards, from a student who does not have the security service) shares no location.

5. Who can see your information

People see only what their role needs:

Our office and our caretakers see the students, rooms, rent and tickets at our residences.
The owners of our residences see occupancy, which tickets are open and the names of the students in each room, without their contact details.
Contractors see the jobs given to them, including the room and the name and contact details of the person who reported the problem.
Security guards see student cards, visitor passes, Armed Response alerts and requests for security support at the residence they are posted to.
The control centres (their control room staff, and the crews of the ambulances and security response vehicles) see the alerts of the area they look after: who sent it, their photo, phone number, where they live, what they said is wrong, and their location while the alert is open. Your medical aid and next of kin are shown only once an ambulance has your alert, to that ambulance and the control room, never before.
The administrators of the Rentlink Students app can see the information needed to run it.
Other students can see your name (in chat rooms, or as someone who shares your room), and nothing else.

We do not sell personal information and we do not use it for advertising.

6. Who we share it with

The company whose server stores the app's information, in Johannesburg, South Africa, which keeps it for us.
Map services (Google Maps or OpenStreetMap), when a control centre opens a map, or when you follow the help that is coming on the map in the app: the position on the map is sent to draw it, with no name.
The ambulance or security company whose vehicle comes to you, only when you send an alert: the crew sees who needs help, what is wrong and where and, for an Ambulance alert, your medical aid details and your next of kin's contact number.
Your phone's own speech service (Google's on most Android phones, Apple's on iPhones), only if you switch on the spoken phrase for the Armed Response alert: while the app is open on the screen, what the phone hears is turned into text by that service, and the app looks for your phrase in it. The sound and the words are never received or kept.
The authorities, when the law requires it, or the police and emergency services when that is needed to protect someone's life or safety.

7. How long we keep it

Account, room, enrolment, ticket and message information: for as long as you have an account, and afterwards only as long as we need it to deal with queries, disputes and legal obligations.
Rent and payment records: for as long as the law requires financial records to be kept.
Locations from alerts: deleted when the alert is closed.
Enquiries from people who did not become students with us: deleted or made anonymous once they are no longer needed.
Technical records: kept for a limited time and then overwritten.

8. How we protect it

Connections to this website and the app are encrypted (HTTPS). Passwords are stored in a form that cannot be read. Each person sees only what their role allows. The app's information is backed up, and access to the server is restricted. If a security breach affects your information we will tell you and the Information Regulator as the law requires.

9. Cookies

This website uses no cookies. The app keeps you signed in by storing a sign-in key on your device; it is removed when you sign out. It also remembers the last username used on the device, a random number that identifies the device for the Panic Button, and a few preferences. None of this is used to track you across other websites.

10. Your rights

Under POPIA you may ask us:

whether we hold personal information about you, and for a copy of it;
to correct information that is wrong or out of date (you can change your own phone number, e-mail address, medical aid and next of kin under My Account in the app);
to delete information we no longer have a reason to keep;
to stop using your information for a purpose you object to.

To use these rights, contact us through our Contact page. We may ask you to confirm who you are. We answer within a reasonable time, normally 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our answer you may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa: inforegulator.org.za.

11. Students under 18

If a student is under 18, their parent or guardian must agree to their use of the app.

12. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will publish the new version here with its date.