Overview
- Students are asked their date of birth once, on their dashboard.
- A student under 18 is asked to bring in a parent, who approves how tuition.in uses the child's data, purpose by purpose.
- The parent can change or withdraw that consent at any time, in one step.
- Parent links to a student account need the student's approval.
- Anyone can download their data, and ask for a correction, deletion or a complaint to be looked at.
The law, briefly
India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the DPDP Rules, 2025 say, among much else, that before processing the personal data of a child (anyone under 18) a platform must get the verifiable consent of a parent; that consent must be specific and can be withdrawn as easily as it was given; and that people can ask for their data, have it corrected or erased, and complain.
The Rules were notified in November 2025. Most obligations, including parental consent, apply from May 2027. tuition.in has the machinery in place ahead of that.
What students see
- A card at the top of their dashboard: What's your date of birth? It is used only to tell whether they are under 18. They can put it off with Later; it comes back after a week.
- If they are under 18: Ask a parent to approve. They enter a parent's email and press Send request. The card then shows where it went, with the address partly hidden, and they can send it to a different email instead.
- Once a parent approves, the student is notified, and Settings → Privacy & data shows what was approved.
A student can send up to five requests a day. Each emailed link works once and lasts 14 days.
What parents do
- Open the link in the email. It uses only the child's first name.
- Sign in with a parent account, or create one on the spot. Consent has to come from a parent account, so a student can't approve their own request.
- Read what is collected and why, for each purpose, and tick the ones to allow. Only the service itself starts ticked; everything optional starts off.
- Give their name and date of birth, say whether they are the parent or legal guardian, and confirm it. Those details are recorded with the consent. The Rules allow a platform to rely on identity and age details a parent provides this way.
- Press Give consent, or Decline.
Giving consent also links the parent to the child's account, because the child sent the invitation. From then on, the Privacy and consent panel on the parent dashboard lets them switch purposes on or off, withdraw consent entirely, and see the history of every change.
What consent covers
| Purpose | What is used | Can be refused? |
|---|---|---|
| Classes, tests and progress | Name, contact details, batches, attendance, homework, test marks, report cards and fees, shared with the child's tutors and institutes and with their parents. | No: it is the service itself. |
| Live classes and recordings | The child's name, voice and video in live classes, chat messages, and class recordings. | Yes |
| AI help | Questions typed or spoken to the AI tutor (including voice calls), photos of work sent for AI marking, doubt-solving or Maths Check, material added to My Library, classes recorded with Class Capture, and the working, drafts and questions a student sends the homework and assignment helpers — all of which go to our AI provider to produce the answer, notes or transcript. The helpers' hints, worked examples, task checklists and plans are written about the question or task, not the student, and don't need consent. | Yes |
| WhatsApp and SMS reminders | The phone number on the account, for class, homework and fee reminders. | Yes |
If two parents each give consent, the child can use anything either of them allowed.
Parent links need the student's approval
A linked parent sees a student's attendance, fees, marks, notices and hall tickets. So a parent who asks to link by email now waits until the student approves the request on their own dashboard. The student sees who is asking, with their email partly hidden, and what they would see. If the student is under 18, approving also asks that parent for consent.
Students can see every linked parent, and remove one, from Settings → Privacy & data. The parent is told and can ask again.
What is switched on, and when
tuition.in runs in one of three modes, set for the whole platform:
| Mode | What happens |
|---|---|
| Notice (the default) | Students are asked their date of birth, and those under 18 are asked to bring in a parent. Nothing is blocked. |
| Enforce | For a student under 18 without a parent's consent for the purpose, three things are refused: AI help (the AI tutor, the doubt scanner, and the helpers' checks, reviews and questions), joining a live class, and WhatsApp or SMS reminders. A student who hasn't given a date of birth is asked for it before using those. |
| Off | No prompts. Parent links still need the student's approval, and data rights still work. |
Enforcement never applies to tutors, institutions or parents, only to student accounts, and only to those three features. Everything else a student does is unaffected.
What it means for tutors and institutes
- Tell families early. Once enforcement is on, a student under 18 whose parent hasn't approved live classes won't be able to join your live class. They see a message telling them to ask a parent from their dashboard.
- Reminders to minors. Under enforcement, WhatsApp and SMS reminders to a student without consent for them are skipped. tuition.in's delivery record notes the reason (No parental consent for WhatsApp and SMS reminders), so support can tell a family exactly why a message didn't arrive. In-app notifications still arrive. See WhatsApp & SMS.
- Parents. If a parent says they can't see their child, ask whether the child has approved the link request on their own dashboard.
- Your own records. Registers, fee books and WhatsApp groups you keep outside tuition.in are yours to look after. This page covers what tuition.in holds.
Data rights: copies, corrections, deletion
From Settings → Privacy & data, anyone can:
- Download my data at once: account, date of birth, enrolments, attendance, published test results, fees and payments, consents, linked accounts and recent notifications, as a file.
- Ask for a copy with more detail, a correction, deletion, raise a complaint, or nominate someone to act for them.
Each request is answered by tuition.in within 90 days at most, usually much sooner, with a notification when it is. A linked parent can make a request, or download the data, on behalf of their child.
Deletion covers what doesn't have to be kept. Some records, such as fee receipts, have to be kept by law; the answer says which.
Complaints
Complaints go through Settings → Privacy & data → Raise a complaint. If you are not satisfied with the answer, you can take it to the Data Protection Board of India.
What this is not
- Not legal advice. How the law applies to your own centre is a question for your own adviser.
- Parents are verified by their own declaration. Verification through DigiLocker is not available yet.
- Consent covers what tuition.in does with a child's data. It doesn't change what a tutor or institute can see of their own students.
Questions
A student entered the wrong date of birth.
They can ask for a correction from Settings → Privacy & data.
The parent never got the email.
Check the spam folder. The student can send it again, to the same or a different address, from their dashboard.
A parent withdrew consent. What happens to the child's data?
Nothing more is done for the withdrawn purposes from that moment. What was done before isn't undone. To have data deleted, the parent asks from Settings → Privacy & data.
Does this apply to adult students?
Only the date-of-birth question. At 18 or over, no parent is involved, and they use data rights for themselves.