1. Purpose of This Document
TeachSA Connect uses a multi stage verification pipeline to validate the identity, qualifications, and credentials of educators (seekers) on the Platform. This verification process involves identity checks, AI-powered document analysis, and human administrative review.
Effective Date: 13 April 2026
This Verification and Data Processing Consent document explains what verification involves, what data is collected and processed, which third parties receive your information, how decisions are made, and your rights throughout the process. It should be read in conjunction with our Privacy Policy, POPIA Compliance Statement, and Terms and Conditions.
Under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA), you have the right to understand how your personal information is processed before providing consent. This document fulfils that requirement.
2. What Verification Involves
Verification on TeachSA Connect is a two-stage process designed to ensure the authenticity and accuracy of seeker profiles:
Stage 1 — Preflight Automated Checks:
- Email address verification (confirmed via OTP).
- Profile completeness assessment (required fields populated).
- Required documents uploaded and scanned for malware.
- Document format and size validation.
Stage 2 — Full Verification:
- Identity check: Your SA ID number or passport number is verified through CheckID, a third party identity verification provider.
- Automated document review: Your uploaded documents are reviewed by an automated document analysis system to extract details, classify the documents, and surface anything that looks inconsistent.
- Manual admin review: A trained TeachSA administrator reviews the automated analysis results, your documents, and your profile to make a verification decision.
- Final decision: An administrator issues a final verification outcome: approved, rejected, or more information required.
Verification is required for seekers to be fully visible to hiring institutions on the Platform. Unverified seekers have limited profile visibility and access to certain features.
3. Identity Verification
As part of verification, your identity is confirmed through a third party identity verification provider, CheckID. The following outlines exactly what is sent and how your data is protected:
Data sent to CheckID:
- Your South African ID number or passport number.
- Your date of birth (for cross reference matching).
What CheckID validates:
- Legitimacy of the ID number (format, checksum, and registry lookup).
- Date of birth match against the official record.
- Citizenship status confirmation.
How your ID number is protected:
- Your ID number is encrypted with industry-standard authenticated encryption, both at rest and in transit.
- The full ID number is never displayed in any user interface — only the last 4 digits are shown for reference (e.g., ●●●●●●●●●1234).
- A cryptographic hash (one-way, irreversible) of your ID number is stored to prevent duplicate registrations across multiple accounts, protecting the integrity of the verification system.
- Admin users with verification permissions can see that an ID check was performed and its result, but cannot access the full ID number.
4. Document Analysis Using AI
Your uploaded documents are processed using artificial intelligence to extract information, verify authenticity, and detect potential fraud. The following document types may be processed:
- Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- Academic qualifications and certificates
- Reference letters from previous employers
- Police clearance certificate
- SACE (South African Council for Educators) certificate
- SA ID document or passport copy
Automated processing includes:
- Text extraction: Information is extracted from document images and PDFs.
- Document classification: Each uploaded document is classified to confirm it matches what was declared.
- Content verification: Extracted information is checked against your profile data and across the documents you submitted for consistency.
- Authenticity assessment: Documents are assessed for indicators of tampering or inconsistency. Anything unusual is flagged for human review — automated review is never the sole basis for a decision.
5. Trust Assessment
Based on automated analysis and verification checks, a trust assessment is produced for your verification case. This assessment assists administrators in making informed verification decisions and is never used as the sole basis for an outcome.
The assessment considers:
- Document quality and completeness.
- Consistency of information across the documents you submitted.
- Indicators of authenticity from the automated review.
- The result of the third party identity check.
Visibility of the trust assessment:
- Trust assessments are visible to authorised TeachSA administrators only.
- The assessment informs the verification outcome and admin review priority.
- Trust assessments are NOT directly visible to other users (seekers or posters). Instead, successful verification results in verification badges displayed on your profile.
6. Human Review and Oversight
In compliance with POPIA Section 71 (automated decision making), AI analysis is never the sole basis for a verification rejection. Every verification case includes mandatory human review by a trained administrator.
Verification review stages:
- Identity verification in progress: Your identity is being checked with the third party identity provider.
- Additional checks (passport holders): Where applicable, additional manual identity confirmation is collected.
- Documents in admin review: Automated analysis is complete; documents are queued for administrator review.
- Final decision pending: An administrator has reviewed the documents and is making a final decision.
Administrator decision options:
- Approve: Verification is successful — badges are awarded and profile visibility is upgraded.
- Reject: Verification is unsuccessful — a documented reason is provided and appeal rights are communicated.
- More information required: Specific documents or corrections are requested — you may resubmit with guidance.
Human oversight guarantees:
- Administrators can override AI recommendations in either direction (approve despite low AI score, or escalate despite high AI score), with a documented reason and full audit trail.
- You have the right to request a human review of any automated assessment at any time during the process.
- All admin actions are logged with timestamps, user IDs, and reasons for auditability.
7. What Happens to Your Documents
Understanding how your documents are stored, protected, and eventually disposed of is a critical part of informed consent.
Storage and protection:
- Documents are stored in a reputable cloud storage provider with strong encryption at rest and in transit.
- All files are scanned for malware before being accepted. Files that fail the scan are quarantined and rejected.
- Access to stored documents is restricted to authorised personnel via role-based access controls with full audit logging.
Retention period:
- Documents are retained for 5 years from the date of upload, in compliance with employment law audit requirements and verification audit trail obligations.
- Verification metadata (scores, decisions, timestamps) is retained for the same period.
After the retention period or upon account deletion request:
- Encrypted identifiers and personal data are purged within 30 days of the retention period expiry or deletion request confirmation.
- Document files are moved to a quarantine state, then permanently destroyed (secure deletion from storage).
- Anonymised, aggregated verification statistics may be retained for platform improvement purposes, containing no personal information.
For full details on data retention, refer to our Privacy Policy and POPIA Compliance Statement.
8. Verification Outcomes
Upon completion of the verification process, one of the following outcomes will be communicated to you:
- Approved: Your verification is successful. Trust badges are awarded and your profile is upgraded to full visibility for hiring institutions.
- Rejected: Your verification was unsuccessful. A specific reason is provided and you have the right to appeal (see Section 9 — Your Rights).
- More information required: Additional documents or corrections are needed. Specific guidance is provided, and you may resubmit corrected or additional documents for re-evaluation.
Verification badges awarded upon approval:
- Verified Identity: Identity has been confirmed through a third party identity verification provider.
- Verified Educator: Your teaching registration has been confirmed with the relevant SA professional body.
- References Checked: Reference letters have been reviewed.
Verification badges are visible to poster institutions (hiring schools) on your public profile, providing them with confidence in your credentials.
Important: Misrepresentation during the verification process — including submission of fraudulent documents, false identity claims, or falsified qualifications — will result in immediate account suspension, revocation of all badges, and may lead to legal action under the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act 12 of 2004.
9. Your Rights Regarding Verification
Under POPIA and other applicable South African legislation, you have the following rights in relation to the verification process:
- Right to know: You have the right to know what personal data was collected, how it was processed, and who it was shared with. You may submit a Subject Access Request (SAR) to privacy@teachsaconnect.co.za.
- Right to human review: Under POPIA Section 71, you have the right to request human review of any automated decision affecting you. While TeachSA already includes human review in every verification, you may request additional review at any time.
- Right to contest outcomes: You may appeal any verification decision by emailing support@teachsaconnect.co.za within 30 days of the decision. Appeals are reviewed by a senior administrator.
- Right to correct: If documents were rejected due to inaccuracies, you have the right to submit corrected versions for re-evaluation.
- Right to withdraw consent: You may withdraw your consent for verification processing at any time by contacting privacy@teachsaconnect.co.za. Please note that withdrawing consent means verification cannot proceed, and your profile visibility will remain limited as an unverified seeker.
- Right to deletion: You may request deletion of your verification data, subject to legal retention requirements (5-year retention for employment law compliance). Where retention is legally required, data will be restricted rather than deleted and purged at the earliest permissible date.
10. Data Sharing During Verification
Transparency about data sharing is essential for informed consent. The following details exactly who receives what data during verification:
CheckID (identity verification provider):
- Receives: SA ID number or passport number, date of birth.
- Purpose: Identity legitimacy verification against official records.
- Does NOT receive: your documents, profile information, or contact details.
Automated document analysis service:
- Receives: Document images only (uploaded PDFs, photos of certificates).
- Documents are NOT linked to your name, ID number, or account directly during automated analysis.
- Purpose: Text extraction, classification, authenticity assessment.
TeachSA admin verifiers:
- See: Your uploaded documents, extracted data, automated assessment results, and your profile information.
- Purpose: Making informed human verification decisions with full context.
- Access is restricted to authorised administrators with verification permissions only.
What other users NEVER see:
- Your raw documents (CV, ID copy, certificates, etc.).
- Your ID number, passport number, or date of birth.
- Internal trust assessment details or admin review notes.
- Other users see only the badge outcomesof your verification (e.g., "Verified Identity", "Verified Educator") — nothing more.
11. Consent Declaration
By proceeding with verification on TeachSA Connect, you explicitly consent to the following data processing activities:
- Collection and encrypted storage of your identity documents, qualifications, and supporting verification documents with our cloud storage provider.
- Transmission of your ID/passport number to CheckID, a third party identity verification provider, for the purpose of verifying your identity against official records.
- Automated processing of your uploaded documents by an automated document analysis service to extract information, classify documents, and surface anything that looks inconsistent.
- Trust assessment based on document analysis results and identity verification outcomes, used by administrators to inform their review.
- Manual review by authorised admin verifiers who will assess your documents, AI analysis results, and profile to make a verification decision.
- Retention of verification data for up to 5 years in compliance with employment law and audit trail requirements.
- Display of verification badges on your public profile visible to hiring institutions, indicating which checks have been completed.
Withdrawing consent: You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting privacy@teachsaconnect.co.za. Please understand that withdrawing consent will prevent verification from being completed, and your profile will remain in an unverified state with limited visibility to hiring institutions.
Withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the withdrawal, nor processing that is required by law (such as retention of verification audit trails).
12. Contact for Verification Queries
If you have questions or concerns about the verification process, your rights, or how your data is being processed, please contact us:
For further details on your data protection rights, see our Privacy Policy and POPIA Compliance Statement.