Applies to
- mafutai.org
- Mafutai Chat
- Africa-Chat
- Learning Loops
- Training Playground
- AI language models
- Public fine-tuning datasets
- APIs & AI output services
Legal, privacy, and AI governance for Mafutai.org
This page consolidates the Mafuta (Pty) Ltd legal framework for Mafutai.org, Mafutai Chat, and the Africa community stack. It satisfies POPIA, CPA, PAIA, and ECT Act obligations while covering AI content generation, safety-by-design, contributor data, and compliance for local infrastructure hosted in the Republic of South Africa.
Focus areas
- AI content generation
- Chatbot safety & guidance
- Learning model data usage
- Community training datasets
- Ethical AI
- African-language research
- Local South African infrastructure
Universal user agreement
Mafutai.org operates on automatic acceptance: using the site, services, models, or APIs means you agree to the entire policy stack below.
Triggered when you
- accessing mafutai.org
- using Mafutai Chat or Africa-Chat
- interacting with Mafutai models or APIs
- uploading prompts, text, files, or datasets
- participating in learning loops or playgrounds
- submitting training, evaluation, or fine-tuning data
- using any Mafutai AI, inference, or research service
You simultaneously accept
- Terms of Service (Chat + Learning)
- Privacy Policy (POPIA)
- AI Model Training & Data Usage Consent
- Accuracy, Safety, and No-Reliance Disclaimer
- Acceptable Use Policy (Chat)
- Content Moderation Policy
- Minor & Child Safety Policy
- Research Ethics Policy
- Copyright & Intellectual Property Policy
- AI Output License
- Cookie Policy
- Company Identity Disclosure
- Complaint Resolution Procedure (CPA)
- Data Retention & Breach Policy
- Export Control & AML Policy
If you disagree, stop using Mafutai.org immediately.
Terms of service (chat & learning platform)
2.1 Description of service
- AI chat interactions across Mafutai Chat and Africa-Chat
- Multilingual learning and knowledge loops for African languages
- Community-based model improvement and contributor credits
- Training submissions, evaluation tooling, and AI safety workflows
- APIs, web UI, and CLI integrations for model output
2.2 Eligibility
You must be 18+ or aged 13–17 with verifiable parental or guardian consent.
- Minors are prohibited from submitting personal, health, or financial information.
- Guardians remain responsible for monitoring minor activity and safeguarding credentials.
2.3 No professional advice
Mafutai outputs do not constitute professional advice. Specifically excluded uses include:
- medical, health, or clinical advice
- legal guidance or dispute strategy
- financial, tax, or investment planning
- psychological counselling
- safety-critical decision-making (aviation, emergency response, industrial control)
2.4 User responsibilities
- Use Mafutai responsibly, within the law, and in line with this pack.
- Avoid harmful, disallowed, or high-risk prompts and workloads.
- Verify AI outputs with qualified professionals before acting on them.
- Respect privacy and do not upload third-party personal or sensitive data without lawful grounds.
- Comply with all applicable South African statutes (POPIA, CPA, ECT Act, PAIA) and global obligations.
2.5 Service availability
- The service may experience outages, maintenance windows, or degraded performance.
- Rate limits or usage caps may apply to preserve system stability.
- No uptime or availability guarantee is provided unless separately contracted in writing.
AI accuracy, safety, and no-reliance disclaimer
Our AI stack may:
- hallucinate facts or cite outdated information
- produce biased, offensive, or inappropriate content
- misinterpret prompts, instructions, or context
- fail to include references or sources for generated statements
- behave unpredictably in low-resource African-language contexts
No reliance on AI outputs for:
- health, medicine, or therapy
- legal disputes, evidence gathering, or court filings
- investment, insurance, or financial decision-making
- emergency services, disaster response, or crisis management
- safety-critical engineering or essential business operations
Mafuta (Pty) Ltd is not liable for inaccuracies, harmful reliance, lost data, or downstream damages caused by AI-generated content.
Privacy policy (POPIA compliant)
4.1 Data collected
- chat prompts, responses, and attachments you intentionally submit
- optional training or evaluation contributions
- usage logs such as timestamps, latency, and moderation events
- browser, device, and network metadata needed for security
- account details, contact info, and preferences
We do not collect continuous location tracking or third-party sensitive data unless you deliberately submit it.
4.2 How data is used
- deliver chat responses and platform functionality
- detect abuse, secure the platform, and audit safety
- improve models, analytics, and African-language coverage (when consented)
- conduct research, benchmarking, and localisation studies
- comply with law, billing, and support obligations
4.3 Data used for training (opt-in)
Only with explicit consent may your contributions:
- contribute text and metadata to anonymised training corpora
- allow Mafuta to aggregate, pseudonymise, and store the contribution
- enable use of the data for African-language, safety, or evaluation models
- permit Mafuta (Pty) Ltd to build, commercialise, and open-source models derived from the data
You may decline at any time; opted-out data is excluded from training pipelines.
4.4 Data retention
- Chats: retained for 90 days unless the user opts into longer learning loops.
- Training submissions: stored for research and community datasets (may be indefinite).
- System and moderation logs: retained for 12 months.
- Moderation flags: retained for 12 months for compliance tracking.
- Deleted accounts: purged within 30 days of confirmation.
4.5 Your POPIA rights
- Access: know what personal information Mafuta holds about you.
- Correction: request fixes to inaccurate data.
- Deletion: ask for removal unless legal grounds require retention.
- Portability: request an export in a commonly used format.
- Objection/Restriction: limit processing for certain purposes.
Exercise these rights by emailing support@mafutai.co.za. Proof of identity may be requested. You may escalate unresolved complaints to the Information Regulator.
AI model training & data usage consent
Mafutai.org may use opted-in contributions to improve African-language models, safety tooling, and evaluation workflows. Contributions become part of anonymised research datasets, and Mafuta (Pty) Ltd retains full rights to derived models, checkpoints, or services.
- You retain copyright over your text.
- You licence Mafuta to use the submission for the purposes described above without royalties or compensation.
- You may withdraw consent prospectively; historical models already trained will not be retrained.
Acceptable use policy (chat-specific)
The following requests or behaviours are prohibited:
- illegal instructions or exploitation of vulnerabilities
- biological, chemical, or radiological weaponisation
- hacking, malware development, or botnet control
- violent extremist propaganda or recruitment
- hate speech, harassment, or targeted abuse
- child sexual content or exploitation
- collection or disclosure of deeply personal data about others
- misinformation, disinformation, or political deepfakes
- identity theft, fraud, or impersonation
- redistribution of copyrighted material without permission
- financial crime, unlicensed advice, or market manipulation
Mafutai may block, throttle, or terminate accounts that violate this policy.
Content moderation policy
To protect the community we combine automated controls with human oversight:
- AI-powered classification and filters
- human review where escalation is required
- rate limits, throttling, and quality-of-service controls
- abuse, anomaly, and tamper detection logging
Moderation data may be retained for 12 months and shared with authorities if legally required.
Minor & child safety policy
- The platform is not designed for minors and prohibits children under 13.
- Users aged 13–17 require verified guardian consent and must not upload personal/sensitive data.
- Educational pilots with schools require written agreements and approved safeguarding controls.
The following content or behaviour is strictly banned and may be reported to authorities:
- sexual content or nudity involving minors
- grooming, luring, or exploitation
- dangerous challenges, self-harm encouragement, or weapon advice
- any behaviour that endangers a child online or offline
Research ethics policy
Mafutai.org commits to the following principles:
- ethical, transparent AI research with auditable methods
- reducing bias and increasing linguistic inclusion across African languages
- respect for cultural context, community consent, and data sovereignty
- no harmful biological, military, or oppressive surveillance research
- open access outputs where feasible for African researchers and academics
Copyright & intellectual property
10.1 User-provided content
- You retain ownership of inputs and uploads.
- You grant Mafuta (Pty) Ltd a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free licence to host, process, secure, and—if you opt in—train models using your contributions.
- You represent that you have the right to submit the content and that it complies with copyright law.
10.2 AI output ownership
You may use Mafutai outputs except where otherwise unlawful, infringing, or prohibited by this Acceptable Use Policy. Mafutai retains ownership of the underlying datasets, weights, code, and infrastructure powering the models.
AI output licence
- Unless otherwise agreed, Mafutai.org outputs are provided under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).
- You may copy, remix, distribute, and use outputs commercially provided you credit “Generated by Mafutai.org”.
- Enterprise customers may negotiate alternative or more restrictive licensing terms by contacting support.
Complaint resolution (CPA compliant)
- Email support@mafutai.co.za with full details, evidence, and contact information.
- Mafuta acknowledges receipt within 48 hours.
- A substantive response or remediation plan is provided within five business days.
- If unresolved, complaints may escalate to the Consumer Goods & Services Ombud or applicable regulatory body.
Data retention & breach policy
14.1 Retention timeframes
- Chats: 90 days by default (longer only if you opt into learning programmes).
- Logs & telemetry: 12 months for audit and scheduling.
- Moderation records: 12 months to support appeals and regulator requests.
- Training submissions: retained indefinitely to preserve research value (subject to consent).
- Deleted accounts: removed within 30 days, after which backups roll off.
14.2 Breach response
- Notify affected users with details of the incident, risks, and recommended protective steps.
- Inform the South African Information Regulator without undue delay.
- Cooperate with authorities, document remediation, and harden controls to prevent repeat issues.
Export control & sanctions
- Users in sanctioned, embargoed, or OFAC-restricted jurisdictions may not access Mafutai services.
- No use for prohibited defence, military, or dual-use applications contrary to South African or international law.
- No provisioning of the platform to entities flagged for hostile cyber or AI exploitation.
Anti–money laundering & anti-abuse
- No money laundering, terrorism financing, or mixing of illicit proceeds.
- No identity theft, forged KYC, or unverifiable providers or customers.
- No coordinated misinformation, disinformation, or destabilisation campaigns.
- Suspicious activity may result in immediate suspension, investigation, and reporting to law enforcement.
Company identity disclosure (ECT Act s43)
- Company
- Mafuta (Pty) Ltd
- Registration number
- [Insert registration number]
- Address
- [Insert registered address]
- Support
- support@mafutai.co.za
- Site
- mafutai.org
- Description
- AI chat, learning, and research platform
- Pricing
- Free tiers or paid services as disclosed per product page
The PAIA manual, information officer appointment, and VAT details are available upon written request.
Governing law & jurisdiction
This legal pack is governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa. Disputes fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the High Court of South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal Local Division, unless statute compels another forum.