Legal
Terms of Service
Version 2026-05 · Last updated May 2026
1. Acceptance
By creating an account on Cognium you agree to these Terms of Service and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the service.
2. The service
Cognium is a personal accountability tool for South African students. It lets you log study time, set weekly goals, track assignments, tests, and exams, and share progress reports with parents, programme leaders, or bursary organisations of your choosing.
3. Eligibility & account
- You must be at least 18 years old, or have the consent of a parent or legal guardian.
- One person, one account. The information you provide must be accurate.
- You are responsible for keeping your credentials confidential and for everything that happens under your account.
- Notify us immediately if you suspect unauthorised use.
4. Acceptable use
You agree not to:
- Impersonate any person or misrepresent your affiliation with an institution or bursary programme.
- Upload unlawful, harmful, harassing, or rights-infringing content.
- Attempt to interfere with the service, probe its security, or use it to send unsolicited messages.
- Use the service in a way that violates South African law.
5. Your content
The study logs, notes, journal entries, marks, and other content you create remain yours. By using Cognium you grant us the limited licence needed to store and display your content back to you, and to recipients you explicitly authorise via shareable links. We do not use your content for advertising, do not sell it, and do not train models on it.
6. Intellectual property
The Cognium name, brand, software, and design are owned by ABM. You may not copy, modify, or redistribute the service or its code without our written permission.
7. Subscription & fees
The Cognium student tier is free during Phase 1. If we introduce paid features in future, we will give you reasonable notice and will not retroactively charge for features that were previously free.
8. Termination
- You may close your account at any time from the settings page. Your data is removed as described in the Privacy Policy.
- We may suspend or terminate your account for material breach of these terms, fraud, or abuse, after giving notice where reasonable.
9. Disclaimers
Cognium is provided "as is" and "as available". We do not guarantee that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that it will produce any particular academic outcome. You remain responsible for your own studies.
10. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by South African law, ABM will not be liable for indirect or consequential losses, lost academic opportunities, or loss of data caused by events beyond our reasonable control. Our total liability for any claim is limited to the amount you have paid us for the service in the 12 months before the claim arose, or ZAR 1 000 if you have paid nothing.
11. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa. The competent courts of South Africa have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from them.
12. Changes
We may update these terms from time to time. The current version is shown at the top of this page. When changes are material we will notify you and may ask you to accept the new version before continuing to use the service.