Safehire.ai has teamed up with the Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa (ISASA) and TPN Credit Bureau to provide Digital Risk Screening. The service scans the open web and uses artificial intelligence to sort the results before human analysts review the data. The reports go directly to the schools, not to the applicants, with searches completed in as little as 24 hours.
How the checks work
The screening process searches publicly available information and suppresses details about a person’s sex life or sexual orientation unless there is a specific legal reason to include them. The AI flags potential issues, and trained analysts review these findings to ensure they are relevant to a school’s safeguarding obligations. Safehire does not hack accounts, bypass logins, or scrape private social media. The company says it does not treat a political view as a safeguarding risk and that an allegation of crime is not proof of guilt.
ISASA member schools receive their first search for free, with subsequent searches costing between $24 and $49, or roughly R400 to R800, depending on volume and plan. Schools can purchase the service directly from Safehire or through TPN. The program targets more than 800 member schools, though Safehire’s chief executive, Simon Holden, said he would not call them users yet, noting that the service is in its early stages.
Legal responsibilities and data transfer
Under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), the school acts as the responsible party for the screening process, while Safehire serves as the operator. Safehire requires the school to have a lawful basis for each search, maintain a record of the reasons for screening, and provide transparency notices where necessary. The company can refuse or suspend a search if it deems it a legal or safeguarding risk. The reports are processed in the United Kingdom, relying on contractual terms that offer protection “substantially similar” to POPIA.
Safehire does not automatically send a separate copy of the report to the candidate. Applicants must use their POPIA rights of access through the school, and Safehire is contractually bound to assist with these requests. Holden noted that POPIA contains exceptions regarding notification timing, so prior notification is not an absolute rule in every circumstance. The system was founded by Holden, a former school bursar, and Sean Lumley, a South African-born co-founder of the risk company CybSafe, and has raised approximately $2 million in seed funding.
