Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

StudyDesign AI is operated from Victoria, Australia (hello@studydesignai.com). We provide an AI-powered tutoring platform for Year 11 and 12 students across Australia (VCE, HSC, QCE, WACE, SACE and other state curricula).

2. What data we collect

• Account data: email address and password (stored securely via Supabase Auth).
• Academic profile: year level, state curriculum (e.g. VCE, HSC, QCE, WACE, SACE), enrolled subjects and subject options.
• Study content: chat messages with the AI tutor, assessment questions you paste or upload, test questions and your responses, test scores, and photos of handwritten answers you submit for marking. A photo is sent to our AI provider to be read and marked, and we delete the file from our server once the request finishes. We keep the marking result, not the photo.
• Learning memory: notes on your weak and strong areas, topics covered, generated by the AI based on your sessions.
• Flashcard progress: which cards you've reviewed and your spaced-repetition intervals.
• Study plans and exam dates: generated study schedules and your state's official exam dates matched to your subjects.
• Voice input: audio recorded during voice mode sessions, sent to OpenAI for transcription. We do not store the raw audio on our servers.
• Usage data: session durations and timestamps, used for billing and progress tracking, and anonymous product analytics (which pages and features are used) collected through PostHog.
• Session replay: we record how the app is used (pages visited, buttons clicked) to find and fix usability problems. Text you type into a box (including answers, essays and passwords) is masked on your device before anything is sent. Text shown on screen, such as the tutor's replies, your submitted answer displayed back to you, and your email address on the Settings page, can appear in a recording. Recordings are kept for a limited time and are used only by us to improve the product.
• Payment data: handled entirely by Stripe. We do not store card numbers or banking details.

3. How we use your data

• To provide and improve the tutoring service.
• To personalise AI responses based on your learning history.
• To send you emails about your account and study (exam reminders, weekly digests, score improvements, and notices about new features or plans). You can turn these off at any time under Settings, Notifications, or by replying "stop". We will stop within 5 working days. Emails about your billing and security are sent regardless.
• To process subscription payments via Stripe.
• We do not sell your data to third parties.
• We do not use your data to train AI models, and we use our providers' API services, which under their terms do not train on API data by default. Those providers may keep API inputs and outputs for a limited period (for example to detect abuse) before deleting them.

4. Third-party services

We rely on the following third parties to operate the service. Each has its own privacy policy.

• Supabase: database and authentication (US-based).
• OpenAI: AI chat, voice transcription (STT), and text-to-speech (TTS) (US-based).
• Anthropic: AI tutoring and session summaries (US-based).
• Stripe: subscription billing (US-based).
• Resend: email delivery (US-based).
• PostHog: product analytics and session replay (US-based).

These providers are overseas, mostly in the United States, so your information, including your chat messages, submitted work and photos, is disclosed to them there. We choose providers that commit to protecting personal information, but Australian privacy law may not apply to them directly. If you do not want this, please do not use the service.

5. Data retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, your personal data will be removed from our systems within 30 days, except where retention is required by law or for fraud prevention.

6. Your rights

You have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Request correction of inaccurate data.
• Request deletion of your account and associated data.
• Opt out of non-essential emails under Settings, Notifications, or by replying "stop".
• Complain to us, and if you are not satisfied, to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au).

To exercise any of these rights, email hello@studydesignai.com.

7. Cookies and local storage

We use browser cookies and local storage for authentication (to keep you logged in), session state, and our analytics (PostHog stores an anonymous ID in local storage).

We do not use advertising cookies.

8. Children and minors

StudyDesign AI is intended for senior secondary students, some of whom may be under 18. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13, and we will delete an account if we learn the user is under 13. If you are under 18, we recommend reviewing this policy with a parent or guardian before signing up. A parent or guardian can email us to ask for access to, or deletion of, a child's account.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes via email or an in-app notice. Continued use of the service after changes constitutes acceptance.

10. Contact

For any privacy questions or requests: hello@studydesignai.com