Privacy Policy - Guidemate

Guidemate ("we", "our", "us"), a product of Whetstone Learning, operates the Guidemate mobile application ("App"). We are committed to protecting your privacy and complying with applicable data protection laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA/CPRA), and children's privacy laws such as COPPA where applicable.

1. Data Controller

The data controller responsible for your information is:

Whetstone Learning
4145, Tower 4, ATS Allure, Rabupura,
Gautam Buddha Nagar, Greater Noida,
Uttar Pradesh, 203209, India
Email: hello@whetstonelearning.com

2. Information We Collect

a. Personal Information

• Name, if you choose to provide it
• Email address, if account, login, or support features are used

b. Usage and Technical Data

• Device type and operating system
• App usage patterns and feature interactions
• Crash logs, diagnostics, and performance data

c. Learning Content You Submit

The App's study and feedback tools work on material you provide. Depending on the feature you use, this may include:

• Essay drafts you upload or paste, including Internal Assessment and Extended Essay work
• Course books, textbooks, slides, and other study documents you upload
• Study notes, test answers, and chat messages you write inside the App
• Scores, feedback, and progress records generated from the above

This material may contain personal information about you, and occasionally about others, if you include it in your work. Please do not upload material containing other people's personal information unless you are entitled to share it.

Essay drafts are not stored. When you submit a draft for evaluation, it is processed to produce your feedback and is not retained afterwards. We keep only the resulting scores and feedback, plus a one-way cryptographic hash and character count of the submitted text, which we use to detect duplicate submissions and diagnose errors. The hash cannot be used to reconstruct your essay.

Documents you upload to build study notes, such as course books, are stored so the App can generate notes and tests from them and so you can return to them later. See section 8 for how long we keep them and how to remove them.

d. Purchase Information

• Subscription status
• Transaction identifiers and purchase validation details

Payment information is processed securely by Apple, Google, and related payment providers. We never receive or store payment card details.

3. Legal Basis for Processing (GDPR)

• Performance of a contract, including providing app services and subscriptions
• Legitimate interests, such as improving functionality, reliability, and user experience
• Consent, where required by law
• Compliance with legal obligations

4. How We Use Your Data

• Provide, operate, and maintain the App
• Generate feedback, scores, study notes, and practice questions from the material you submit
• Track your progress across drafts and tests so the App can adapt to your weaker areas
• Enable subscriptions and premium features
• Improve app performance and user experience
• Monitor usage, diagnose issues, and maintain security
• Comply with legal obligations

We do not use your learning content to train AI models. Your essays, documents, and notes are processed to produce results for you, and for no other purpose.

5. Children's Privacy (Under 13)

Guidemate may be used by individuals under the age of 13.

• We collect only the personal information reasonably necessary to provide the App
• Where required by applicable law, we obtain verifiable consent from a parent or legal guardian before collecting personal information from a child under 13
• We do not require children to provide more personal information than is reasonably necessary to use the App
• If we learn that personal information was collected without the required consent, we will delete it as required by law

Parents or guardians may contact us to review, correct, or request deletion of a child's personal information.

6. Third-Party Services

Google Cloud and Google Vertex AI

• Hosts the App's backend, database, and file storage
• Provides the AI models behind the essay evaluators, research question coaches, practice question generators, study note tools, and chat coaches
• Provides optical character recognition, used to read scanned PDFs you upload

Material you submit to an AI feature is sent to Google Vertex AI for processing and returned as feedback. Google acts as our service provider and processes this material on our instructions in order to deliver the feature, subject to its own terms and privacy commitments. Processing takes place in Google Cloud data centres in the United States.

Firebase (Google)

• Provides account sign-in, authentication, and app diagnostics

RevenueCat

• Used to manage subscriptions and validate purchases

Analytics and Diagnostics Providers

• Used to help us understand app usage, improve performance, and investigate crashes or reliability issues

Apple App Store and Google Play

• Process payments and provide certain transaction records for in-app purchases and subscriptions

These providers process data in accordance with their own privacy policies.

7. Data Sharing

We do not sell personal data.

• Data may be shared with service providers that help us operate the App, such as subscription, analytics, and diagnostics providers
• Data may be disclosed when required by law, regulation, legal process, or to protect rights and safety

8. Data Retention

We retain personal data only for as long as necessary to provide services, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. In practice:

• Essay drafts submitted for evaluation: not retained. Processed to produce your feedback, then discarded
• Scores, feedback, notes, and progress records: kept in your account until you delete them or close your account
• Documents you upload for study notes: kept in your account so you can reuse them. Partially processed uploads that are never completed are cleared within 7 days
• Temporary files created while reading scanned PDFs: deleted as soon as processing finishes, and in any event within a few days
• Account and subscription records: kept while your account is active, then deleted or retained only as long as the law requires

You can delete your account at any time from Profile inside the App. Doing so removes your account data, including your uploaded documents, notes, and progress records, and deletes your sign-in credentials. Some records may persist briefly in encrypted backups before being overwritten on their normal cycle.

9. Your Rights

Under GDPR

• Right to access your data
• Right to rectification
• Right to deletion
• Right to restrict or object to processing
• Right to data portability
• Right to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent
• Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority

Under CCPA/CPRA

• Right to know what personal information is collected, used, disclosed, or shared
• Right to request deletion, subject to applicable exceptions
• Right to request correction of inaccurate personal information
• Right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information
• Right not to be discriminated against for exercising privacy rights

To exercise your rights, contact hello@whetstonelearning.com.

10. Data Security

We implement administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards to protect your data, including:

• Encryption in transit. All traffic between the App and our servers uses HTTPS/TLS. The App does not permit unencrypted connections
• Encryption at rest. Data stored in our database and file storage is encrypted on Google Cloud infrastructure
• Access controls. Every request is authenticated, and accounts can only reach their own data
• Minimisation. Essay drafts are processed without being stored, so there is no archive of student work to expose

No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If you believe your account has been compromised, contact us at hello@whetstonelearning.com.

11. International Data Transfers

Our servers and AI processing run in Google Cloud data centres in the United States. If you use the App from outside the United States, including from the UK, the EEA, or elsewhere, the material you submit is transferred there for processing. Where required by law, we rely on appropriate safeguards for such transfers under our agreements with our service providers.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any updates will be reflected by revising the effective date above.

13. Contact Us

Whetstone Learning
4145, Tower 4, ATS Allure, Rabupura,
Gautam Buddha Nagar, Greater Noida,
Uttar Pradesh, 203209, India
Email: hello@whetstonelearning.com