Privacy Policy

Information you provide and study data

Adult account and learning profile

Accounts are created and managed by adults aged 18 or older, including parents, guardians, teachers and adult learners. Registration uses the adult account owner's email address and password and an acknowledgement of adult ownership. Passwords are stored using password hashing, not as readable plaintext.

A learning profile may represent a student or the account owner. Its nickname is optional; grade or class information supports study generation. We do not ask for a child's date of birth or email address. Please use a nickname rather than a child's full name.

Email verification and security

Adult ownership acknowledgement and verified email ownership are required before new study generation. We use Brevo to deliver an eight-digit verification code. We store a keyed code hash, email-binding hash, expiry, send time and bounded attempt count, not the readable code. Codes expire after 15 minutes, are single-use and are replaced when a new code is issued. Successful verification and adult acknowledgement are recorded with the account.

Educational content and study history

We process textbook or chapter-page images you capture or select, chapter title, subject, class level and language, and OCR text extracted from the images. The service may store generated explanations, revision notes, vocabulary, questions and answers, quizzes and attempts/results, flashcards and study sessions.

Usage, safety and abuse-prevention information

We process generation usage, reservations, quota-limit events and optional plan-interest feedback. The free plan currently permits five chapter generations per UTC calendar month, up to ten pages per chapter and one learning profile.

To prevent allowance recycling, a separate record stores a keyed HMAC of the normalized adult email, quota month, used allowance and expiry. It contains no raw email, device identifier or account link. It is pseudonymous, not anonymous. Temporary rate-limit counters use keyed identifiers derived from account/email or network address and a time window; those counter records do not store raw email addresses or IP addresses. Infrastructure logs may separately contain connection metadata.

Content-safety records contain decision status, reason codes and input hashes. Failed private-file cleanup retains the exact storage key and retry metadata until the file is removed. Upload journals retain a chapter identifier and time so abandoned uploads can be found.

How we use information

• Create and authenticate adult-managed accounts, verify email ownership and maintain learning profiles.
• Store and read uploaded educational pages, extract text and check image/text safety before study generation.
• Generate study material, quizzes and flashcards and save requested learning history.
• Enforce free-plan limits, prevent allowance recycling and limit verification or generation abuse.
• Delete account-associated records and retry private-file cleanup.
• Operate and secure the service, troubleshoot failures and understand voluntarily submitted product feedback.

Google Cloud storage, OCR and image safety

Uploaded educational images may be stored in private Google Cloud Storage. Google Cloud Vision processes image pixels for SafeSearch screening and OCR text extraction. Clearly inappropriate source material is rejected before normal study generation. Sensitive educational subjects are evaluated in context; automated safety checks can make mistakes.

These services process images and related technical information under their applicable service and data-processing terms. Upload educational material only and avoid personal information in pages.

OpenAI and AI processing

Extracted chapter text and relevant chapter metadata are sent to OpenAI for text moderation, educational-context safety review where needed, and generation of study material, quizzes and flashcards. Textbook images are not sent to OpenAI in this pipeline. SmartChapterMate does not intentionally include account passwords, authentication tokens or the account email in these requests, but uploaded pages or OCR text can themselves contain personal information.

OpenAI Responses requests use store=False. This setting does not guarantee Zero Data Retention or remove every form of provider retention. OpenAI Zero Data Retention approval is still pending; SmartChapterMate does not claim it is enabled. Provider processing and retention depend on applicable terms and configured controls. Please do not include unnecessary personal or sensitive information, especially information identifying children.

Brevo and other service providers

Brevo processes the adult account email, sender information, verification code/email content and delivery metadata to send transactional verification messages. The preferred integration uses Brevo's HTTPS transactional email API; a configurable SMTP integration may also be used. Textbook images, OCR text, learning-profile details and account passwords are not included in verification emails. Brevo's processing and retention are subject to its applicable terms and account controls.

Hosting, database and cloud infrastructure providers, including Railway where configured, process information needed to operate SmartChapterMate. Google Cloud and OpenAI processing are described above. Providers may process or retain technical information under their own applicable service and data-processing terms.

Data storage and retention

Active account/profile data, chapter images, OCR text, generated material and learning history are retained to provide the service until deleted; there is no arbitrary automatic expiry for active learning content. Images can remain after OCR to support chapter functionality.

• Verification codes expire after 15 minutes. Successful use or account deletion removes the associated verification record; expired records are removed by scheduled cleanup.
• The separate pseudonymous quota-abuse record expires at the start of the next UTC calendar month. Deleting and recreating the same normalized email does not grant a new allowance in that month.
• Rate-limit counter records expire at their hourly or daily window boundary. They may survive account deletion until expiry to prevent verification and generation abuse.
• Expired records stop affecting eligibility at expiry. Physical removal depends on scheduled cleanup; delayed or failed runs can delay removal.
• Private-file deletion jobs remain until deletion succeeds. Abandoned-upload journals are eligible for orphan checks after the approved 24-hour grace period. Cleanup preserves referenced active files; it does not automatically scan and delete historical files outside that journaled workflow.

The operational cleanup schedule is every 15 minutes when enabled. Media deletion failures are retained durably and retried with backoff, so file removal may take longer than one run. The app also attempts to clear tracked temporary image copies and session data on logout/deletion; device failures or older untracked cache copies may remain subject to operating-system cache handling. Original photos outside the app cache are not deleted.

Backup, infrastructure-log and provider retention depend on the actual operational configuration and applicable obligations. We do not state an unconfirmed fixed period or promise immediate removal from every backup or provider system. Contact us for the applicable details.

Security

Reasonable safeguards include HTTPS for encrypted production communication, password hashing, authentication and access controls, and private or restricted media access. No electronic transmission or storage method is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Data sharing and sale

SmartChapterMate does not sell users' personal information. Information is processed by or transferred to service providers necessary to operate the service, including cloud storage and OCR, AI processing, hosting, database and infrastructure providers as described above.

Advertising and tracking

Current V1 has no advertising, does not use advertising IDs, and has no external behavioral analytics SDK or marketing tracking SDK. Material changes to these practices will be reflected in an updated policy.

Adult-managed accounts and student use

Children must not independently register or own an account. An adult manages the account and its student or self-learning profile and should supervise student use. The ownership checkbox and email verification are self-acknowledgement and email-ownership checks; they do not establish age, guardianship or legally sufficient parental consent. The application does not collect a child's date of birth or require a child's email.

Do not put unnecessary child-identifying information in profile nicknames, uploaded pages or support messages. Questions about a child's information, adult authority or consent should be raised using the privacy contact below. This policy does not claim complete legal compliance or provider approval for processing children's personal information.

Account and data deletion

In-app deletion removes your active account, learning profiles, authentication and verification records, owned chapter/page records, OCR text, generated material, quizzes/attempts, flashcards/sessions and plan-interest feedback. Email verification is not required to delete an account you can sign in to.

Private-file deletion is queued in the same database transaction and completed asynchronously. Failed storage operations are retried without restoring the account or deleting another user's files. The expiring quota-abuse record and temporary rate-limit counters described above may remain for their stated fraud-prevention purpose. Pending file-deletion metadata remains until cleanup succeeds; backups, infrastructure logs and provider copies may be subject to separate retention.

Your choices

You can choose whether to provide an optional display name or voluntary feedback, use the camera or select an image from your device, and delete your account. You can also contact SmartChapterMate about privacy and data questions using the contact below.

Policy changes

We may update this policy as SmartChapterMate or applicable requirements change. The effective date near the top identifies the current version. Material changes in data practices will be reflected in the updated policy.

Privacy Contact

For privacy questions, data concerns or an external account-deletion request, contact SmartChapterMate at djsstechconsulting@gmail.com.

Please avoid sending unnecessary sensitive information. Never send your account password or authentication tokens.