Privacy Policy | StudyPulse

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Privacy Policy

Last Updated: 16 March 2026

Welcome to StudyPulse (“we,” “us,” or “our”). StudyPulse is a gamified learning platform designed primarily for VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education) students, providing instant AI-powered feedback on practice questions, intelligent analytics, gamification features, and access to high-quality question banks and resources. We recognize the importance of safeguarding the personal information you provide to us. This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, use, disclose, and protect your information when you use our website, mobile application, and any related services (collectively, the “Services”).

We are committed to complying with all relevant data protection laws and regulations applicable in Australia, including the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). If you are accessing the Services from outside of Australia, you acknowledge that your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in Australia as explained in this Privacy Policy.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By accessing or using our Services, you agree to the collection and use of your personal information as described in this Policy. If you do not agree with our practices, please discontinue use of our Services immediately.

1. Scope

This Privacy Policy applies to all users of StudyPulse, including students, parents, educators, or any other visitors (collectively, “users” or “you”). It covers information we collect through:

Certain third parties (e.g., schools, tutoring centers) may use our Services on behalf of students. In such cases, we expect that those entities have the necessary authority and consent to provide personal information on behalf of their students.

2. Information We Collect

We collect various types of information to provide and improve our Services. The information we collect may include:

2.1 Personal Information

  1. Account and Profile Information: When you create an account, we may collect information such as your name, email address, username, password, year level (e.g., Year 11 or 12), school name, and subjects of interest.
  2. Payment Information: If you choose to purchase a subscription or other paid offerings, we may collect payment details (e.g., credit card or bank information) via secure third-party payment processors like Stripe. We do not store your credit card details on our servers. School-provisioned accounts do not use Stripe — billing is handled directly between StudyPulse and the school.
  3. Demographic Information: In some cases, we may ask for optional demographic information (e.g., age, location) to better personalize content or for analytics.

2.2 Usage Data

When you use our Services, we automatically collect certain information about your device and usage, including:

  1. Log Data: Internet Protocol (IP) address, device type, browser type, pages visited, duration on pages, and timestamps.
  2. Cookies & Tracking Technologies: We may use cookies, web beacons, pixels, session replay tools, and similar technologies to gather information about your interactions. For more information, see Section 7. Cookies & Other Tracking Technologies.
  3. Activity and Performance Data: Questions attempted, answers submitted, scores, time spent on tasks, usage trends (e.g., streaks, leaderboard ranking).

StudyPulse provides instant AI-powered feedback on your submissions. When you submit written responses (including typed or handwritten answers scanned via optical character recognition (OCR)), these responses may be processed by third-party AI providers (e.g., OpenAI or Google Cloud Vision) to generate feedback. Your name, email, school, and other personal identifiers are never sent to AI providers.

This data is stored for:

2.4 Communications

  1. Customer Support: If you contact us via email (e.g., at [email protected]) or through support forms, we may collect the content of your message and contact details to respond to you.
  2. Forums & Community: If you participate in forum discussions, comment on solutions, or upload sample answers, any information you provide may be publicly visible to other users.

2.5 Information from Third Parties

  1. Social Login & OAuth: If you choose to log in using third-party services (e.g., Google), we receive limited information to facilitate account creation and authentication.
  2. School or Organization: If your school or tutoring center purchases a bulk license, they may provide us with your name, school email address, or enrollment details.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

  1. Service Delivery:

    • Provide, maintain, and improve our Services.
    • Facilitate AI-based question marking and feedback.
    • Provide personalised question recommendations, progress tracking, and performance analytics.
    • Operate leaderboards, competitions, and gamification features.

  2. Account Management & Security:

    • Authenticate your account and ensure only authorized access to your content.
    • Process your subscription payments or in-app purchases.
    • Monitor and protect against fraudulent or unauthorized activities.

  3. Personalization & Analytics:

    • Tailor the content, question sets, and recommendations based on your subjects, progress, or performance.
    • Conduct data analysis to improve the quality and accuracy of AI feedback, analytics dashboards, and study suggestions.

  4. Communication:

    • Respond to inquiries or support requests you submit.
    • Send administrative updates (e.g., password resets, transactional emails).
    • Provide updates about new features, promotional offers, or changes to our policies (where permitted by law).

  5. Compliance & Legal Obligations:

    • Enforce our Terms of Service and other usage policies.
    • Comply with applicable laws, regulations, or legal processes.

  6. Research & Development:

    • Aggregate or anonymize user data for internal research and analysis, product development, troubleshooting, or improvement of AI accuracy.

4. Disclosure of Your Information

We do not sell or rent your personal information. We may share your information in the following ways:

  1. Service Providers:

    • We employ trusted third-party companies to perform tasks on our behalf (e.g., hosting, analytics, payment processing, AI marking, OCR). These partners have limited access to your information solely to perform these tasks and are obligated not to disclose or use it for other purposes. A complete list of third-party service providers is available in Section 7. Cookies & Other Tracking Technologies and in our Data Processing Agreement (available to school customers on request).

  2. Schools or Organizations:

    • If your access to StudyPulse is provided by a school or institution, certain performance metrics (e.g., usage data, scores, completion stats) may be shared with that school’s administrators or teachers for educational oversight purposes.
    • Data Isolation: Each school organisation’s data is logically separated. Teachers and administrators can only access data for students within their own organisation. Cross-organisation data access is prevented by application-level access controls.

  3. Legal Requirements:

    • We may disclose your information if required by law, subpoena, or if we believe in good faith that such disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, investigate fraud, ensure user safety, or respond to a government request.

  4. Business Transfers:

    • In the event of a merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that deal, subject to confidentiality obligations.

  5. With Your Consent:

    • We may share information with third parties outside the above scope if we obtain your explicit consent or at your direction.

5. Children’s Privacy

StudyPulse’s Services are primarily intended for students aged 16 years and above, specifically those in VCE years (Year 11 and 12). We recognize that some students may be under 18 years old. For users under 18, we require that you review this Privacy Policy with your parent or guardian to ensure you both understand and consent to it.

6. Data Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as needed to provide the Services, subject to the following maximum retention periods:

Data CategoryRetention Period
Account profile (name, email, school, year level)Duration of account + 30 days after deletion
Answer submissions and AI feedbackDuration of account + 30 days after deletion
Essay submissions and uploaded imagesDuration of account + 30 days after deletion
Chatbot/tutoring conversation logsDuration of account + 30 days after deletion
De-identified usage analytics26 months from collection
Payment and billing records7 years from transaction (Australian tax law)
Security and audit logs2 years from creation

If you request account deletion, we will delete or anonymize your personal information in accordance with Section 12 (Account Deletion) and the retention periods above. Payment records are retained as required by Australian tax law.

7. Cookies & Other Tracking Technologies

StudyPulse uses cookies and similar tracking technologies to personalize your experience, analyze usage trends, and maintain site security.

7.1 Cookies

7.2 Analytics and Tracking Services

We use the following third-party analytics and tracking services:

7.3 Analytics Controls for Schools

For accounts provisioned through a school or institutional agreement, the school may request that non-essential analytics and tracking services (Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, and Meta Pixel) be disabled for their students’ and teachers’ authenticated sessions. When enabled, no third-party tracking scripts are loaded for school users. Essential cookies (authentication, security) cannot be disabled as they are required for the Service to function.

7.4 Managing Cookies

You can choose to disable cookies through your browser settings, but this may limit your ability to use certain features of our Services.

8. Data Security

We implement a range of security measures to protect your personal information:

No transmission method or electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to protect your information, we cannot guarantee absolute security. In the event of a data breach, we will notify affected users and relevant authorities in accordance with applicable laws.

9. Data Residency

We store 100% of your data in Australia. Our databases and all primary infrastructure are located exclusively in Sydney, Australia.

When you use AI-powered features, your answer text and question context (containing no personal identifiers) may be temporarily processed by AI providers whose servers are located in the United States. This data is processed in transit for the sole purpose of generating marking feedback. Default provider retention policies may apply (typically up to 30 days for abuse monitoring), and we are actively pursuing zero-data-retention agreements with all AI providers.

Other third-party services that may process limited data outside Australia include: Stripe (payment processing, US — not used for school-provisioned accounts) and Mailgun (transactional email, US). Image storage (Cloudinary) is hosted in Australia. Client-side analytics services (Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Meta Pixel) also process data in the United States — see Section 7 for details. For school accounts, these analytics services can be disabled on request.

We take reasonable steps to ensure that all overseas recipients handle personal information in a manner consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles (APP 8), and we remain accountable for their handling of your data.

10. Third-Party Links and Content

StudyPulse may contain links to third-party websites or external content (e.g., external tutorials, VCE resources, third-party exam providers). We do not control these websites or their privacy practices. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any site you visit.

11. Your Rights and Choices

You have the following rights regarding your personal information:

  1. Access: You may request access to all personal information we hold about you.
  2. Correction: You may request correction of any inaccurate or incomplete personal information.
  3. Deletion: You may request deletion of your personal information. See Section 12. Account Deletion for more details.
  4. Opt-Out of Marketing: You can opt out of receiving promotional emails by clicking “unsubscribe” in any email or by updating your account settings.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at [email protected]. All requests are free of charge. We will acknowledge your request and provide a response within 30 days. For complex requests, we may require up to 3 months to fully resolve, and we will keep you informed of our progress. If we refuse a request, we will provide written reasons in accordance with applicable law.

12. Account Deletion

If you wish to delete your StudyPulse account:

  1. Initiate Request: Contact us at [email protected] or use the account settings page (if available) to request deletion.
  2. Cool-Off Period: We implement a 14-day cool-off period during which your data is not visible to others, allowing you to reverse your decision if you change your mind.
  3. Permanent Deletion: After the cool-off period, all associated personal data will be deleted or irreversibly anonymized within 30 days, in accordance with the retention periods in Section 6. The only data retained after deletion is:
    • Payment and billing records (7 years, as required by Australian tax law).
    • Security and audit logs (2 years, for compliance purposes).
    • Content contributed to shared community features (e.g., forum posts) may be retained in anonymised form with no link to your identity.

Important: Once your account is permanently deleted, you will lose all progress, submissions, content, and data associated with it. If your account is provided by a school, please consult with them before requesting account deletion. For school-provisioned accounts, data deletion is governed by the applicable Data Processing Agreement between StudyPulse and the school.

13. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for other operational, legal, or regulatory reasons. When we make material changes, we will post the updated version with a new “Last Updated” date at the top. Where required by law, we will provide you with notice and/or request your consent. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed of our data practices.

14. Contact Us

If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, or wish to exercise any of your rights, please contact us at:

StudyPulse Pty Ltd (ACN 692945912)
Email: [email protected]
Melbourne, Australia

Thank you for trusting StudyPulse with your learning journey. We remain committed to protecting your personal information and providing a secure, efficient, and engaging study platform.

15. Complaints

If you believe we have breached the Australian Privacy Principles, please contact us at [email protected]. We will acknowledge your complaint, investigate the issue, and provide you with a written response within a reasonable timeframe (usually 30 days). If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

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