Privacy Policy

Parent accounts:

• Full name and email address
• Password (stored as a secure bcrypt hash — never as plain text)
• Region setting
• Stripe customer ID (if you subscribe — no card data is stored by us)
• Guardian invite emails (stored even if the invited person has not yet registered)
• IP address (logged for security-sensitive actions such as sign-in and account changes)

Child profiles:

• Full name (first name only is sent to Anthropic — surname is never shared)
• Date of birth (used to calculate year group)
• Year group
• Interests (e.g. dinosaurs, space, cooking)
• Learning profile (personalisation notes, including any SEND information such as ADHD or dyslexia, if you choose to provide it)
• Scheduling preferences (lesson times)
• Display preferences
• Username and password for child login (password stored as a bcrypt hash)
• Approximate location (if provided — e.g. town or area — used to suggest local places and experiences in lessons)

Learning activity:

• Lessons generated and viewed
• Bespoke lesson topics and the answers given in the topic Q&A (stored permanently)
• Tutor chat messages and AI interactions
• Quiz scores and answers (including partial/in-progress answers saved for autosave)
• Challenge written responses (sent to Anthropic for marking — see Section 5)
• Assessment results and in-progress assessment answers
• Curriculum progress (per objective, per child)
• Streaks, badges, and XP points
• Discovery suggestion cache (may include location-derived place names if location is set)

Technical and security data:

• IP addresses logged for security events (sign-in, password changes, etc.)
• Audit trail of account and data changes
• Moderation event category and context (e.g. “off-topic”) — never the raw blocked text
• Anonymised AI usage logs (input/output token counts and costs per request — no message content)

Anthropic (Claude AI — lesson generation, tutoring, and marking)

Home Ed Stars uses Anthropic (anthropic.com) as a data processor. Anthropic processes data strictly on our instructions and under our Data Processing Agreement in compliance with UK GDPR.

What is sent to Anthropic:

• Child's first name only (surname is never shared)
• Year group (e.g. Year 6 — sets age-appropriate complexity)
• Interests(e.g. “dinosaurs, space”) — to make lessons more engaging
• Learning profile adaptations(e.g. “keep explanations concise with visual breaks”, SEND information if provided) — to personalise teaching style
• Approximate location display name(if provided — e.g. “Bristol”) — to suggest local places in lessons
• Tutor chat messages typed by the child during a lesson
• Challenge written responses— the child's full written answers are sent to Anthropic for marking

What is never sent to Anthropic:

• Date of birth or surname
• Parent account details (name, email, password)
• Parent free-text notes from learning profiles (only the extracted adaptations are shared)
• Quiz answers or multiple-choice assessment responses
• Progress data or learning history
• IP addresses or billing information

Google Analytics (platform analytics)

If Google Analytics is configured, we use it to collect anonymised page-view and web-performance data (e.g. page load times). No user IDs, email addresses, or any child data are sent to Google Analytics.

Google & Facebook (sign-in only)

Parents may sign in using their Google or Facebook account. When you do, we receive your name and email address from that provider to create or identify your account. We do not store OAuth tokens, and we do not access any other data from your Google or Facebook account.

Stripe (subscription and billing)

We use Stripe to manage subscriptions and payments. We store your Stripe customer ID and subscription ID in our database so we can manage your plan. Card numbers and payment details are handled entirely by Stripe and never touch our servers.

Nominatim / OpenStreetMap (location lookup)

If a child's approximate location is set, we use the Nominatim geocoding service (OpenStreetMap data) to resolve coordinates into a human-readable place name. Only coordinates are sent — no user identifiers are included in the request.

Session cookie

We set a single session cookie to keep you signed in. It is httpOnly (not accessible to JavaScript), and is set to Secure in production so it is only sent over HTTPS. Parent sessions expire after 30 days; child sessions expire after 24 hours.

Google Analytics cookies

If Google Analytics is configured, it sets its own cookies to measure page visits. No personal data or child data is associated with these cookies.

localStorage

We use the browser's localStorage to remember UI preferences (such as tutorial completion state and sidebar state). No sensitive personal data is stored in localStorage.

Active accounts

Personal data is retained for as long as the account is active. Parents can delete individual child accounts or their entire parent account at any time from Account Settings.

After account deletion

All personal data (lessons, chat history, assessments, progress, streaks, badges, learning profiles) is permanently deleted. Two categories of data are retained after deletion for legal and security compliance:

• Audit events (account actions, security events) — retained for compliance
• AI usage logs — anonymised by removing the user ID; token counts and cost data are kept for financial reporting

Anthropic retention

Deleting your account prevents any future data being sent to Anthropic. Data already sent during previous lesson sessions may be temporarily retained by Anthropic for up to 30 days for safety monitoring, after which it is automatically deleted. Anthropic does not use it for model training or any other purpose.

Right to Access

View your child's lessons, progress, assessments, curriculum status, and learning profile directly in the platform at any time.

Right to Erasure (Right to be Forgotten)

Delete individual child accounts from the child's settings page, or delete your entire parent account (including all children and associated data) from Account Settings. This permanently removes all personal data from Home Ed Stars' systems (subject to the compliance retention described in Section 8).

Right to Rectification

Update child details, learning profile, and interests at any time from the child's profile page. Parent account details can be updated in Account Settings.

Right to Data Portability

A data export feature is not yet available in the platform. To request a copy of your data, contact us at privacy@homeedstars.com.

Right to Withdraw Consent

You may withdraw consent for AI processing at any time by removing your child's account. This stops all future AI processing for that child.