StudyBuddy Privacy Policy

Effective date: July 7, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how StudyBuddy ("StudyBuddy", "we", "us") collects, uses, shares and protects your information when you use studybuddy.vc and any related applications (the "Service"). StudyBuddy is operated by Carlos Lopez, with address at Carretera México - Toluca 1535, Ciudad de México, Mexico, who is the party responsible for your personal data. You can contact us at support@studybuddy.vc.

By using the Service, you agree to the practices described in this Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

1. Information we collect

Information you provide

• Account information. When you create an account we collect your email address, your name, and a password (stored only as a secure hash). If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address and profile picture from Google.
• Study content. The documents you upload, the YouTube links you submit, and the text extracted from them. This content is the core input the Service works on.
• Payment information. Payments are processed by Stripe. We never receive or store your full card number. We keep records of your transactions (plan, amount, currency, date) for billing, support and legal purposes.
• Communications. Messages you send through our support and feedback forms, and emails you exchange with us. Support requests are tied to the email address on your account.

Information collected automatically

• Study activity. Your answers, sessions, progress, scores and related study statistics. We use this to run features such as adaptive practice and progress analytics.
• Usage and event data. Interactions with the Service (pages visited, features used, purchase funnel events) collected through our own analytics and through third party analytics tools.
• Device and technical data. IP address, browser and device information, session cookies and authentication tokens.
• Device fingerprint. For free guest sessions we generate a device identifier (a browser fingerprint) used exclusively to enforce free usage limits and prevent abuse.
• Approximate location. We derive your country from your IP address to show prices in your local currency where available and to select the language of certain emails. We do not collect precise location.

Guest sessions

You can try the Service without creating an account. Guest sessions use a temporary account that is automatically deleted approximately 24 hours after creation, together with its documents and study data, unless you convert it into a full account.

2. How we use your information

Purposes necessary to provide the Service:

• Provide and operate the Service, including processing your documents into study materials;
• Personalize your study experience and show you your progress and analytics;
• Process payments, manage subscriptions and credits, and prevent billing fraud;
• Enforce usage limits and prevent abuse of free tiers, including through device fingerprints;
• Communicate with you about your account (verification, receipts, plan changes, support);
• Diagnose errors and keep the Service secure;
• Comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service.

Optional purposes (not necessary to provide the Service):

• Analyze in aggregate how the Service and its features are used, to improve them;
• Measure the effectiveness of our advertising.

You may oppose the optional purposes at any time by writing to support@studybuddy.vc, without this affecting your ability to use the Service. We do not sell your personal information.

3. AI processing of your content

To generate questions, flashcards, explanations and related study materials, the text (and, on eligible plans, images) of the documents you upload is sent to third party artificial intelligence providers, currently including OpenAI, which process it on our behalf to return the generated materials. YouTube links you submit are sent to a transcript provider to obtain the video transcript.

We use these providers under agreements that restrict their use of your content to providing the service to us. According to their published policies, content submitted through their business APIs is not used to train their models by default. We do not use your documents to train AI models of our own.

Generated study materials are produced by AI and may contain errors. See our Terms of Service for the related disclaimers.

4. Who we share information with

We share information only with service providers that help us operate StudyBuddy, and only what each one needs:

• Stripe (payment processing and billing);
• OpenAI and similar AI providers (processing of your study content, as described above);
• Supadata (retrieval of YouTube transcripts you request);
• MongoDB Atlas (database hosting);
• Cloudflare and our hosting platform (infrastructure, content delivery, bot protection);
• Resend (transactional email delivery);
• PostHog (product analytics);
• Reddit (advertising measurement pixel on our website);
• Google (sign in with Google, if you choose it);
• Sentry (error monitoring).

We may also disclose information if required by law, to protect our rights, to prevent fraud or abuse, or as part of a business transfer (such as a merger or acquisition), in which case this Policy would continue to apply to your information.

5. Cookies and similar technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies that are strictly necessary to operate the Service (for example, keeping you signed in), plus analytics and advertising measurement technologies as described above. You can control cookies through your browser settings; disabling essential cookies may prevent the Service from working. Where required by the laws of your region, we will request your consent for non essential technologies.

6. Data retention

• Account data is kept while your account exists.
• Documents and study data are kept until you delete the corresponding document or your account. Deleting a document permanently deletes its questions, flashcards, sessions and study statistics.
• Guest accounts and all their data are automatically deleted approximately 24 hours after creation.
• Payment and transaction records are kept for as long as required for accounting, tax and legal purposes.
• Support communications are kept for as long as reasonably necessary to handle and document requests.
• Country lookups derived from your IP are cached for a limited period.

7. Deleting your account

You may request deletion of your account at any time by contacting support@studybuddy.vc, and, where available, through the account deletion option inside the Service. Deletion permanently removes your account and your personal data, including your documents and study history, subject to Section 8 below and to records we must keep by law (such as transaction records).

8. Fraud prevention records

To prevent abuse of free usage limits (for example, deleting and recreating accounts to obtain new free credits), after an account is deleted we may retain a minimal fraud prevention record consisting of hashed identifiers (such as a hash of the email address and the device fingerprint) together with usage counters. These records cannot be used to identify you in the ordinary course and are used solely to enforce usage limits, prevent fraud and comply with legal obligations. We consider this our legitimate interest, and where applicable law requires a different basis we rely on that basis.

9. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or receive a copy of your personal data, to object to or restrict certain processing, and to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.

• Mexico: you may exercise your ARCO rights (access, rectification, cancellation and opposition) under the Federal Law on Protection of Personal Data Held by Private Parties by writing to support@studybuddy.vc.
• European Economic Area and United Kingdom: you have the rights provided by the GDPR and UK GDPR, including the right to lodge a complaint with your supervisory authority.
• California: you have the rights provided by the CCPA/CPRA. We do not sell or share your personal information as those terms are defined by that law.

Revoking consent and limiting use or disclosure. Where processing is based on your consent, you may revoke it at any time, without retroactive effect, by writing to support@studybuddy.vc. Through the same address you may request that we limit the use or disclosure of your data for optional purposes such as analytics or advertising measurement, and you can control cookies from your browser as described in Section 5. If you are in Mexico and are not satisfied with our response, you may file a complaint with the data protection authority (currently the Secretaría Anticorrupción y Buen Gobierno).

To exercise any right, contact support@studybuddy.vc. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request.

10. International transfers

Our service providers process data in the United States and other countries. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards for international transfers, such as our providers' standard contractual clauses and equivalent mechanisms.

11. Security

We use technical and organizational measures appropriate to the nature of the data, including encryption in transit, hashed passwords, access controls and isolation of payment processing with Stripe. No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

12. Children

The Service is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you are under the age required by your jurisdiction to consent to data processing, you may only use the Service with the consent of a parent or guardian. If you believe a child has provided us personal data, contact us and we will delete it.

13. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. Non material changes (such as clarifications, corrections or the replacement of a provider with an equivalent one) take effect upon posting, with the "Effective date" above updated. If we make material changes (such as new purposes, new categories of data, or new third parties receiving your data), we will notify you through the Service or by email before they take effect and, where the law requires it, we will request your consent again.

14. Contact

For any question about this Policy or your data, write to support@studybuddy.vc.