1. Who We Are
IELTS Buddy is operated by Neural AI Private Limited, a company registered in Nepal, which is the data controller for the information described in this policy. You can reach us at ieltsbuddy.app@gmail.com.
2. Information We Collect
Account information. Your name, email address, profile image, and institutional affiliation where one applies. If you sign in with Google, we receive these from your Google account.
Phone number. Optional, and only used for SMS reminders if you separately consent to that. See section 3 for how that consent works.
Study content. Your written essay submissions, speaking audio recordings and their transcripts, test answers, scores, and progress data.
Payment information. Your transaction reference, amount, plan, and status. Card and wallet credentials are entered with the payment provider directly and are never received or stored by us. Where you pay by QR code, we receive the screenshot or reference you send us for verification.
Technical and usage data. Your IP address, browser and device type, pages visited, features used, and error diagnostics. See section 6.
3. Phone Number Consent
Providing a phone number is optional. You can skip this step during onboarding and still use the platform in full, and you can add or remove a number later from Settings.
If you do provide a number, we use it to help you recover your account and to verify manual payments, on that basis alone, unless you separately consent to more.
Sending you SMS study reminders and updates requires a second, explicit consent: an unticked checkbox you must actively tick, shown at the point we ask for your number. We record the fact and time you gave this consent. Having a phone number on file does not by itself mean you have agreed to receive SMS messages.
You can withdraw SMS consent at any time from the Notifications section of Settings, without affecting your account, your phone number on file, or any other part of the service.
4. How We Use Your Information
We use this information to run and improve the platform: to create and secure your account, generate AI scores and feedback on your submissions, build your personalised study plan, track your progress, process payments and manage subscriptions, send you service emails about your account, respond to your support requests, and diagnose faults.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use your study content for advertising.
5. AI Processing
Your essays, speaking audio, and transcripts are transmitted to Google (Gemini) for the sole purpose of generating your evaluation. This processing is necessary to deliver the service you have asked for. Under Google's paid API terms, this content is not used to train their general models. We do not use your submissions to train our own models without asking you first.
6. Analytics, Error Monitoring, and Cookies
We use PostHog to understand how the platform is used in aggregate, and Sentry to capture errors so we can fix them. Sentry's session replay feature is enabled and records a sample of browsing sessions, including page interactions, together with identifying information such as your account identifier and IP address. We use this only to reproduce and fix faults.
We and these providers set cookies and similar identifiers that are necessary to keep you signed in and to measure usage. You can block cookies in your browser, though doing so may prevent you from staying signed in.
7. Who We Share Data With
We share the minimum necessary with service providers who process data on our behalf: Google (Gemini AI evaluation), Cloudinary (media storage), Resend (transactional and lifecycle email), MongoDB (database hosting), Vercel and DigitalOcean (application hosting), PostHog (analytics), Sentry (error monitoring), and eSewa and Khalti (payment processing).
If you access IELTS Buddy through an educational institution, that institution can see your progress, scores, and attempt history for the account it sponsors.
We may also disclose information where the law requires it, or to protect our rights and the safety of our users.
8. International Transfers
Several of the providers listed above store and process data on servers outside Nepal, including in the United States and the European Union. By using IELTS Buddy you understand that your information is transferred to and processed in those countries, which may have different data protection rules than Nepal.
9. How Long We Keep Data
We keep your account and study history for as long as your account is open, so that you can see your progress over time. If you delete your account, we remove your personal data within 30 days, apart from records we are required to keep for tax and accounting purposes, which we retain for the period the law requires. Analytics and error data are kept on shorter provider-defined retention windows.
10. Your Rights
You can ask us for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, ask us to correct anything inaccurate, ask us to delete your account and data, withdraw a consent you have given (such as SMS reminders), or object to a particular use. You can change your notification and consent settings yourself at any time in Settings. For anything else, email ieltsbuddy.app@gmail.com and we will respond within 30 days.
11. Children
IELTS Buddy is not intended for children under 16. If you are under 18, you may only use the platform with the involvement of a parent, guardian, or your educational institution. If we learn that we have collected data from a child under 16 without that involvement, we will delete it.
12. Data Security
We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your personal data. Our architecture utilizes secure, encrypted connections (WSS/HTTPS) for real-time evaluations and standard encryption at rest for our databases.
13. Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at ieltsbuddy.app@gmail.com.