Privacy Policy

Without an account

• Your saved learning (My Learning records and saved sparks) stays in your own browser. We can't see it.
• When you talk with Potato, your words are sent to our AI provider to write a reply. For Ask Potato, we keep only a timestamp and an anonymous, scrambled browser fingerprint so we can enforce fair-use limits — not what you or Potato said. Live Experiences and Creative Spark conversations are not stored on our servers.
• If you use the microphone, your browser's own speech service turns speech into text. We never receive or keep recordings.
• When Potato reads a reply aloud, the reply text is turned into audio and played. Nothing spoken is saved.

Usage counts

We count simple events so we can see which parts of Couch Scholar help people: a visit, a section or course page viewed, an experience or spark started, a learning stage or exchange reached, an experience finished or saved, a Spark of the Day shared, an Ask Potato conversation started and how many messages were sent, read-aloud or the microphone turned on, feedback sent, sign-ins, and the answer to an occasional optional question such as “Did this experience help you see something differently?”. Each count carries only short labels: the page section or experience name, the referring website or campaign tag on the link, mobile, tablet or desktop, the browser family, the country (worked out by our hosting provider; we don't keep your IP address), and the site language.

We never include anything you write or say, full web addresses, or any ID. We use no analytics cookies and store or read nothing in your browser for counting, so visits can't be linked to you or to each other. Automated browsers and crawlers aren't counted. Counts stay in our own systems; we use no third-party analytics, advertising or profiling technologies. We also record, for each AI request, which feature made it and how much text was processed, never the text itself, so we can understand our running costs.

You're here through your campus's pilot link. Your campus will receive aggregate counts only, such as how many people started or completed an experience. Your conversations and reflections are never shared.

With an account

• Your email address, to sign you in with a link and send essential account messages.
• Your first name, if you give one.
• Whether you'd like occasional Couch Scholar news (off unless you tick the box), and that you confirmed you're 16 or older.
• Whether you registered during our Founding Scholars period.
• The learning you choose to save: ideas, applications, commitments, reflections, and sparks. Conversation transcripts are never part of your account.
• When you registered and last signed in, and the days on which learning or a Spark was saved to your account. We use these dates, as totals only, to see how many account holders come back to learn.

When you first sign in, we ask before adding anything already saved in your browser to your account.

Who we share with

• Our hosting and database provider, which stores account data and usage counts.
• Our AI provider, which receives conversation text only to generate Potato's replies and spoken audio.
• Our email delivery provider, which sends sign-in links.

We don't sell or rent personal information, and we don't share it for advertising.

Your choices

• Delete your account from My Learning → “Delete my account.” This removes your sign-in identity, profile, and all learning saved to your account. Copies in your browser remain until you clear them.
• For access, correction, or deletion requests — including from a parent or guardian — write to hello@couchscholar.ai.

Young learners

Accounts are for people 16 and older. Anyone can explore without an account. Because Potato conversations go to an AI provider, we ask everyone — especially younger visitors — to keep situations general and never share names, school details, health information, or other personal details. Couch Scholar is not designed for children under 13. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact hello@couchscholar.ai and we'll delete it.

The Daily Perspective (optional)

• After finishing Spark of the Day you may choose to share one short insight. Nothing is sent unless you press Submit, and only that sentence is sent — never your conversation.
• Insights are stored without your name, email or account, and we don't record your IP address or any device ID with them. Please don't include personal details; avoid writing anything that could identify you.
• Insights are checked automatically, including by our AI provider, to filter out personal details, abuse and spam. Some are held for a person on our team to review.
• Potato may summarize approved insights in a public collective reflection. Individual insights are never shown publicly or quoted word for word.
• Each insight is deleted automatically after 90 days. Published summaries contain no individual insights and are kept.
• You get a removal code when you submit. Use the button on the Spark page, or email the code to hello@couchscholar.ai, and we'll remove it. Administrators can also remove any insight.

Waitlist and organization inquiries

• If you join the waitlist, we keep your email, your name and favorite show or topic if you give them, the date, the site language, the Couch Scholar page you came from and any campaign tag on the link. We use them only to send Couch Scholar launch and product updates you asked for. To be removed, reply to any update or write to hello@couchscholar.ai.
• If you send an organization inquiry, we keep what you enter in the form, the date, the site language, the page you came from and any campaign tag, and use it only to respond to you. We don't add organization contacts to marketing lists.
• Only Couch Scholar administrators can see these submissions. We keep them until you ask us to remove them or they're no longer needed. To limit abuse, we briefly keep a scrambled connection fingerprint (no IP address) for one day.

How long we keep things

• Account data, including the days learning was saved: until you delete your account (learning-day records older than 13 months are deleted sooner).
• Ask Potato fair-use records (time and anonymous fingerprint only): 30 days.
• Usage counts and AI usage records: individual counts for 13 months, then combined into monthly totals.
• Feedback you send: until it has been reviewed and is no longer needed.

Contact

Questions? Write to hello@couchscholar.ai.