Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

IELTS Memo ("we", "us", "our") is an AI-powered writing feedback platform for IELTS candidates. Our service is operated at ieltsmemo.com. If you have questions about this policy, contact us at support@ieltsmemo.com.

We are not affiliated with IDP Education, the British Council, or Cambridge Assessment English.

2. What We Collect

We collect the minimum data necessary to provide our service:

• Account information: Your name, email address, and profile photo — provided by Google when you sign in via Google OAuth.
• Essay content: The essay text and task prompts you submit for AI feedback.
• Uploaded images: Chart or graph images you optionally attach to Task 1 submissions.
• Usage data: The number of essays submitted, exercises completed, and band scores received — used to build your personal error-pattern memory and vocabulary profile.
• Vocabulary data: Overused words and frequency counts identified from your essays, used to power the Vocabulary Builder tool. This data is sent to Anthropic's API for enrichment.
• Payment information: If you subscribe to the Pro plan, Stripe processes your payment. We never see or store your card number.
• Log data: Standard server logs including IP address, browser type, and pages visited, retained for up to 30 days for security and debugging purposes.

3. How We Use Your Data

We use your data only for the following purposes:

• Providing and improving the AI feedback, band scoring, and exercise generation features.
• Building and updating your personal error-pattern memory profile across sessions.
• Processing your subscription payments via Stripe.
• Sending transactional emails (e.g. receipts) — we do not send marketing emails without your explicit consent.
• Detecting and preventing abuse or fraudulent use of the platform.

We do not sell your data to third parties. We do not use your essays to train AI models without your explicit consent.

Shared essays: If you use the Share feature, your essay and its AI feedback become publicly accessible via a unique link. You control whether to share; we do not share your essays with other users without your action.

4. Third-Party Services

We share data with the following trusted third parties only as required to operate the service:

5. Legal Basis for Processing (GDPR — EEA & UK Users)

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA) or United Kingdom, we process your personal data under the following legal bases:

• Contract performance — processing your account data and essays is necessary to provide the Service you signed up for.
• Legitimate interests — maintaining security, preventing abuse, and improving our product through anonymised analytics.
• Legal obligation — retaining certain data where required by law.
• Consent — sending any non-transactional communications (you may withdraw consent at any time).

6. International Data Transfers

IELTS Memo is operated using infrastructure and service providers based in the United States, including Vercel (hosting), Neon (database), Anthropic (AI processing), and Stripe (payments). If you are located outside the US — including the EEA or UK — your data will be transferred to and processed in the US.

We only use providers who offer adequate data protection commitments (such as Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent mechanisms). By using the Service, you acknowledge this transfer.

8. Data Retention

We retain your account data and essays for as long as your account is active. You can delete your account and all associated data at any time directly from your Profile settings — deletion is immediate and permanent. If you need assistance, contact us at support@ieltsmemo.com.

Anonymised, aggregated usage statistics (with no personally identifiable information) may be retained indefinitely for product improvement.

9. Cookies

We use only essential cookies required to maintain your login session. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies. We do not use third-party analytics tools that set cookies (such as Google Analytics).

10. Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Access — request a copy of the data we hold about you.
• Correction — ask us to correct inaccurate data.
• Deletion — request erasure of your account and data.
• Portability — receive your data in a machine-readable format.
• Objection — object to certain types of processing.

To delete your account, go to Profile settings — no email required. To exercise any other rights, email us at support@ieltsmemo.com.

11. Security

We implement industry-standard security measures including HTTPS encryption in transit, encrypted database connections, and access controls. However, no system is 100% secure. Please use a strong, unique password for your Google account and notify us immediately if you suspect unauthorised access.

12. Children

IELTS Memo is not intended for children. The minimum age to use the Service is 13 (or 16 for users in the European Economic Area or United Kingdom, in line with GDPR). We do not knowingly collect personal data from children below the applicable age threshold. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, contact us and we will delete it promptly.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Continued use of the service after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.