Privacy Policy

Operator: Bulent Karamanoglu, trading as The Study Brief, ABN 30 779 077 297 · Review draft: 16 September 2026 · Governing law: Victoria, Australia

This policy explains how The Study Brief collects, uses, stores and discloses your personal information, and your rights under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). By using The Study Brief you agree to this policy.

What we collect

• Account details: your name, email, optional school or university, study level and age band.
• Guardian consent: for students aged 16 to 17, the guardian email and a record of consent. After the account is deleted, a de-identified receipt of that consent remains for 12 months (see Retention).
• What you create: workshop and self-test attempts, saved AI feedback, notes, flashcards, revision plans, reading progress, and Study Circle posts, replies and reports.
• Materials you upload: private documents and the text extracted from them so you can study and search your materials.
• Usage data: basic logs (pages, device, approximate time) to run and secure the service. Two public forms, the password reset request and the founding list, are rate limited; for that the caller’s IP address is kept for up to two hours in a table only the server can read, then deleted.
• Founding pilot progress: whether and when you accept an invitation, open a guide, complete practice, contribute to the Study Circle and return after seven days. The owner can see these milestones with your account name and email during the pilot. This progress record does not copy your answers, notes or discussion text.

Why we use it

To provide the service (sign-in, workshops, the Tutor and saved notes), to verify eligibility and guardian consent, to give support, to keep the platform secure, and to improve it. We do not sell your personal information.

The AI Tutor

When you use the Tutor, the text you paste and your question are sent to OpenAI to generate your answer. Tutor prompts are not used by The Study Brief for advertising. Do not paste anyone’s private or personal information into the Tutor.

Study Circle

Posts and replies you add to the Study Circle are visible to signed-in members of the same course workspace, together with a shortened display name and your platform role. Reports are private and visible only to the Study Brief team. We use this information to run and moderate the course community. Do not post personal information, confidential material or a current assessment question.

Course coaching sends your question, attempt and relevant course passages to OpenAI. If you select your uploaded materials for coaching, relevant extracted passages from those files are also sent. Uploading a file alone does not send its content to OpenAI. We save the feedback and source excerpts with your practice history. Draft recovery copies may also be stored in this browser under your account.

Where your data lives, and overseas disclosure

Your account data and files are stored with our hosting provider (Supabase) in a data centre located in Sydney, Australia. Some service providers we rely on process data overseas, including the United States: Vercel, Resend, Google and OpenAI. Where we disclose information overseas we take reasonable steps consistent with APP 8.

Who we share it with

Other signed-in members of your course workspace can see what you deliberately post to the Study Circle. We also share information with only the providers needed to run The Study Brief: hosting (Supabase and Vercel), email delivery (Google Workspace and Resend), sign-in (Google, where chosen), and OpenAI. Each handles data on our behalf under their own terms. We disclose information otherwise only where required by law.

Your rights

You can ask us to access or correct your personal information by emailing the address below. A student can delete their own account and data at any time from the Help page; anyone else can ask us to by email. You can also complain to us, and if unsatisfied, to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au.

Retention & security

We keep your information while your account is active. A student can delete their own account from the Help page; that removes the login, profile, answers, feedback, notes, files, Tutor history and help requests straight away. Study Circle posts and replies stay, shown as from a former student, so that other people’s replies keep their context. For a student who joined at 16 or 17, a de-identified receipt of the guardian’s consent is kept for 12 months after deletion: a keyed hash of the student and guardian addresses, when consent was given and which versions of these documents were accepted. It holds no name and no address, and it is purged after that period. Beyond that we keep only what the law requires us to keep, then delete or de-identify it. We use reasonable technical and organisational measures (encryption in transit, access controls, row-level security) to protect your information, though no system is perfectly secure.

Data breaches

If personal information we hold is lost or accessed without authority and that is likely to result in serious harm, we notify the people affected and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as soon as practicable under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, and we say what happened and what you can do.

Complaints

Write to hello@thestudybrief.com.au. We acknowledge a complaint within seven days and aim to resolve it within thirty. If you are not satisfied with our answer you can complain to the OAIC at oaic.gov.au.

Cookies

We use only the cookies needed to keep you signed in and remember your session. We do not use advertising trackers.

Changes & contact

We may update this policy; material changes will be notified in-app or by email. Questions or requests: hello@thestudybrief.com.au.