HomeworkTurtle is a homework tracker and AI study tool used by students, including children. We built privacy into the product from day one.
Email address, name, password (stored as a salted bcrypt hash, never plain text), and your age bracket ("under 13," "13 to 17," or "18 and older"). We never store your date of birth. Your device computes the bracket at signup; only the bracket leaves the device.
If you're under 18, we collect your parent or guardian's email address for verifiable parental consent (under-13) or required notice (13–17). This is the only purpose; we don't send marketing to parents.
Homework you track, notes you write, files you upload (images and PDFs), AI Tutor conversations, quizzes and flashcards you generate, study guides you generate. We store your content so you can access it across devices.
A push notification token, anonymous crash data, and basic usage data (which features you tap, how often you sign in). We do not use the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) on iOS. We have never requested App Tracking Transparency permission and we never will. Our Apple PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy manifest declares NSPrivacyTracking: false. When you sign up on the web, we also record how you first found us: the name of the website that linked you (never the full link) and any campaign tag in that link.
A Stripe customer ID and subscription identifier (web and Windows) OR an Apple In-App Purchase transaction identifier (iOS, iPadOS, macOS). We never see your full payment card number.
On our public pages (our homepage, /launch and /press), but not inside the app, we use HeyCatch to count visits and see which links or posts brought people to us. It records the pages viewed, clicks, the link or campaign tag that brought you, your browser and device type, and your IP address. It does not receive your name, email address, account or anything you type, and it never records your screen. Its visit ID is stored only for your current browser tab and is erased when you close it. We use this information only to understand and improve our own website and outreach. We never use it for advertising or to build a profile of you.
A small number of third-party processors. Each is bound by a Data Processing Agreement and uses your information only on our instructions.
| Provider | What they get | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic, PBC | The minimum content needed for an AI response. No email, no full names, no parent identifiers. | AI tutor responses, quiz/study guide generation. Standard API tier does not train on customer data. |
| Stripe, Inc. | Card number, billing address, name (on Stripe's hosted checkout) | Process subscription payments (web + Windows) |
| Apple Inc. | Apple ID, payment method | Process subscription payments (iOS / iPadOS / macOS via App Store IAP) |
| AWS Simple Email Service | Email address, name and content of transactional emails | Account verification, password reset, parental consent, billing receipts |
| Google LLC (when you choose it) | OAuth tokens, Classroom assignment metadata you've granted access to | Google Sign-In, Google Classroom assignment sync |
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) | All Service data, encrypted in transit and at rest (United States, us-east-1) | Cloud hosting and the managed Postgres database that runs the Service |
| Apple APNs / Google FCM | A push notification token and the notification text | Deliver push notifications (Apple on iOS / iPadOS / macOS; Google FCM on Android once it ships) |
| HeyCatch, Inc. | Pages viewed, clicks, referring link or campaign tag, browser and device type, and IP address from visitors to our public website pages. No account information. HeyCatch may have this data analyzed by AI model providers, some outside the U.S.; they may not train on it. | Measure visits to our public website and which links bring people to it. Not used inside the app. |
What we never do: sell your information, share it with advertisers, share it for third-party marketing, or let our AI provider train on your conversations.
HomeworkTurtle is offered only to users located in the United States. We operate in the United States and our processors store and process data in the U.S. (our infrastructure runs in AWS us-east-1). If you access the Service from outside the United States, your information is transferred to and processed in the U.S. One exception: HeyCatch, which measures visits to our public website pages, may use AI model providers outside the U.S. to analyze that website visit data. This never includes information from inside the app, and those providers are not permitted to train on it.
The web Service uses only essential cookies (a session cookie to keep you signed in, plus first-party localStorage entries for in-app preferences and for remembering how you first found us). Our public website pages also keep a visit ID in your browser's session storage for website analytics (see Section 2F). It sets no cookies and is erased when you close the tab. We do not use advertising cookies, cross-site tracking cookies, or third-party analytics cookies.
Operator: Oddball Outpost LLC
Email for COPPA inquiries: privacy@homeworkturtle.com
We collect from children under 13 only after verifiable parental consent. We use the FTC-approved "email-plus" method (16 CFR § 312.5(b)(2)(i)): the child cannot use the app until their parent receives a consent email, clicks the consent link, confirms on a landing page, and receives a second confirmation email about 30 seconds later. This method is acceptable under COPPA because we use children's information only for internal purposes — never for third-party marketing.
On our public website pages we collect an IP address and a tab-only visit ID through our processor HeyCatch, solely to analyze and improve how our own site works (support for internal operations). We do not use them to contact anyone, build a profile, or serve ads. HeyCatch does not receive any information from inside the app.
Parental rights are described in Section 5 above.
When a school or district licenses HomeworkTurtle (our School plan), the school may provide consent on behalf of parents for students' use of the Service for a school-authorized educational purpose, consistent with COPPA's school-consent provision. In that setting we act as a "school official" with a legitimate educational interest under FERPA, and as a service provider under applicable state student-privacy laws (for example, California's SOPIPA).
For school-provided student data we: use it only to provide the Service for the school's educational purpose; do not sell it; do not use it for advertising or to build a non-educational profile; do not train AI on it; and delete or return it at the end of the school agreement or on the school's request. Schools that require a separate Student Data Privacy Agreement can contact privacy@homeworkturtle.com.
When we make material changes, we'll update the "Last updated" date at the top, notify you via email or in-app notice at least 30 days before the change takes effect, and (for users under 13) obtain new parental consent if the changes materially affect collection or use.