Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

ProPlan Scholar ("we," "our," or "us") is an AI-powered academic planning application available at proplanscholar.com. We are operated by ProPlan Scholar LLC, based in Allen, Texas, United States. You can reach us at hello@proplanscholar.com for general questions, or privacy@proplanscholar.com for privacy-related requests.

2. Information We Collect

We collect information you provide directly when you create an account and use ProPlan Scholar:

• Account information: Your name and email address when you register
• Birthdate: Collected at signup to confirm you meet our minimum-age requirement (13+) and to apply age-appropriate AI chat behavior (see Sections 4 and 11)
• Profile information: Your degree level, university, and whether you are a student-athlete, Greek life member, or working professional — used to personalize your study schedule
• Academic data: Course names, assignment titles, due dates, professor names, and estimated study hours — entered manually or extracted from syllabi you upload
• Grades: Scores you choose to record for assignments — used for grade tracking and GPA estimates. Stored privately to your account and never sent to our AI providers.
• Schedule data: Work hours, activity blocks (sports, Greek life), travel dates, and class times — used to generate your study schedule
• Lecture recordings (optional): Audio files you upload to Lecture Notes. We transcribe these via OpenAI Whisper (see Section 5) and store the transcript and generated notes with your account.
• Mobile phone number (optional): Only if you choose to opt in to SMS reminders. See Section 7 below.
• Payment information: If you subscribe to a paid plan, Stripe (our payment processor) collects and stores your card details. We do not see or store full card numbers — we only receive a Stripe customer ID and your subscription status.
• Usage data: Pages visited, features used, and session duration — collected via Vercel Analytics (which is cookieless, see Section 12) to improve the product
• Device information: Browser type, operating system, and IP address — collected automatically for security and anonymized analytics
• Error reports: Automatically collected when the app crashes or encounters an error (via Sentry), including the error message and a stack trace. We mask text content and media in error replays so student data is not captured.

We do not collect your social security number or any government-issued identification. Payment card details are handled by Stripe, not stored on our systems.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Create and manage your account
• Generate personalized study schedules and academic plans
• Power AI features including syllabus parsing, flashcard generation, lecture-to-notes conversion, and study advice
• Apply age-appropriate behavior (students under 18 use a safer, scoped version of our AI chat — see Section 11)
• Send transactional emails (account confirmation, password resets, subscription receipts)
• Send SMS deadline reminders, only if you have opted in (see Section 7)
• Process payments if you subscribe to a paid plan
• Improve and develop ProPlan Scholar's features
• Respond to your support and privacy requests
• Ensure the security and integrity of our service

Lawful basis for processing (GDPR): For users in the European Union, United Kingdom, or other jurisdictions with similar laws, we process your data on the basis of: (a) performance of the contract between you and us (our Terms of Service), (b) your consent where you have given it (SMS opt-in, lecture recording upload), and (c) our legitimate interests in operating and improving the service, balanced against your rights.

4. AI-Powered Features

ProPlan Scholar uses generative AI to power features including: syllabus parsing, AI flashcard generation, AI study guide generation (4 formats), the study assistant chat, lecture transcription and notes generation, image OCR for uploaded photos, and content extraction from URLs you paste in. Every other feature in the app — calendar, scheduling, grade tracking, focus timer, study streaks, push notifications — runs entirely on our own systems with no AI involvement.

Which AI providers we use: Our primary AI provider is Anthropic (Claude). If Anthropic is temporarily unavailable, our AI gateway automatically falls back to OpenRouter (which routes to an open-weight model, currently Meta Llama 3.3 70B Instruct) so that AI features keep working. Lecture audio is transcribed via OpenAI Whisper. All three providers process data under terms that prohibit using your data to train their models.

What is sent to our AI providers when an AI feature runs:

• The text, image, or audio content of files (or URL content) you've attached to the relevant assignment, course, or lecture
• The assignment or course name, due date, and any notes you've typed
• For chat: your message and recent conversation history

What is never sent to our AI providers:

• Your password, phone number, payment details, or birthdate
• Your grades, GPA history, or work schedule
• Other students' data — every AI request is scoped to your own account only

AI output is not professional advice: Generated study schedules, flashcards, study guides, lecture notes, and chat responses are planning tools only. They are not a substitute for official course materials, instructor guidance, legal advice, or medical/mental-health care. AI can hallucinate, misread documents, or generate content that looks plausible but contains errors. Always verify important academic information against your professor's official channels.

Texas Responsible AI Governance Act (TRAIGA): ProPlan Scholar is designed to comply with the disclosure and transparency provisions of TRAIGA. We do not use AI for any of the regulated high-risk decision categories TRAIGA targets (employment, lending, housing, biometric identification, government services, social scoring).

For a complete, plain-English breakdown of how AI is used in ProPlan Scholar — including which features use AI, what data flows where, and your rights and controls — see our dedicated How We Use AI page.

5. Sub-Processors (Service Providers)

We rely on the following vetted service providers (sub-processors) to deliver ProPlan Scholar. Each is bound by its own terms, data protection agreements, and (for EU data) Standard Contractual Clauses or an equivalent transfer mechanism:

• Supabase — database, authentication, file storage. Hosts your account data, academic data, and uploaded files.
• Vercel — application hosting and serverless functions. Serves the website and runs API endpoints.
• Vercel Analytics — cookieless, privacy-friendly page-view analytics. Does not identify individual users.
• Anthropic — primary AI processing (Claude). See Section 4.
• OpenAI — audio transcription (Whisper) for Lecture Notes.
• OpenRouter — AI fallback provider used only when Anthropic is temporarily unavailable.
• Stripe — payment processing for paid subscriptions. Stripe stores your card details; we never see or store your full card number.
• Sentry — error monitoring. Receives anonymized stack traces when the app encounters an error. Text and media are masked.
• Upstash — rate-limiting cache for AI endpoints. Stores short-lived counters only, no personal data.
• Twilio — SMS delivery, only for users who opt in to SMS reminders (see Section 7).
• Apple and Google — identity providers if you choose "Sign in with Apple" or "Sign in with Google." They verify your identity and share your name and email with us for account creation.

These providers access data only as necessary to provide their services to us. We review their security posture periodically and update this list when it changes.

6. How We Share Your Information

We do not sell your personal data. Besides the sub-processors listed in Section 5, we share information only in the following limited circumstances:

• Community features: Professor ratings you submit are visible to other ProPlan Scholar users at your institution. Your name is never displayed — ratings are anonymous.
• Legal requirements: We may disclose information if required by law, court order, or to protect the rights and safety of our users or the public.
• Business transfers: If ProPlan Scholar is acquired or merged, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you before your data is subject to a different privacy policy.

Mobile phone numbers and SMS opt-in data are never shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing, promotional, or any other purposes. See Section 7 for full details.

7. SMS / Text Message Communications

If you opt in to SMS reminders, ProPlan Scholar will send automated text messages to the phone number you provide. Opt-in is voluntary; SMS is not required to use ProPlan Scholar.

Mobile information is never shared. We do not share, sell, rent, or disclose your mobile phone number or SMS opt-in data to any third parties or affiliates for marketing, promotional, or any other purposes. Your phone number is used solely to deliver the assignment reminder messages you have opted in to receive, via our SMS provider (Twilio), which acts as our service provider and is contractually bound to use your number only for delivering our messages.

What you will receive: Automated reminders for assignments you have entered in the app, sent when an assignment is due in 3 days, 1 day, or on the due date itself. Reminders are scoped to your own account only.

Message frequency: Variable, based on the number of assignments you have due. Typically fewer than 5 messages per week. Maximum of 3 reminders per assignment.

Message and data rates may apply. Standard message and data rates from your mobile carrier may apply to each SMS message sent or received. ProPlan Scholar does not charge for SMS reminders, but your carrier may.

Opting out: You can stop receiving SMS reminders at any time by:

• Replying STOP to any reminder text message (handled automatically by our carrier)
• Turning off SMS reminders in your Settings page inside the app

Getting help: Reply HELP to any reminder text message for assistance, or email hello@proplanscholar.com.

8. Data Storage, Security, and International Transfers

Your data is stored in Supabase's secure cloud infrastructure, hosted in the United States. We use row-level security to ensure each user can only access their own data. Passwords are hashed and never stored in plain text. Connections are encrypted using HTTPS/TLS.

International data transfers: If you access ProPlan Scholar from the European Union, United Kingdom, or another jurisdiction outside the United States, your personal data will be transferred to and processed in the United States. We rely on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and the equivalent data protection agreements provided by each of our sub-processors (see Section 5) as the lawful transfer mechanism.

While we take security seriously, no method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security of your data.

9. Data Retention

We retain your account data for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account (Settings → Account → Delete Account), we will delete your personal data within 30 days, except where retention is required by law. Our AI providers' own retention windows (typically 30 days for abuse monitoring at Anthropic/OpenAI, after which they delete) are governed by their contracts with us.

10. Your Rights

You have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

• Access and portability: Download a copy of all your personal data at any time via Settings → Your data → Download my data. The export is a single machine-readable JSON file.
• Correction: Correct inaccurate data through your Settings page, or email us if you cannot update a field yourself.
• Deletion / erasure: Delete your account and all associated data directly in the app at Settings → Account → Delete Account, or by emailing privacy@proplanscholar.com.
• Opt out of non-essential communications, including SMS reminders (see Section 7).
• Restriction of processing / objection to processing (GDPR): Contact us at privacy@proplanscholar.com to request we restrict or stop certain processing of your data.
• Right to lodge a complaint (GDPR): If you are an EU/UK resident and you believe we have mishandled your data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your national or state Data Protection Authority. We would appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns directly first.
• California residents (CCPA/CPRA): You have the right to know what personal information we collect, to request deletion, to request correction, to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information (we do not sell), and to be free from discrimination for exercising these rights.

To exercise any right that isn't available in-app, email privacy@proplanscholar.com. We will respond within 30 days.

11. Children's Privacy and Age-Based Protections

Minimum age: You must be at least 13 years old to use ProPlan Scholar. We ask for your birthdate during signup to confirm this and to apply age-appropriate protections.

Under 13 (United States, COPPA): ProPlan Scholar is not intended for children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that a child under 13 has created an account, we will delete it promptly. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, please contact us at privacy@proplanscholar.com.

Age of consent in the European Union: The GDPR sets the age of consent for data processing at 16, with member states permitted to lower it to no less than 13. For example, Ireland's age of consent is 16; France's is 15. If you are an EU resident below the age of consent in your member state, you may only use ProPlan Scholar with the consent of a parent or legal guardian.

Protections for users ages 13 to 17: Students under 18 use a scoped version of our AI chat that restricts conversations to their own course material (syllabi, assignments, notes). General-topic chat is not available. This design follows Anthropic's Usage Policy requirements for products serving minors and anticipated Colorado Chatbot Safety Act rules effective January 1, 2027.

12. Cookies and Tracking

ProPlan Scholar uses essential browser storage (localStorage) to maintain your login session, remember your preferences (such as dark/light mode), and track which first-visit tips you have seen. These are strictly necessary and cannot be disabled without breaking the app.

Analytics: We use Vercel Analytics for traffic measurement. Vercel Analytics is cookieless — it uses privacy-friendly, hashed anonymous identifiers that do not persist across sessions, and does not identify individual users.

Error monitoring: Sentry (see Section 5) does not set cookies for client-side error reports.

We do not use advertising cookies, third-party tracking pixels, or data brokers.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes by email or by displaying a notice in the app. Your continued use of ProPlan Scholar after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised policy. The "Last Updated" date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision.

14. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your data, please contact us:

• Privacy requests (data access, deletion, correction, objections): privacy@proplanscholar.com
• General questions and support: hello@proplanscholar.com
• Website: proplanscholar.com
• Mail: ProPlan Scholar LLC, Allen, Texas, United States