Privacy Policy
Last updated: April 2026
AcademIELTS ("we", "us") respects your privacy. This page explains what data we collect, why we collect it, how we use it, and your rights over it.
1. Data we collect
- Account data: name, email address, password (hashed), date of birth, country.
- Test activity: which tests you took, your answers, band scores, time spent, AI feedback on essays.
- Gamification: XP, level, daily streak, achievements.
- Payment: handled by Lemon Squeezy as merchant of record. We never see or store your card details. We store only your subscription status and billing identifier.
- Technical: IP address, browser/device info, anti- abuse rate-limit counters, error logs.
- Cookies: an authentication cookie when you sign in; a preference cookie if you accept the cookie banner.
2. How we use your data
- To provide the practice/exam features you signed up for.
- To track your progress, level, streak, and band history.
- To send you transactional emails (verification, password reset, billing).
- To detect abuse (rate limiting, bot prevention).
- To improve the product through anonymized aggregate analytics — we do not sell personal data.
3. AI processing
When you submit an essay for AI scoring, the essay text and the test prompt are sent to OpenAI for evaluation. OpenAI's policy for API inputs is to not use them to train models. We retain the AI feedback alongside your essay so you can review it later.
4. Cookies
We use only essential cookies (authentication, session, CSRF) plus an optional analytics cookie if you accept it. We do not set third-party advertising cookies on Premium accounts. Free accounts may see ads served via Google AdSense, which uses its own cookies per Google's policies.
5. Sharing
- Lemon Squeezy — payments and tax compliance.
- OpenAI — essay scoring (text only, no PII).
- Hosting infrastructure — our own VPS in Germany; we do not share data with hyperscale clouds.
- We never sell your data to advertisers or data brokers.
6. Your rights (GDPR / KVKK)
You can: access, export, correct, or delete your data at any time. Email privacy@academielts.com and we'll respond within 30 days. Account deletion erases all your attempts, essays, and profile data.
7. Data retention
Account data is kept until you delete your account. Anonymized attempt analytics are kept indefinitely. Backups are kept for 14 days then permanently destroyed.
8. Children
You must be at least 13 years old to sign up. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13.
9. Contact
Questions: privacy@academielts.com