Summary: Studera collects your information to match you with the right mentor or student. We do not sell your data to anyone. You can delete your account and all associated data at any time by emailing us. Session recordings are only used with your explicit consent and are anonymised before any AI processing.
1. Who We Are
Studera ("Studera", "we", "our", or "us") is an educational mentorship platform that connects high school students with undergraduate mentors from their target universities. Studera is operated by its founders and is currently in its alpha and beta testing phase.
For all privacy-related inquiries, you may contact us at: info.studera@gmail.com
2. Information We Collect
2.1 Information You Provide Directly
- Account information: Full name, email address, country of residence, and role (student or mentor)
- Profile picture: An optional photograph you upload to personalise your profile
- Student Profile data: Academic subjects, grades, university preferences, field of interest, financial budget range, extracurricular activities, and career interests — collected through our Doctor Algorithm conversation
- Mentor Profile data: Current university, programme, year of study, academic record, application history, universities applied to and offers received, scholarship status, advisory scope, statement of interest, and availability
- Session content: Notes, feedback, and ratings submitted after mentoring sessions
2.2 Information Collected Automatically
- Device type and browser information
- IP address (used for fraud prevention and regional compliance only)
- Pages visited and time spent on the platform
- Error logs for debugging and platform improvement
2.3 Session Recordings (Consent Required)
If you and your session partner both consent, mentoring sessions may be recorded. You will be presented with a clear consent banner before every session. You may decline recording without any impact on your session. Recordings are stored securely and only accessed as described in Section 4.
3. How We Use Your Information
- Account creation and authentication: To create and secure your Studera account
- Profile building: To build your Student or Mentor Profile using our Doctor Algorithm
- Mentor matching: To compute compatibility scores and recommend the most suitable mentor or student matches
- Session facilitation: To schedule, host, and support mentoring sessions
- Platform improvement: To improve our matching algorithm, conversation flows, and overall service quality
- Communications and marketing: To send you account-related emails, session confirmations, and platform updates. To help you discover relevant educational opportunities, scholarships, and Studera features, we may also use your profile and usage data to deliver personalised and targeted marketing communications across email and our platform. You may opt out of non-essential marketing at any time via the unsubscribe link or by contacting us; essential service communications will continue.
- Safety and fraud prevention: To detect and prevent abuse of our platform
4. Session Recordings and AI Processing
Session recordings — where consented to — are used exclusively for the following purposes:
- Quality assurance review by the Studera team
- Improving our AI matching and guidance systems (the Central Intelligence Cloud)
Important: Before any recording is used for AI processing, it is fully anonymised. All names, university names, and personally identifiable information are replaced with coded identifiers. The AI system processes patterns and insights only — never raw personal data. No recording is ever shared with third parties.
5. How We Share Your Information
We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to any third party. We share your information only in the following limited circumstances:
- With your matched mentor or student: A structured profile brief is shared with your matched mentor or student before your first session. This brief contains your academic background, goals, and areas of focus — but never your financial details or private notes.
- Review-only documents (students): Once a session is confirmed, and with your consent given at the time of booking, Studera makes your uploaded academic documents — transcripts, extracurricular portfolio, and SAT score reports where applicable — visible to your matched mentor on a strict review-only basis, solely so they can guide you effectively. These documents are presented to the mentor as watermarked, non-downloadable previews. Mentors are contractually bound to keep them confidential; leaking, publishing, copying, or otherwise misusing them entitles Studera to permanently ban the mentor and pursue strict legal action. You may withdraw this consent at any time by contacting us, though doing so may limit our ability to facilitate effective mentoring.
- Service providers: We use third-party services to operate our platform, including Supabase (database and authentication), Google (AI processing via Gemini API), and Stripe (payments). These providers process your data only as instructed by us and under strict confidentiality agreements.
- Legal requirements: We may disclose your information if required by law or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Studera, its users, or the public.
6. Data Storage and Security
Your data is stored on Supabase-managed servers, which operate on AWS infrastructure with industry-standard encryption (AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.2+ in transit). We implement Row Level Security (RLS) policies ensuring that each user can only access their own data.
Profile pictures are stored in secure cloud storage with access controlled by your account credentials.
No system is perfectly secure. In the event of a data breach that affects your personal information, we will notify you within 72 hours of becoming aware of the breach.
7. Data Retention
- Active accounts: Your data is retained for as long as your account is active
- Deleted accounts: Upon account deletion, all personal data is permanently removed within 30 days. Anonymised, aggregated insights derived from your data (which cannot be used to identify you) may be retained to improve our platform.
- Session recordings: Retained for a maximum of 12 months from the date of the session, then permanently deleted
- Payment records: Retained for 7 years as required by financial regulations
8. Your Rights
You have the following rights regarding your personal data:
- Right of access: Request a copy of all personal data we hold about you
- Right to rectification: Correct any inaccurate or incomplete data
- Right to erasure: Request permanent deletion of your account and all associated personal data
- Right to restrict processing: Ask us to limit how we use your data
- Right to data portability: Receive your data in a machine-readable format
- Right to object: Object to specific uses of your data, including AI processing
- Right to withdraw consent: Withdraw consent for session recording at any time
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at info.studera@gmail.com. We will respond within 30 days.
9. Children and Minors
Studera serves high school students, some of whom may be under 18 years of age. We take the privacy of minors seriously. Users under 18 are encouraged to review this policy with a parent or guardian. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, please contact us immediately and we will delete the account and all associated data.
10. Confidential Student Documents
High school students upload academic documents (transcripts, an extracurricular portfolio, and SAT score reports where applicable) as part of building their profile and qualifying for mentorship. These documents are treated as confidential.
When a student books and confirms a session, the student consents — at the point of booking and under this policy — to their documents being made visible to their matched mentor for that engagement. This access is strictly limited as follows:
- Review-only: Documents are displayed to the mentor as watermarked, non-downloadable previews, solely to enable effective academic guidance.
- No redistribution: Mentors are contractually prohibited from leaking, publishing, copying, screenshotting, distributing, or otherwise misusing any student document.
- Enforcement: Any breach entitles Studera to immediately and permanently ban the mentor and to pursue strict disciplinary and legal action.
- Withdrawal: Students may withdraw document-sharing consent at any time by contacting us, recognising this may limit our ability to facilitate effective mentoring.
Note for students under 18: We encourage you to review this section with a parent or guardian before confirming a session, as it governs how your academic documents are shared with your mentor.
11. Profile Picture
Uploading a profile picture is entirely optional. If you upload one, it is stored securely and displayed only to users you are matched with on the platform. You may remove or change your profile picture at any time through your account settings. Profile pictures are never shared with third parties or used for AI training.
12. Social Media and Promotional Content
We may offer users the opportunity to share Studera-branded content on social media platforms (such as Instagram, LinkedIn, or others) in exchange for promotional benefits. Participation in any such programme is entirely voluntary. By choosing to share branded content and tag Studera, you grant Studera a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to reshare or feature your post on our official channels. You may request removal of any reposted content at any time by contacting us.
13. Cookies
Studera uses minimal cookies and local browser storage strictly for functional purposes — keeping you logged in, remembering your progress through the profile builder, and maintaining session state. We do not use tracking cookies or third-party advertising cookies.
14. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make significant changes, we will notify you by email and update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page. Continued use of Studera after notification constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
15. Governing Law
This Privacy Policy is governed by and construed in accordance with applicable law. As Studera operates internationally and serves users across multiple jurisdictions including Pakistan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, we are committed to upholding privacy standards consistent with applicable regional regulations including but not limited to GDPR principles (for European users) and PDPA principles (for Pakistani users).
Privacy Questions?
If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding your privacy or this policy, please contact us.
We respond to all privacy inquiries within 30 days.