Version: v1.3
ChuSchool Privacy Policy
Version: v1.3
Last updated: 2026-11-06 · Effective date: 2026-11-07
This English text is the governing version; translations are provided for convenience (see Terms of Service, section 14).
1. Who we are
ChuSchool (chuschool.com) is operated by Clavis Sinica Limited ("we", "us"), 17a Richard Avenue, Half Moon Bay, Bucklands Beach 2014, Auckland, New Zealand, NZBN 9429047957282.
- Privacy contact: privacy@chuschool.com
- Purchases, refunds and help: support@chuschool.com
- General contact: hello@chuschool.com
- Phone: +64 21 830188
- Privacy Officer / Malaysian Data Protection Officer: Privacy Officer, Clavis Sinica Limited — support@chuschool.com.
This policy explains what personal information we collect through ChuSchool, why, how we protect it, and what choices parents and guardians have. A shorter notice written for parents about children's information is in our Children's Privacy Notice.
2. Our approach in brief
- Only a parent or guardian (18 or over) can create an account. Children do not register, log in, or have credentials.
- A child's profile uses a nickname only. We ask parents not to enter a real name.
- We collect as little as we can to run the learning service.
- No advertising, no sale of data, no social features, no leaderboards, no third-party analytics or tracking.
3. Information we collect
3.1 From parents and guardians
| Information | Why we need it |
|---|---|
| Email address | Sign-in, verification, consent confirmations, order confirmations and other service emails |
| Password (stored only as a one-way cryptographic hash) | Sign-in |
| Country or region you choose | To apply the correct consent process and notices |
| Interface language | To write emails and screens in your language |
| Consent records (what you agreed to, when, and which notice version) | To prove consent was given and honour withdrawals |
| Sign-in session data: a salted hash of your IP address, the first part of your browser's identification string (up to 32 characters) and timestamps | Security, abuse prevention, rate limiting |
| Records of emails we sent you (see section 9) | Delivery troubleshooting |
| When you buy a textbook PDF: order number, books, amount, tax, currency, the country of your billing address, Stripe payment references and receipt link, and the version of the terms you accepted. Your card details are entered on Stripe's page and never reach us | To deliver your books, keep accounting records, and handle refunds and disputed payments |
| When you become a member: order number, the plan you chose (price band and monthly or yearly), amount, tax, currency, billing country, Stripe customer and subscription references, membership status and end date, and the version of the terms you accepted. Your card details are entered on Stripe's page and never reach us | To provide the membership, renew or end it as you choose, keep accounting records, and handle refunds |
| Waitlist: if your region is not open yet, the email address, region and language you leave with us | To tell you once when your region opens |
| Weekly learning report: whether you have switched it on, and which week was last sent | To send the report only if you switch it on, and not twice for the same week |
3.2 About children (provided by the parent)
| Information | Why we need it |
|---|---|
| Nickname (1–12 characters) and a preset avatar | To tell profiles apart |
| Age band (3–5, 6–8, 9–12) — not a date of birth | To choose suitable content |
| Language for explanations, parental settings (such as daily time limit) | To provide the service |
| Learning progress (characters and components studied, game results, stars, and the accuracy for each lesson) and daily study time. Learning progress now also includes which lessons of the course a child has completed, the date, and stars (1–3) for that day's game. If a parent chooses to skip the introductory stroke lessons, we record that choice (and any later undo) as a progress record. | To provide spaced-repetition review, progress views and parent reports |
| If you import progress that was recorded on a device: a hash of that device's random identifier | To avoid importing the same records twice |
| Only if you switch on “Ask Korii” for a child: the questions about Chinese characters that the child types (sent to Anthropic to generate an answer, see section 5; we do not keep the wording of questions or answers), and how many questions the child has asked that day | To answer the child's questions; to apply the limit of 20 questions a day |
| Only if you switch on “Read aloud” for a child: the stars (1–3) and date of each read-aloud practice. The child's voice never reaches us; see section 3.3 | To show practice progress |
3.3 What we do not collect
We do not collect children's real names, dates of birth, photos, voice recordings, precise location, school, phone number, contact lists or advertising identifiers. Apart from questions to “Ask Korii”, we do not collect free text written by children. Microphone: only if you switch on “Read aloud”, and only while the child holds the read-aloud button, does the browser use the microphone; the sound is compared with the model pronunciation for tone inside the browser on that device and is never uploaded or stored, so neither we nor any third party receive it. We do not use the camera. If we later add a feature that needs any other information of this kind, we will update this policy and ask for your separate consent first.
3.4 Technical data
Our web servers keep standard logs (including IP addresses and the web addresses requested, which can include a character looked up in the dictionary) for security and troubleshooting. We keep these for 14 days. Our application logs do not record email addresses, nicknames or email content. To pre-select your country or region on the membership and pricing pages, our server looks up your IP address in a copy of the DB-IP country database kept on our own server (no outside service is contacted); the result is only shown to you, and neither the IP address nor the result is stored by the application. Prices are still set by the billing country at checkout.
3.5 School and organisation enquiries
When a school or organisation sends a pilot application or enquiry at chuschool.com/schools, we receive what you enter: your name, role, school or organisation name, country or region, work email, type of organisation, approximate number and ages of learners, what you would like, and your message. It reaches us as one email to our work mailbox and is used only to reply to you, arrange a demonstration and discuss a pilot. It is not stored in the learning platform's database and is not used for marketing lists. The form is for adult contacts at schools and organisations; please do not include any information about students.
4. How we use information
We use information only to: create and secure accounts; verify email addresses; provide and improve the learning service; record and honour consent; send service emails (section 7); protect against abuse and security incidents; and comply with law. We do not use children's information for advertising, profiling for marketing, or any purpose unrelated to learning.
5. Sharing and service providers
We do not sell personal information and do not share children's information with advertisers or data brokers. We use a small number of service providers who process data only on our instructions:
| Provider | Purpose | Data involved | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resend | Sending service emails (from mail.chuschool.com) | Parent email address, email content | Tokyo, Japan (ap-northeast-1) |
| DigitalOcean | Hosting of servers and database | All data described above | Singapore |
| Stripe | Processing payments for textbook PDFs and memberships, and the Manage membership page. Stripe is also an independent controller for fraud prevention and financial compliance, under its own privacy policy | Parent email address, billing country, order details; card details are entered directly on Stripe's page | United States and other countries |
| Microsoft (Azure AI Speech) | Generating course audio in advance | Course text only; no personal information | Australia East (Azure region) |
| Anthropic (Claude API) | Only if you switch on “Ask Korii” for a child: generating answers | The question the child types (with names, schools, addresses, phone numbers and similar removed before it is sent) and character information we provide; no nickname, email address, account or any identifier of the child or family. Anthropic does not use this content to train its models; it deletes it within 30 days by default, or keeps it for up to 2 years if its safety systems flag a Usage Policy violation | United States |
We may disclose information when required by law, to protect safety or rights, or in a business transfer (in which case the recipient must honour this policy and we will notify parents). Any future provider will be listed here before it receives any data.
6. International transfers
Our servers are in Singapore, our email provider uses Tokyo, our payment provider Stripe processes payment information in the United States and other countries, course audio is generated in Australia East (from course text only), questions to “Ask Korii” are processed by Anthropic in the United States (only if you switch it on), and we are based in New Zealand. Your information may therefore be processed outside your own country. We take reasonable steps so that it is protected to a standard comparable to the laws that apply to you.
7. Emails
We send only service emails: address verification, password reset, consent confirmations and follow-ups, deletion confirmations, order confirmations and refund notices. They come from mail.chuschool.com. We do not use tracking pixels or click tracking. The weekly learning report is optional: it is sent only if you switch it on in your account, once each Monday morning, and contains only your child's own study time, newly recorded characters and badges; you can switch it off at any time.
8. Cookies and similar technologies
We use only two strictly necessary cookies: a secure session cookie that keeps a parent signed in on a device, and cs_lang, which remembers the interface language for one year. We do not use advertising, analytics or cross-site tracking cookies, so no cookie banner is required. Your child's learning progress and settings are also stored in your browser's local storage; when you are not signed in, they stay only on that device. When you go to Stripe's checkout page to pay, Stripe uses its own cookies under its own policy.
9. How long we keep information
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Parent account (email, password hash, region, language) | While the account exists; deleted within 30 days after deletion |
| Child profile and learning data | While the profile exists; after you delete it, there is a 30-day period in which you can undo, then it is permanently deleted. Backups are replaced within 35 days |
| Inactive accounts | After 24 months without sign-in we email a reminder, then delete the account 30 days later |
| Sign-in session records | 30 days after the session ends |
| Email delivery records | 30 days, then the recipient address is removed |
| Web server logs (including IP addresses) | 14 days |
| Consent records | Kept for 3 years after account deletion, reduced to the minimum fields needed to show consent was given |
| Security audit log (contains no names or email addresses), including records of textbook downloads | 2 years |
| School and organisation enquiries | Correspondence is kept for up to 2 years; if we sign an agreement, it is kept with the contract records |
| Orders (including memberships) | 7 years, for accounting and tax records. If you delete your account, we keep only the order number, amount, tax, country and Stripe references |
| Waitlist email addresses | Deleted after we have told you once that your region is open, and in any case within 12 months |
| Number of questions a child has asked “Ask Korii” that day | 2 days |
| Daily totals for “Ask Korii” (how many were answered or blocked; not linked to any child or account) | 12 months |
| Questions sent to Anthropic for “Ask Korii” | As set by Anthropic: deleted within 30 days by default (see section 5) |
We publish these periods so you can hold us to them.
10. Security
We protect information with encrypted connections (TLS), one-way hashing of passwords (argon2id), hashed storage of sign-in and email tokens, access limited to those who need it, separation of our data from other systems, an append-only security audit log, and rate limiting against abuse. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affecting your information occurs, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.
11. Your rights and choices
Parents and guardians can, for themselves and their children:
- Access the information we hold;
- Correct inaccurate information;
- Export it in a portable format (JSON/CSV);
- Delete a child profile or the whole account;
- Withdraw consent. Withdrawing consent to core learning data means the child's profile is deleted; and
- Refuse further collection of a child's information.
Some records cannot be deleted on request while the law requires us to keep them, such as order records for accounting (section 9). If you delete your account, you can no longer download the textbook PDFs you bought, so please download them first.
You can use the parent centre where these tools are available. Until they are all available in the app, write to privacy@chuschool.com and we will help. We may ask you to re-enter your password or confirm by email so that nobody else can act on your account. We respond within 20 working days, or sooner if local law requires.
Complaints. Please contact us first. You may also complain to your local authority, for example the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (New Zealand), the Personal Data Protection Commissioner (Malaysia), or the authority in your country.
12. Children
ChuSchool is designed mainly for children aged about 6–12 (younger children may use it together with a parent) and is used through a parent's account. We obtain a parent's or guardian's consent before creating a child profile that stores learning data, using the process required in the parent's region. Until consent is given, no learning data is sent to our servers. See the Children's Privacy Notice for details.
13. Regional notes
- New Zealand: We handle personal information in line with the Privacy Act 2020 and its Information Privacy Principles.
- Malaysia: This notice is provided in English and Bahasa Malaysia as required by the Personal Data Protection Act 2010. Parental or guardian consent applies for persons under 18.
- Middle East: For parents in Gulf countries, we treat everyone under 18 as requiring guardian consent and provide this notice in Arabic.
- United States: For children under 13, see the Children's Privacy Notice (COPPA).
14. Changes to this policy
We number each version. If we make a material change, we will email parents before it takes effect. If a change affects how children's information is used, we will ask for consent again.
15. Contact
Clavis Sinica Limited, 17a Richard Avenue, Half Moon Bay, Bucklands Beach 2014, Auckland, New Zealand · NZBN 9429047957282 · privacy@chuschool.com · support@chuschool.com · +64 21 830188