Fledge Privacy Policy

Fledge ("Fledge," "we," "us," or "our") is an AI-powered study platform operated by Social Gains LLC, a Massachusetts limited liability company.

We respect the privacy of our users and recognize the importance of protecting personal information, particularly when our services are used by students. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, when we share it, how long we retain it, and the choices available to you.

This Policy applies to Fledge's website at https://thefledge.ai and the related study tools, accounts, and services we provide (collectively, the "Services").

By using Fledge, you acknowledge the data practices described in this Policy. Where applicable law requires consent, we will obtain it separately.

1. Information We Collect

We collect information you provide directly, information generated through your use of Fledge, and limited technical information collected automatically.

1.1 Account Information

When you register for an account, we may collect:

• Your email address.
• Your first name.
• Your account's unique identifier.
• Your time zone.
• Your authentication and account status information.

If you register using Google, we may receive your name, email address, and profile picture from Google, depending on the information Google makes available and your account permissions.

We use this information to establish and maintain your account, authenticate your identity, and provide the Services.

1.2 Educational Information and Preferences

To personalize your studying experience, we may collect information you voluntarily provide, including:

• Your school level and, if applicable, college year.
• Your academic goals.
• Your biggest study challenges.
• The study tools you select.
• Your classes and their next exam dates.

You may use available features without completing every optional preference field.

1.3 Uploaded Educational Materials

Fledge allows you to upload educational materials, including documents, presentations, text, photographs, and scanned pages.

We process these materials to extract relevant information and generate educational resources, such as notes, flashcards, practice questions, written tests, fill-in-the-blank exercises, and tutor lessons.

We also store study-related information, including your answers, assessment results, feedback, and learning progress.

Uploaded materials may contain personal information that you or others have included in them. We encourage you to avoid uploading sensitive personal information unless it is necessary for your intended use of the Services.

1.4 Subscription and Billing Information

If you purchase a subscription, we collect limited billing-related information, including your subscription plan, subscription status, and payment processor customer identifier.

Payments are processed by Stripe. Fledge does not directly store your full payment card number or card security code.

Stripe processes payment information in accordance with its own privacy practices.

1.5 Technical and Usage Information

When you access Fledge, we may automatically collect certain technical and usage information, including:

• Browser and operating system information.
• Pages visited and features used.
• Device and session identifiers.
• General usage activity.
• IP addresses in certain security, website, and authentication logs.
• Approximate geographic location, such as country and city, derived from an IP address.

We use PostHog to understand how people use Fledge. PostHog analytics events are associated with user identifiers or pseudonymous device identifiers rather than users' names or email addresses.

PostHog does not receive the contents of your uploaded educational materials or the text you enter into study tools. IP addresses used for approximate geographic identification are discarded by PostHog after that lookup.

1.6 Support Requests and Error Reports

If you use the "Report a Problem" feature, we collect the message you submit and relevant technical information, which may include your browser, operating system, the page you were using, and recent application errors.

This information helps us investigate problems, respond to support requests, and improve the reliability of Fledge.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use personal information for the following purposes:

Providing the Services: Creating and managing accounts, processing uploaded materials, generating study resources, recording answers, and tracking learning progress.

Personalizing Learning: Adjusting study content and recommendations based on your selected school level, preferences, and performance.

Operating AI Features: Processing educational materials, generating explanations and assessments, and evaluating submitted answers.

Managing Subscriptions: Processing purchases, maintaining subscription status, and supporting billing-related requests.

Security and Fraud Prevention: Authenticating users, preventing unauthorized access, identifying automated abuse, and protecting the Services.

Improving Fledge: Understanding feature usage, identifying technical problems, and improving the functionality and performance of the platform.

Communicating With You: Sending account verification codes, password reset messages, and necessary service-related communications.

Legal Compliance: Meeting applicable legal obligations and responding to valid legal requests.

We do not use student information to deliver third-party behavioral advertising.

We do not sell personal information.

We do not use uploaded educational materials or student responses to train our own general-purpose artificial intelligence models.

3. Artificial Intelligence and Educational Content

Artificial intelligence is an essential part of Fledge's educational features.

To provide these features, we use third-party AI service providers.

3.1 Anthropic

We use Anthropic's Claude models to process uploaded educational materials, including text, photographs, and scanned pages.

Claude helps Fledge generate study materials, create questions and explanations, evaluate submitted answers, and provide educational feedback.

Relevant portions of your uploaded materials and study responses may be transmitted to Anthropic when necessary to perform these functions.

Under Anthropic's commercial API data practices, customer inputs and outputs are not used to train its models by default.

Anthropic generally retains API inputs and outputs for up to 30 days. Content flagged under its usage policies may be retained for up to two years in certain circumstances.

3.2 OpenAI

We use OpenAI's text-embedding technology to convert text extracted from educational materials into numerical representations that help Fledge identify and retrieve relevant information.

This process supports Fledge's ability to locate appropriate passages and source material when generating study resources.

OpenAI does not generate the student-facing educational content through this embedding service.

Under OpenAI's API data practices, API inputs and outputs are not used to train its models by default. API information may be retained for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring, subject to applicable exceptions.

3.3 AI Processing and Privacy

We share information with AI providers only as necessary to deliver the relevant features.

Although Fledge stores educational materials in its own infrastructure, information transmitted to AI providers is subject to those providers' applicable security, processing, and retention practices.

AI-generated educational content may contain inaccuracies. Users should review important information and should not treat AI-generated explanations as a substitute for qualified educational instruction.

4. How We Share Information

We disclose personal information to service providers that help us operate Fledge.

These providers process information for specific operational purposes, subject to their applicable contractual commitments and privacy practices.

Our service providers include:

Supabase: Account authentication, database management, and storage of uploaded files and educational information.

Vercel: Website hosting, application infrastructure, and API operations.

Anthropic: AI-powered processing, educational content generation, and answer evaluation.

OpenAI: Text embeddings and educational information retrieval.

Trigger.dev: Background task processing and operational task records.

Cloudflare: Automated abuse prevention and bot verification through Turnstile.

Stripe: Subscription management, payment processing, and billing records.

Resend: Delivery of authentication codes and password reset emails.

PostHog: Product analytics and usage measurement.

Sentry: Error monitoring, technical diagnostics, and problem reporting.

We may also disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with applicable law, respond to lawful requests, protect the safety and rights of users, investigate fraud or security incidents, or support a legitimate business transaction such as a merger, acquisition, or transfer of assets.

If Fledge undergoes a business transaction, personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to applicable law.

We do not authorize these service providers to use student educational materials for their own advertising purposes.

5. Cookies and Similar Technologies

Fledge uses cookies and similar technologies to operate essential features, maintain account sessions, protect against abuse, and understand product usage.

These technologies include:

Authentication Cookies: Used to maintain secure sign-in sessions and account access.

PostHog Analytics Cookies: Used to recognize returning devices and measure usage patterns. PostHog's random device identifier is stored through our own domain and may remain for approximately one year.

Cloudflare Turnstile: Used to distinguish legitimate visitors from automated activity and protect the Services.

Stripe Cookies: Used on Stripe-hosted checkout pages to support payment processing, security, and fraud prevention.

Fledge does not currently use Google Analytics, Meta Pixel, or third-party advertising trackers.

You may be able to restrict or delete cookies through your browser settings. Disabling certain cookies may interfere with account authentication or other features.

Where applicable law requires consent for nonessential cookies or analytics, we will provide the required choices.

6. Data Storage and Security

Fledge uses Supabase to store account information, educational materials, and related application data.

Our production Supabase infrastructure is configured to use a United States region.

We use service providers that offer technical and organizational security measures intended to protect information against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, and destruction.

These protections include authentication controls, access restrictions, and security features provided by our infrastructure partners.

No internet-based service or electronic storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

If you believe your account or information has been compromised, please contact support@thefledge.ai.

7. Data Retention and Deletion

We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide the Services, fulfill the purposes described in this Policy, and satisfy applicable legal obligations.

Our current retention practices are described below.

7.1 Uploaded Materials and Study Content

Uploaded files remain available until you delete them, delete the associated class, or delete your account.

When you delete an upload, the original file is removed from active file storage immediately.

Associated extracted text, generated notes, flashcards, questions, answers, and related study information are ordinarily deleted within approximately 24 hours.

Deleted original files are not retained in Fledge's file backups and cannot be restored through the application.

7.2 Guest Accounts

Guest accounts that remain inactive for seven consecutive days are automatically deleted, together with their associated educational materials and account data.

If you create a registered account before the guest account expires, the registered account's applicable retention rules will govern the information preserved with that account.

7.3 Account Deletion

When you delete your account, Fledge removes your active account information, profile, classes, uploaded materials, study sets, answers, and learning progress.

If you have an active subscription, Fledge initiates deletion of the associated Stripe customer record, which terminates the subscription.

Certain limited information may remain after account deletion, including:

• Billing and transaction records that Stripe must retain under applicable law.
• Technical cost records that do not contain educational content.
• Previously submitted problem reports, with the associated user identifier removed.
• Historical analytics and error events retained under the applicable service provider's retention schedule.
• Information that must be preserved to comply with a legal obligation or valid legal preservation requirement.

7.4 Operational Retention Periods

Our standard retention periods are:

These periods reflect our current configurations and service provider arrangements. Certain information may be retained longer where legally required, or where necessary to investigate security incidents, enforce legal rights, or comply with lawful preservation obligations.

Third-party AI processing is subject to the separate retention practices described in Section 3.

8. Your Privacy Rights and Choices

Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have rights concerning your personal information.

These may include the right to:

• Request access to personal information we maintain about you.
• Request correction of inaccurate personal information.
• Request deletion of your account and associated personal information.
• Request information about how personal information is collected, used, or disclosed.
• Obtain a copy of certain personal information in a portable format, where required by law.
• Object to or restrict certain processing activities, where applicable.
• Withdraw consent for processing based on consent.
• Appeal a decision concerning a privacy rights request, where applicable.

You can delete available educational materials and your account using the deletion features provided within Fledge.

You may also submit privacy requests by emailing support@thefledge.ai.

We may need to verify your identity before completing certain requests to protect your information against unauthorized disclosure or deletion.

We will respond within the time required by applicable law.

We will not unlawfully discriminate against you for exercising your privacy rights.

Fledge does not currently sell personal information or use personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

9. Children's and Teenagers' Privacy

Fledge is designed for students who are at least 13 years old.

Users must confirm that they are 13 or older when registering. Fledge does not routinely collect or store dates of birth.

Children under 13 are not permitted to create accounts or use the Services.

We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13.

If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13 without legally sufficient authorization, we will take appropriate steps to delete that information and comply with applicable law.

Parents or guardians who believe a child under 13 has provided personal information to Fledge should contact support@thefledge.ai.

We recognize that teenagers deserve particular care regarding their personal information.

We limit the information requested for educational personalization, do not use student information for third-party behavioral advertising, and provide options to delete educational materials and accounts.

10. International Data Processing

Fledge is operated by a United States company, and its primary application database and file storage are hosted in the United States.

However, certain service providers operate internationally, and personal information may be processed or accessed outside the United States.

For example:

• Anthropic may process AI requests in locations outside the United States.
• OpenAI may process API requests in locations determined by its infrastructure and applicable service arrangements.
• Cloudflare operates a global network for security and bot verification.
• Vercel may route network requests through international infrastructure.
• Stripe and Google operate internationally.

Other service providers, including Supabase, Trigger.dev, PostHog, Sentry, and Resend, are configured to use United States data storage regions for the relevant Fledge services.

International processing may involve countries with privacy laws that differ from those in your country of residence.

Where required, we rely on appropriate contractual, legal, or other recognized safeguards for international transfers of personal information.

11. Legal Bases for Processing

Where applicable privacy law requires a legal basis for processing personal information, we rely on one or more of the following grounds:

Performance of a Contract: Processing necessary to create accounts, provide study tools, process uploaded materials, and manage subscriptions.

Legitimate Interests: Processing necessary to maintain security, prevent abuse, diagnose errors, and improve the reliability and functionality of the Services, where those interests are not overridden by applicable privacy rights.

Legal Obligations: Processing necessary to comply with tax, accounting, regulatory, or other legal requirements.

Consent: Processing for which applicable law requires your consent, including certain uses of nonessential tracking technologies.

The applicable legal basis depends on the nature of the information, the processing activity, and the law governing that activity.

12. Communications

Fledge currently sends transactional and account-related emails, including verification codes and password reset messages.

Payment receipts may also be sent through Stripe when that functionality is enabled.

We do not currently send promotional or marketing email campaigns.

If we introduce optional marketing communications in the future, we will provide appropriate notice and any required consent or unsubscribe options.

13. Third-Party Services and Links

The Services may contain links to external websites or interact with third-party platforms, including Google and Stripe.

Those services operate under their own terms and privacy policies.

We encourage you to review their privacy practices before providing information directly to them.

This Policy does not govern independent data processing performed by third parties outside their role as Fledge service providers.

14. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our Services, technology, data practices, legal requirements, or business operations.

When we make changes, we will revise the "Last Updated" date at the beginning of this Policy.

If changes materially affect how we collect, use, or disclose personal information, we will provide additional notice where required by applicable law.

Your continued use of the Services after an updated Policy becomes effective is subject to the updated Policy, except where applicable law requires additional notice or consent.

15. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, our data practices, or your privacy rights, please contact:

Social Gains LLC
Operating as Fledge
Massachusetts, United States

Email: support@thefledge.ai
Website: https://thefledge.ai
Privacy Policy: https://thefledge.ai/privacy

We will review privacy-related inquiries and respond in accordance with applicable law.