Privacy Policy

Effective: May 8, 2026

Teacher Elf is a flashcard, language-practice, and classroom- management tool used by teachers and learners. This page explains what personal data we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, and what choices you have.

Note for schools and parents: Student accounts on Teacher Elf are created and managed by teachers under the COPPA school authorizationmodel described below. If your child uses Teacher Elf as part of a class, please contact your child's school for the consent records and data-handling agreements they maintain.

1. Who we are

“Teacher Elf” refers to the Teacher Elf web service and its operator. For privacy questions or to exercise your rights under this policy, please reach out via our contact page.

2. Information we collect

Account information

Username, optional email, optional name, and a hashed password, stored by our authentication provider (Clerk).
For teacher-managed student accounts: a generated password that the teacher can view and re-print so they can share it with the student. The password is encrypted at rest in our database.
Account role (Teacher, User, Student, Admin) and last sign-in timestamp.

Content you create

Flashcard decks, individual cards, and language settings.
Learning paths, classrooms, assignments, and form responses.
Forum posts and comments (including any name or display name you attach to them).
Audio recordings you submit for speaking exercises. These are stored in Supabase Storage and accessible only to you and the teacher who assigned the work.

Usage, AI, and diagnostic data

Spaced-repetition progress: per-card review history (interval, ease factor, repetitions) used to schedule future reviews.
AI tutor conversations: when you use the AI tutor or generate sentences/translations, the relevant text is sent to OpenAI or Groq for processing. We do not include your email or username in these requests.
OCR uploads: images you upload for OCR are sent to a third-party OCR service and to Groq for cleanup. We do not retain the image after processing.
Error reports: if the application encounters an error, technical details (URL, stack trace, anonymized user id where applicable) are sent to Sentry to help us fix the bug.
Anonymous analytics: aggregate page views and traffic patterns are tracked by Vercel Web Analytics. Counts are cookieless and aggregated at the edge before any data leaves the request, so no identifying information is associated with any visitor.

3. How we use the information

To run the service: sign-in, save your decks, schedule reviews, sync your progress across devices.
To provide the features you request: translate text, synthesize speech, run the AI tutor, search Unsplash for images, perform OCR.
To support teacher-managed classrooms: share decks and assignments between teachers and their students, let teachers review submissions and reset student passwords.
To monitor service health and fix bugs (Sentry, server logs).
To improve the product through aggregate analytics (Vercel Web Analytics).

4. Subprocessors

We share personal data with the following third-party services (“subprocessors”) so that they can help us deliver the service. Each is bound by their own privacy policy linked below.

Service	Purpose	Region
Clerk	Authentication, session management, account passwords	United States
Supabase	Application database (decks, flashcards, forum posts, classroom data) and audio submission storage	European Union
Vercel	Application hosting, edge delivery, deployment logs	United States
OpenAI	AI tutor conversations, sentence generation, fill-in-the-blank generation. Conversations are sent to OpenAI's API and may be retained by OpenAI per their policy.	United States
Groq	OCR text cleanup and (optionally) AI tutor responses when configured by the administrator.	United States
Google Cloud (Translate, Text-to-Speech)	Translation of typed text and synthesis of spoken audio for language practice.	United States / European Union
Unsplash	Image search results displayed when adding pictures to flashcards. Search queries are sent to Unsplash.	United States
Sentry	Error reporting and performance monitoring. Stack traces and limited request context are sent to Sentry when an error occurs.	United States
Vercel Web Analytics	Cookieless, aggregate page-view counts (top pages, devices, referrers, geography). No identifying information leaves the request. Counts are aggregated at the edge before any data is stored.	United States

5. International transfers

Several of the subprocessors above are based in the United States and other jurisdictions outside the EU/UK. By using Teacher Elf you acknowledge that your personal data may be transferred to and stored in those jurisdictions, subject to standard contractual clauses or equivalent transfer mechanisms used by each provider.

6. Children's privacy

Teacher Elf is intended for educational use. We follow the COPPA school authorization model:

Self-registration is restricted to users 13 years or older (Teachers must be 18+).
Children under 13 may use Teacher Elf onlyvia an account created for them by a teacher. By creating a student account, the teacher confirms that they are authorized by their school to consent on behalf of parents in line with the school's policies.
Teachers can view and reset their students' passwords, and can delete student accounts on request from a parent or school administrator.
We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13 outside of this teacher-managed flow. If you believe a child under 13 has self-registered, please contact us and we will delete the account.

7. Data retention

Account data and content is retained while your account is active. When you delete your account, your account and the content you created are removed from our database; your authentication record at Clerk is deleted as part of the same flow.
Audio submissions are retained for the lifetime of the assignment plus a reasonable archival period; teachers can delete them earlier.
Backups of the application database are kept for 90 days for disaster recovery before being permanently destroyed.
Error reports and analytics events follow the retention periods of Sentry and Vercel Web Analytics as described in their policies.

8. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, port, or delete the personal data we hold about you, and to object to or restrict certain processing. You can:

Export your decks as JSON from your account settings.
Delete your account from the settings page. This removes your data from our database and your sign-in record from Clerk.
Reach out via our contact page for any other request.

9. Security

We use HTTPS for all traffic, encrypted storage at our database provider, and additional application-level encryption for sensitive fields such as cached managed-student passwords. No system is perfectly secure; if we ever become aware of a breach affecting your data, we will notify you in line with applicable law.

10. Cookies and similar technologies

Teacher Elf uses essential cookies to keep you signed in. We do not use analytics cookies. Page-view tracking is cookieless (Vercel Web Analytics), so no consent banner is required and there is nothing to opt out of for product measurement.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The “Effective” date at the top reflects the latest revision. Material changes will be announced in-app or by email to teachers managing student accounts.

12. Contact

Privacy questions, data-subject requests, COPPA inquiries: please reach out via our contact page.