Privacy Policy

Version 1.1 · Effective 2026-10-15

1. About this Policy

Study Sorted is a New Zealand education and revision service operated in trade.

This Privacy Policy explains how Study Sorted collects, uses, stores, shares and protects personal information in connection with its website, student accounts, learning tools, Smart Feedback, purchases, support and related administration.

Privacy contact: privacy@studysorted.co.nz

Privacy Officer

Many Study Sorted users are secondary-school students, so we aim to explain our privacy practices clearly and collect information in a way appropriate to the educational context.

Study Sorted does not sell personal information.

2. Information we collect

The information we hold depends on how you use Study Sorted. It may include:

account information such as your name, email address, account role, account status and authentication information;
student profile information such as NCEA level, year level, selected subjects, papers and study goals;
learning activity such as courses viewed, flashcard activity, quizzes, answers, written practice, timed practice, progress, mistakes, study-plan activity and learning history;
Smart Feedback submissions, relevant question and marking context, generated feedback, usage records and related review information;
tutor-linked information where those features are used, such as assigned tasks, flags and tutor responses;
support messages and information needed to resolve support issues;
purchase and access information such as subjects purchased, price, currency, payment status, Stripe references, fulfilment, refunds and access grants;
records of Terms, Privacy Policy, marketing and other optional consent choices;
privacy requests and records needed to manage them; and
technical, security, diagnostic and abuse-prevention information reasonably required to operate and protect the service.

Study Sorted may also use cookies, local storage or session storage for functions such as authentication, navigation state, preferences and temporary study or checkout state.

Full payment-card details are handled by the payment provider and are not stored as ordinary Study Sorted learning-profile information.

We do not need every category above from every user.

3. How information is collected

Most information is collected directly from you when you create an account, complete onboarding, use learning tools, submit answers, make a purchase, contact support or make a privacy request.

Other information is generated through your use of Study Sorted, such as quiz results, progress records and access history.

Some information may be collected from another person. For example, an authorised tutor or administrator may assign a task, create a learning flag, update access or add information needed to provide a Study Sorted feature.

Where New Zealand privacy law requires notice about information collected from another source, Study Sorted will take reasonable steps to provide that notice unless an applicable exception applies.

4. Required and optional information

Some information is necessary to provide the service. For example, Study Sorted needs information to authenticate an account, identify the correct subjects, process a purchase or mark an answer submitted to Smart Feedback.

If required information is not provided, the relevant feature may not be available.

Other choices are optional. In particular:

marketing email is optional; and
participation in any Study Sorted model-improvement or research programme is optional.

You do not need to opt into marketing or model improvement in order to create an account, purchase Study Sorted or use ordinary Smart Feedback features.

5. Why we use information

Study Sorted may use personal information where reasonably necessary to:

create, authenticate and administer accounts;
provide learning content and tools;
save progress, attempts and learning history;
generate Smart Feedback and related review features;
provide tutor-linked features where applicable;
process purchases, create access grants, prevent duplicate charging and reconcile payments;
provide support and respond to privacy requests;
record legal acknowledgements and optional preferences;
secure the service, investigate misuse, prevent fraud and diagnose technical problems;
understand and improve the reliability, usability and educational quality of Study Sorted; and
comply with applicable legal, accounting and dispute-resolution obligations.

We do not reduce ordinary Study Sorted access because a student declines optional marketing or model-improvement consent.

6. Smart Feedback and AI processing

Smart Feedback uses a third-party AI provider to generate educational feedback.

Provider: OpenAI

When you submit an answer to Smart Feedback, Study Sorted may send the provider:

your submitted answer;
the relevant question or prompt;
relevant marking criteria, rubric or model-answer context;
subject, course, module or NCEA-level context;
your stated study goal where relevant; and
a one-way hashed safety identifier derived from your Study Sorted user identifier.

The current Smart Feedback backend does not deliberately include your name or email address in the provider request.

If you type identifying or sensitive information into an answer, however, that information may form part of the text submitted for processing. Avoid including unnecessary personal information about yourself or another person in practice answers.

The current Smart Feedback request is configured with provider response storage disabled.

Processing locations: OpenAI and its subprocessors may process Smart Feedback information outside New Zealand, including in countries where OpenAI's API infrastructure and service providers operate. Study Sorted does not represent that Smart Feedback processing occurs only in New Zealand.

Provider retention: Study Sorted sends Smart Feedback requests through the OpenAI API with response storage disabled in the request. OpenAI may nevertheless retain API content for limited abuse-monitoring, security or legal purposes in accordance with the retention settings and policies applicable to the Study Sorted API account.

Provider model-training treatment: OpenAI does not use Study Sorted API inputs or outputs to train or improve OpenAI models by default. API data would only be shared for model improvement if the applicable OpenAI organisation explicitly enabled an optional data-sharing setting.

Study Sorted model-training treatment: Study Sorted does not currently use student Smart Feedback responses to train or fine-tune its own models. Study Sorted intends to introduce a separate optional research and model-improvement choice before eligible student responses are used for model training or model improvement.

Study Sorted separately stores Smart Feedback submissions, feedback and related learning records where needed to provide learning history, progress and review features. Provider-side handling and Study Sorted's own stored records are separate.

Smart Feedback is an educational study aid and is not an official NZQA grade.

7. Optional Help improve Study Sorted programme

Study Sorted may offer a separate optional Help improve Study Sorted choice.

Where you opt in, eligible learning responses, results and learning patterns may be used to evaluate or improve Study Sorted, including model evaluation or training, calibration, research and aggregated statistics.

This permission is separate from accepting the Terms, acknowledging this Privacy Policy, purchasing access, using Smart Feedback and receiving marketing email.

Before information is used for optional model-training or research datasets, Study Sorted will take reasonable steps to remove direct identifiers and reduce the risk that an individual student could reasonably be identified.

Study Sorted will not use this permission alone to publish your name, school, raw answer, individual score, testimonial or identifiable student story for advertising. Identifiable testimonials or individual results would require separate appropriate permission.

Where the preference is available, you can change it through Settings → Privacy & data.

If you withdraw, Study Sorted will stop selecting new eligible information from your account for the optional programme after the withdrawal is recorded, subject to reasonable processing time. Withdrawal may not be able to reverse information that has already been genuinely de-identified or work already incorporated into a completed model-training process.

Study Sorted keeps historical consent and withdrawal records so it can show which choice applied at a particular time.

8. Aggregated and operational information

Study Sorted may use information where reasonably necessary to operate, secure and understand the service, including basic feature usage, reliability, bug investigation and fraud prevention.

Study Sorted may also create and use genuinely aggregated or de-identified information where individuals are not reasonably identifiable, including for statistical analysis and service improvement where permitted by law.

We will not use this section to bypass an optional model-improvement choice for identifiable student learning responses.

9. Service providers and overseas processing

Study Sorted uses service providers to operate the platform. These may include providers for hosting, databases, authentication, payment processing, email, security and AI processing.

Stripe is used to process payments. OpenAI processes Smart Feedback requests as described above.

Providers receive information reasonably required to perform their function rather than unrestricted access to all Study Sorted information.

Some service providers may process or store information outside New Zealand.

Where an overseas provider acts as a service provider on Study Sorted's behalf, Study Sorted remains responsible for the information it holds as required by New Zealand privacy law.

Where Information Privacy Principle 12 applies to an overseas disclosure, Study Sorted will take the steps required by New Zealand law, including assessing the privacy protections applying to the recipient or obtaining appropriate authorisation where required.

Study Sorted may also disclose personal information where you authorise it or where disclosure is otherwise permitted or required by law.

Study Sorted does not sell lists of student personal information to advertisers or data brokers.

10. Marketing and service communications

Marketing email is optional.

Creating an account, purchasing a package, accepting the Terms or acknowledging this Privacy Policy does not by itself opt you into marketing.

Where you choose marketing, Study Sorted records the wording and version that applied to that choice.

You can change your marketing preference in Settings → Privacy & data or use the unsubscribe option provided in marketing emails.

Study Sorted may still send communications reasonably necessary to provide the service, such as purchase confirmations, account or security messages, support replies and important legal or service notices.

11. Children and young people

Many Study Sorted users are young people and have privacy rights under the Privacy Act 2020.

Study Sorted aims to collect information fairly, avoid unnecessary or unreasonably intrusive collection and explain important privacy choices clearly.

A parent or caregiver does not automatically have unrestricted access to all information Study Sorted holds about a student solely because the student is under 18.

If a parent, caregiver or representative asks for student information, Study Sorted may need to consider the student's privacy rights, the person's authority to act for the student and the requirements of the Privacy Act before disclosing information.

12. Retention

Study Sorted keeps personal information only while there is a lawful and reasonably necessary purpose for retaining it.

Account and learning information may be retained while needed to provide learning history, progress, account administration, support, security or dispute-resolution functions.

Smart Feedback submissions and feedback stored by Study Sorted may be retained while required for learning-history and review functions and other lawful purposes described in this Policy. Provider retention is described separately above.

Purchase and accounting records may be retained for applicable accounting, tax, fraud, chargeback and legal obligations.

Consent and legal-acknowledgement records may be retained as evidence of which Terms, Privacy Policy or optional choice applied at a particular time. Later choices do not overwrite earlier evidence.

Support and privacy-request records are retained where reasonably necessary to resolve the issue and maintain appropriate records.

Technical and security information is retained only while reasonably required for the relevant security, fraud-prevention, diagnostic or legal purpose.

When identifiable information is no longer reasonably required, Study Sorted will take reasonable steps to delete, securely dispose of or appropriately de-identify it.

13. Security and privacy breaches

Study Sorted uses reasonable technical and organisational safeguards appropriate to the service, including authenticated access, access controls and server-side checks for sensitive account, payment and entitlement actions.

No online service can guarantee absolute security.

If Study Sorted becomes aware of a privacy breach, it will assess the incident and take the steps required by the Privacy Act 2020.

Where a breach has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm, Study Sorted will notify affected individuals and the New Zealand Office of the Privacy Commissioner where required by law.

14. Access and correction

You can ask for access to personal information Study Sorted holds about you and request correction where you believe information is wrong, incomplete or misleading.

Requests can be made through Settings → Privacy & data or by contacting:

privacy@studysorted.co.nz

Study Sorted may need to verify your identity before releasing personal information.

New Zealand privacy law generally requires a decision on an access or correction request within 20 working days, subject to the Act's rules about extensions, transfers and permitted withholding grounds.

If Study Sorted does not agree to make a requested correction, you may have the right to request that a statement of the correction sought is attached to the information.

Historical learning records, such as an answer actually submitted at a particular time, may appropriately remain as a record of what occurred rather than being rewritten.

15. Account closure and deletion requests

You may request account closure through the Study Sorted privacy/account process or by contacting us.

Account closure does not necessarily mean that every record can immediately be erased.

Study Sorted may retain information where reasonably required for lawful purposes such as accounting, payment reconciliation, fraud prevention, security, disputes, consent evidence or privacy-request handling.

Where information is not required to be retained, Study Sorted will consider deletion or appropriate de-identification.

Closing an account may result in loss of access to learning history and paid features associated with that account.

16. Privacy questions and complaints

For privacy questions, access or correction requests, account-closure requests or complaints, contact:

privacy@studysorted.co.nz

or use Settings → Privacy & data where available.

If you are not satisfied with how Study Sorted handles a privacy matter, you may also have the right to complain to the New Zealand Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

17. Changes to this Policy

Study Sorted keeps versioned copies of published Privacy Policies.

We may update this Policy where reasonably necessary to reflect changes to the service, providers, information practices or legal requirements.

A new version does not rewrite historical acknowledgement or consent records.

Where a material change requires a new acknowledgement or separate choice, Study Sorted may ask existing users to review the new version or provide the relevant optional consent.

Accepting a general Privacy Policy update will not be treated as a substitute for a separate optional consent where one is required or expressly offered.