Privacy Policy

Last updated: January 30, 2026

1. What StudBud Does

StudBud is a study assistant that connects to your Google Classroom account, syncs your course content (assignments, announcements, and materials), and lets you ask questions about that content using AI. Every answer includes citations back to the original source material.

2. Information We Collect

Google Account Information

When you sign in with Google, we receive your name and email address from your Google profile. We use this to create your account.

Google Classroom Data

With your permission, we access and store data from your Google Classroom courses. This includes course names, assignments (titles, descriptions, and due dates), announcements, and course materials. All access is read-only — StudBud cannot modify, submit, or delete anything in your Google Classroom.

Google Drive Files

For course attachments hosted on Google Drive, we download and extract the text content so it can be searched when you ask questions. We store the extracted text, not the original files. We access Drive files in read-only mode.

Google Calendar Events

With your permission, we access your Google Calendar events in read-only mode to display upcoming events alongside your coursework.

YouTube Transcripts

For YouTube videos attached to course materials, we fetch the publicly available transcript so it can be searched when you ask questions.

Chat Messages

Questions you type in the chat are sent to our AI provider (OpenAI) along with relevant course content to generate answers. Chat messages are not stored in our database after the response is generated.

3. Google API Scopes We Request

StudBud requests the following Google permissions, all read-only:

  • OpenID, Email, Profile — to identify your account
  • Classroom Courses (read-only) — to list your enrolled courses
  • Classroom Coursework (read-only) — to access your assignments
  • Classroom Announcements (read-only) — to access course announcements
  • Classroom Materials (read-only) — to access course materials and attachments
  • Calendar Events (read-only) — to display your calendar events

StudBud does not request write access to any Google service. We cannot modify your Classroom data, Drive files, or Calendar events.

4. How We Use Your Information

  • To sync and display your Google Classroom courses, assignments, announcements, and materials
  • To extract and index text from course attachments so you can search and ask questions about them
  • To generate AI-powered answers to your questions using your course content as context
  • To display your upcoming assignments and calendar events
  • To authenticate your identity and maintain your session

We do not use your data for advertising, marketing, or any purpose unrelated to providing the StudBud service. We do not sell your data.

5. Third-Party Services

StudBud uses the following third-party services to operate:

  • Google APIs (Classroom, Drive, Calendar) — to fetch your course data with your authorization
  • OpenAI — to generate AI chat responses and create text embeddings for semantic search. When you ask a question, relevant course content and your question are sent to OpenAI to generate an answer.
  • Neon (PostgreSQL) — to store your account data, synced course content, and text embeddings in a hosted database
  • Vercel — to host and serve the application

We do not share your data with any other third parties.

6. Data Storage and Security

  • Your Google OAuth refresh token is encrypted using AES-256-GCM before being stored in our database
  • Your session is managed using an encrypted, HTTP-only, secure cookie
  • Our database is hosted on Neon (PostgreSQL) with SSL encryption in transit
  • We do not store your Google password — authentication is handled entirely by Google's OAuth 2.0 system
  • No grades or submission data is accessed or stored

7. Data Retention and Deletion

Your data is retained as long as you have an active StudBud account.

You can delete all your data at any time from the Settings page by clicking "Disconnect & Delete My Data." This will:

  • Revoke StudBud's access to your Google account
  • Permanently delete your user account
  • Permanently delete all synced courses, assignments, announcements, and materials
  • Permanently delete all extracted text and search embeddings
  • Permanently delete your encrypted Google refresh token
  • Destroy your session

This deletion is immediate and irreversible. We do not retain any of your data after deletion.

8. Cookies

StudBud uses a single encrypted session cookie to keep you logged in. This cookie contains only your user ID, is HTTP-only (not accessible to JavaScript), and expires after 7 days. We do not use any analytics, tracking, or advertising cookies.

9. Children's Privacy

StudBud is designed for students. If you are under 13 years of age, you should only use StudBud with the consent of a parent or guardian. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without parental consent.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Your continued use of StudBud after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

11. Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy or how your data is handled, contact us at arhaan21.gupta@gmail.com.

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