Privacy Policy

TeachForge ("we", "us") is operated by an individual developer, not a registered company. This policy explains what TeachForge collects, why, how it's protected and when it's deleted. Questions about this policy or your data: khan.uqbah@gmail.com.

Who uses TeachForge

Teachers create classes and assignments. Students join a class with a code or link from their teacher and upload their answer scripts. One Google account can be a teacher in some classes and a student in others. Students may be under 18. Schools and teachers who invite students are responsible for any consent their school or local law requires before students use TeachForge.

What we collect

• Your Google sign-in: your name, email address and a stable Google account identifier. We request only the openid, email and profile permissions — TeachForge cannot see your Google Drive, Gmail, Classroom or anything else in your Google account.
• Classes: class names, who is a teacher or student in each, and roll numbers you or your teacher enter.
• Assignments: titles, instructions, due dates, question papers, and the teacher's marking scheme and private grading notes.
• Answer scripts: the PDF a student uploads (or the photos they take, which their browser combines into one PDF before uploading).
• Grading results: the transcribed text of each script, the marks for each question, the remarks, and any changes the teacher makes.
• Notifications: what we notified you about, whether you read it, and your email settings.
• Billing records: credit a teacher buys and the cost of each AI grading call.

Who can see what

• A student sees only their own scripts and results, and only once their teacher releases the results.
• A class's teachers (the owner and any co-teachers they invite) see the class's students, scripts and results. They never see anything from other classes.
• Students never see the marking scheme or the teacher's grading notes.
• A small, named list of TeachForge administrators can use the admin tools. They access account data only to run the service (for example, to retry a failed grading job or add credit), for security reasons, or where the law requires it.

How we use AI

Answer scripts and marking schemes are sent to Google's Gemini API to read and grade them. TeachForge uses Gemini's paid tier so that this content is not used by Google to train its models. Grades are suggestions until a teacher releases them, and teachers can change any mark.

How long we keep it

• Answer-script files are temporary. A script's PDF is deleted 14 days after its result is first released (for Instant Check, 14 days after it is graded). The transcription, marks and remarks are kept so results stay visible and can be regraded.
• Question papers and marking schemes are kept for as long as the assignment exists.
• Deleting an assignment or a class deletes everything in it, including files, straight away.
• In-app notifications are deleted after 90 days.
• We keep nightly backups so data isn't lost if a server fails. Database backups are deleted after 30 days. Backup copies of files are removed the day after the file is deleted from TeachForge.
• Everything else is kept while your account is active and deleted within 30 days of a deletion request. Billing records may be kept longer where needed for accounting.

How we protect it

• Every connection to TeachForge uses HTTPS (TLS).
• Data is stored on Google Cloud in the United States, encrypted at rest. Files are kept in a private storage bucket and can only be opened through short-lived links that the app creates after checking who you are.
• The database and application servers are not reachable from the internet.
• Every request checks who you are and what you're allowed to see. Sign-in sessions use secure, HTTP-only cookies that scripts in the page can't read.

Who we share it with

We don't sell data or share it with advertisers. We use these service providers only to run TeachForge:

• Google — sign-in, Gemini (grading) and Google Cloud (hosting and file storage).
• Brevo — sending notification emails (your email address and the notification text).

Emails

We email you about things that happen in your classes: new assignments, due-date changes, reminders, released results, and (for teachers) finished grading and co-teacher invites. You can turn any kind off in the app's Settings; the notification still appears in the app.

Your choices

You can leave a class at any time. To delete your account and its data, email khan.uqbah@gmail.com. You can also remove TeachForge from your Google Account's third-party access settings.

Google user data

TeachForge's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that affects what we collect or how it's used, the date above will change and active users will be told by email.

This policy was written by the developer for an early pilot and hasn't been reviewed by a lawyer.