Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and how to reach us

The Service is operated by Caravel Software LLC. If you have any questions about this Policy or your information, contact us at support@alvea.study.

This Policy applies to information that identifies or relates to an individual. It does not apply to information that has been aggregated or de-identified so that it can no longer reasonably be linked to you.

2. Summary of key points

• What we collect: account and profile details, the study material and messages you add, your activity and usage in the app, subscription status, and basic device and notification data. We do not collect precise advertising location and we do not use third-party advertising or analytics SDKs.
• How AI works: to power features like generation, the AI tutor, transcription, and link import, we send the relevant content to trusted third-party AI providers. We do not train our own AI models on your content, and these providers do not use content sent through their paid APIs to train their models.
• Community content is visible to others: posts in class discussion threads, messages in study groups, reactions, and your public profile fields are visible to other members of those spaces.
• We do not sell your personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
• Your choices: you can review and edit your profile, manage notifications, and delete your account from within the app, or contact us to exercise your rights.

3. Information we collect

Account and profile information

When you create an account and complete onboarding, we collect your email address, a password (stored in hashed form by our authentication provider), and your date of birth (used once to confirm you meet our minimum age — see Children’s Privacy). You may also provide a display name, a username, a profile photo, your education level, the school or institution you attend, and how you heard about us. We store your device time zone and your app preferences (such as dark mode).

Study material and content you provide

Alvea is built around content you choose to add. Depending on how you use it, this can include:

• Files you upload, such as PDFs, documents, presentations, spreadsheets, images, audio, and video.
• Lecture or voice recordings you make, and photos of notes you capture.
• Links you import, including web pages and videos from sites such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and X, and the text or transcript extracted from them.
• Study sets generated from your material (flashcards, quizzes, and notes) and any custom instructions you give the AI.
• Messages you send to the AI tutor, and your answers and progress as you study (quiz responses, flashcard ratings, and session history).
• Feedback, bug reports, and support requests you submit.

Community and social content

If you use Alvea’s social features, we collect the classes you join, the study groups you create or join, the messages you post in group chats, the threads and replies you post in class discussion boards, and the reactions and "helpful" votes you give. We also collect reports you submit about other users or content, and the users you block or mute.

Usage, study, and gamification data

We collect information about how you use the Service, including your study sessions, streaks, experience points, study goals, and counters we use to apply your plan’s limits (such as how many AI generations, tutor messages, and minutes of recording you have used in a billing period, and how much storage you are using).

Subscription and billing information

If you purchase a subscription, we store your plan tier, status, billing cycle, and trial or renewal dates, along with an identifier from our subscription provider. Purchases are made through the Apple App Store or Google Play and processed by them and our subscription manager. We never receive or store your full payment card details — those are handled by the app stores and their payment processors.

Device and technical information

We collect limited technical information needed to run the Service, such as your platform (iOS or Android), your device time zone, and — if you enable notifications — a push notification token for your device. Our servers also keep operational logs and diagnostic information (for example, error reports) to keep the Service secure and working. We do not use third-party analytics or session-replay tools, and we do not build advertising profiles about you.

4. How we use your information

We use the information we collect to:

• Create and maintain your account and authenticate you.
• Provide the Service’s core features — store your library, generate study sets, transcribe recordings, import links, run the AI tutor, and track your study progress.
• Enable the community features you choose to use, including classes, study groups, and discussion threads.
• Send you notifications and emails you have enabled, such as when generation finishes, when you receive a reply, study reminders, streak alerts, and account or billing messages.
• Process your subscription, apply your plan’s limits, and manage trials and renewals.
• Keep the Service safe and reliable — preventing abuse and fraud, enforcing our Terms, moderating reported content, and debugging problems.
• Respond to your support requests and act on your feedback.
• Comply with legal obligations and protect the rights, safety, and property of our users, the public, and us.

5. How AI features use your content

Alvea’s AI features are powered by trusted third-party providers rather than models we build ourselves. To deliver a feature, we send only the content needed for that feature to the relevant provider:

• An AI generation provider — to create flashcards, quizzes, and notes, to power the AI tutor, and to grade open-ended answers. The source content, your messages, recent conversation context, and any custom instructions for that request are sent to this provider.
• A speech-to-text provider — to transcribe the audio and video you upload.
• A content-extraction provider — to fetch transcripts and extract text from the links you import.

We do not use your content to train our own AI or machine-learning models. We send content to these providers only to perform the task you asked for, and they do not use content submitted through their paid business interfaces to train their models. We may use aggregated or de-identified information (which cannot reasonably identify you) to understand usage and improve the Service.

6. When and with whom we share information

We do not sell your personal information. We share information only in these situations:

Service providers (subprocessors)

We share information with vendors that process it on our behalf, under contracts that limit them to providing services to us. These include:

• Cloud hosting, database, and authentication providers — to run our backend and store your account and content data.
• File storage providers — to store the files and images you upload.
• AI processing providers — to power the AI features described above.
• Payment and subscription-management providers, and the Apple App Store and Google Play — to process purchases and manage subscriptions.
• Email delivery providers — to send transactional and notification emails.
• Push notification providers — to deliver push notifications to your device.

Other users

When you participate in community spaces, the content and profile information you share there is visible to other members, as described in the next section.

Legal, safety, and business transfers

We may disclose information if required by law or legal process, to enforce our Terms, to protect the rights, safety, or property of our users or others, or in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets (in which case we will require the recipient to honor this Policy). We may also share information with your consent or at your direction.

7. Community and publicly visible information

Alvea includes social features such as class discussion threads and study-group chats. Information you share in these spaces — including your display name, username, profile photo, the posts and replies you write, the messages you send, and the reactions and votes you give — is visible to other members of the relevant class or group. Content you post may remain visible to that community even after you leave it or delete your account, although we will disassociate it from your identity as described under data retention.

We provide moderation tools so the community stays healthy: you can report content or users, and block or mute people. Our moderators may remove content or restrict accounts that violate our Terms. Please use good judgment about what you share in community spaces.

8. Cookies and tracking

Our mobile app does not use advertising trackers. Our website uses only essential cookies and similar technologies needed to sign you in and keep your session secure. We do not use cookies for advertising, and we do not run third-party advertising networks on the Service.

9. How long we keep your information

We keep your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Service. When you delete your account, we delete your study sets, sources, messages, and related personal data from our active systems. Content you posted in shared community spaces may be retained but disassociated from your identity to preserve the integrity of those discussions. We may retain limited information longer where necessary to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, prevent abuse, or enforce our agreements, and residual copies may persist in backups for a limited period before they are overwritten.

10. How we protect your information

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures designed to protect your information, including encryption in transit and access controls. However, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. Please protect your account by using a strong password and keeping it confidential.

11. Children’s privacy

The Service is intended for individual users who are at least 13 years old, and it is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are between 13 and the age of majority where you live, you should use the Service only with the involvement of a parent or guardian. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us personal information, contact us at support@alvea.study and we will take appropriate steps to delete it.

12. Your privacy choices and rights

You have control over your information:

• Access and update: review and edit your profile and preferences directly in the app.
• Notifications: turn notification categories on or off, and set quiet hours, in the app’s settings.
• Delete your account: delete your account from within the app, which removes your personal data as described under data retention.
• Exercise legal rights: depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal information, and to object to or restrict certain processing.

To make a request, contact us at support@alvea.study. We will respond consistent with applicable law and may need to verify your identity first. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

13. U.S. state privacy rights

Some U.S. states — including California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, and others — give residents specific rights over their personal information, such as the rights to know, access, correct, delete, and obtain a copy of their data, and to opt out of certain processing. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising or targeted advertising. California’s "Shine the Light" law gives California residents the right to request information about disclosures for third parties’ direct marketing; we do not make such disclosures. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@alvea.study. If we decline a request, you may appeal by replying to our response.

14. International users

We operate the Service in the United States, and the information we collect is processed and stored there and in other countries where our service providers operate. If you use the Service from outside the United States, you understand that your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, which may have data-protection laws different from those in your country.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date above, and for material changes we will provide additional notice where appropriate. Your continued use of the Service after an update takes effect means you accept the revised Policy.

16. How to contact us

Questions or requests about this Policy can be sent to support@alvea.study.