Privacy
Termspring is made by Nullshift Development Ltd, the data controller for everything you put into it. Write to hello@termspring.com about anything on this page.
VERSION 2026-10-25 · LAST UPDATED 25 OCTOBER 2026
What Termspring keeps
- Your account: your name, email address and university, a sign-in cookie on each device you use, and the record that you confirmed you are 18 or over and accepted the Terms, with the version and the time.
- Calendar links you paste, for your timetable, Canvas or Moodle. Each is encrypted and tied to your account, shown only by its host, never written to logs, and never sent to Claude.
- Your modules, deadlines, plans and marks, including credits and weights from your university’s module catalogue.
- Slides and pages you upload, with what Termspring reads from them: text, notes, images, thumbnails and, if you use it, Claude’s reading of each slide.
- Your notes, flashcards, reviews, focus sessions and lecture transcripts.
- Your plan and payments: which plan you have, how it is billed, its trial, renewal and end dates, the price, and the Stripe or Apple references for each payment and refund.
- Invites: your invite code, who invited you if anyone did, and the rewards your invites earned.
- Your social profile, friendships, groups, blocks, reports and shared decks, if you turn profiles and friends on (see Profiles, friends and groups).
- Which screens you open and buttons you press, only if you choose to share them (see Product analytics).
Termspring never asks for your university password or a Canvas access token, and it has no advertising or tracking cookies. The cookies page lists the few it uses.
Signing up and signing in
- We email you a link to confirm your address before you start, and use your address for password resets and messages about your account.
- When you choose a password, the first five characters of a one-way hash of it are checked against Have I Been Pwned’s list of breached passwords. Your password itself never leaves Termspring, and we store only a hash of it.
- If you sign in with Google or Apple, they tell us your name and email address, and we never see the password for that account.
Your uploads
Lecture slides belong to your university and its staff. You upload them for your own study, and they stay private to you: no other account can see them, nothing is shared between accounts, and there are no public links. The original file is kept until you delete it. Deleting a deck removes every version, its file and everything read from it; flashcards you already approved keep their text and say the source was deleted.
If you are a rights holder and believe material has been uploaded that shouldn’t be, write to hello@termspring.com and we will act on it.
AI features
When you use an AI feature, such as reading your slides, suggesting flashcards, preparing seminar or worksheet questions, or writing notes from a lecture, the material it needs is sent to Anthropic’s Claude with that request. It is sent as data, never as instructions, and Claude can’t act on it or reach anything else. What it returns is a draft: flashcards and module details are only kept when you approve them. Anthropic processes this as our sub-processor under its commercial terms, which don’t allow it to train its models on what we send. The AI use page says which models do what, and how to switch AI off.
AI apps you connect
On Plus and Max you can connect Claude or ChatGPT to Termspring. You choose what the app may do on a consent page when you connect it: it can always see your study context (modules, plan, tasks, notes, slides, questions, due cards and weak spots), and only if you allow it, save what you do in the chat or ask Termspring to make things such as worksheets. What it reads goes to that app, Anthropic or OpenAI, under your own account with them and their terms, not ours. Modules you set to no AI are never shared, and while Study without AI is on an app can’t read your study material. What an app saves arrives as a draft you approve, or as an entry you can undo. We keep a record of what each app did (which tool, which module, when) without anything that was said or shown, for 13 months, so your AI-use log can list it. Disconnect an app in Settings › AI apps and it loses access straight away.
Live lectures
When you record a lecture, the sound goes from your device to AssemblyAI in the EU, which turns it into text as you listen. No audio is kept, by AssemblyAI or by us: only the text is saved. Classmates may be heard, so you can pause during discussion and delete any line. Transcripts are kept until 31 August after that academic year, or 30 days after your notes are made, or until you delete them, whichever you choose. You are told 14 days before one is deleted, so you can keep or download it.
Profiles, friends and groups
Social features are off until you turn them on in Settings, under Profile. When you do, we keep a social profile for you: the name you choose and, if you add them, a photo, a short bio and the modules you pick. Your university, course and year come from your Termspring profile. You choose who sees each of these: only you, your friends, your friends and the people in your study groups, or also course-mates. Course-mates are students at your university on the same course who have also chosen to be found; you are never findable by course-mates unless you switch that on.
- Photos. We store your photo as two small square images and remove everything else that came with the file, including where and when it was taken and the camera’s details. Your original file is never kept. Only the people you allow, and someone you have given your friend code to, can see it.
- Stats you choose to show. You can show friends or groups your Focus hours this week, your Focus streak, how many cards you reviewed this week, your retention (on Plus and Max) and your badges. Each is hidden until you switch it on. We work these numbers out on our servers and only the number is shown. We never show anyone your grades or marks, your weak spots or struggling cards, E-codes or worksheet marks, your notes, the contents of your decks (unless you share a deck), numbers for single modules, the times of day you study or which plan you’re on.
- Boards. If you choose to appear on weekly Focus boards, friends, group members or course-mates on the same board see your name and hours for the week. Boards count at most six hours a day and nothing between midnight and 05:00.
- Sharing decks. When you share a deck, we keep a copy of its cards’ text as they were when you shared it, with your name as you chose it. Pictures, sounds and your review history are never shared. Someone who adds your deck gets their own copy, which is theirs: it stays with them if you stop sharing it or close your account, labelled “from a former Termspring student”.
- Friends, blocks and reports. We keep who you’re friends with, requests you’ve sent and received, who you’ve blocked and the groups you’re in. If you report someone or something, we keep the report and any note you wrote, and we look at it ourselves. We don’t tell the person who reported them.
- Who else sees it: no one outside Termspring. Social data isn’t sent to Anthropic, PostHog, advertisers or anyone else. Photos are stored with Vercel Blob in the same way as your other uploads.
- Your choices. You can change who sees each part, remove your photo, leave the boards, block anyone or turn social off at any time. Turning it off hides you from everyone at once; your friends and settings are kept in case you turn it back on.
Termspring is for people aged 18 and over. If you think someone under 18 is using it, report them from their profile or write to hello@termspring.com, and we’ll pause their social features while we check.
Product analytics
Termspring asks once, after you sign in, whether you want to share how you use it. The question says:
“Share which screens you open and which buttons you press, so we can see what helps. It’s linked to your account, held by PostHog in the EU, and never includes your notes, cards or timetable.”
- Nothing is sent until you say yes. Until then the analytics code isn’t even loaded.
- What is sent: the name of what you did (for example “today viewed” or “add opened”), when, your Termspring account id, and your browser or device type and app version. Never your notes, cards, uploads, transcripts, timetable, or the text of anything you type.
- Where: PostHog’s EU cloud. PostHog works out a rough location from your IP address and doesn’t keep the address. Analytics events are kept for no more than 12 months.
- Changing your mind: switch it off in Settings at any time, on the web or on your iPhone; one choice covers both. Nothing more is sent, and the analytics data on that device is cleared.
We use it to see which parts of Termspring help and which get in the way, and for nothing else. It isn’t sold, shared for advertising, or used to track you on other sites.
Payments
On the web, you pay on Termspring’s billing page, and the card form inside it is Stripe’s. Your card details go to Stripe, not to us. In the iPhone app, Apple takes the payment. Either way, Termspring keeps your plan, its dates and price, and references to each payment, so it knows what you have paid for and can send receipts and reminders. To stop the same card taking repeated free trials or invite rewards, we may keep a fingerprint Stripe gives each card, which identifies the card without revealing its number. The subscription terms explain trials, renewals and refunds.
Invites
If you join through a friend’s invite, we record who invited you so they can be rewarded. They see only how many of their invites joined and paid, never your name or email address. Opening an invite link sets a cookie for 30 days that holds only the invite code.
Who processes data for us
- Vercel: Hosting, private file storage and the sandbox that converts PowerPoint decks. Termspring runs in Vercel’s London region, and files are stored in London.
- Neon: The database, in London.
- Anthropic: Claude, for the AI features, when you use them. Processing happens in the United States.
- AssemblyAI: Live lecture transcription, on its EU servers. If AssemblyAI is down, Speechmatics does the same job, also in the EU.
- PostHog: Product analytics, only if you choose to share, held in its EU cloud.
- Stripe: Payments on the web, on Termspring’s own billing page. Stripe holds your card details, billing address and payment history; we never see your full card number. Stripe also uses payment data as a controller in its own right, to prevent fraud and meet its legal duties, under its own privacy notice.
- Apple: Payments in the iPhone app, and Sign in with Apple if you choose it. Apple sells and bills App Store subscriptions as a controller in its own right, under its own terms. It tells us which plan you bought, its price, dates and status, never your card or Apple ID password.
- Google: Sign in with Google, if you choose it. Google tells us your name, your email address and that it is verified. We never see your Google password.
- Resend: Sends Termspring’s emails: confirming your address, password resets, receipts, and trial and renewal reminders. It receives your email address and the message.
- Cloudflare: Turnstile, on the sign-up and password reset pages, which checks that you are a person and not a bot. It uses your IP address and details of your browser for that check only.
- Your browser’s push service: Reminders, if you turn them on: Apple, Google or Mozilla delivers them, encrypted so only your device can read them.
Where data leaves the UK, it is transferred under safeguards that UK data protection law recognises.
Why we can use your data
- To provide Termspring to you under our agreement with you: your account, your study data, the features you use, and taking payment for a paid plan.
- Because the law requires it: keeping records of payments for tax and the company’s accounts.
- In our legitimate interests, balanced against yours: keeping Termspring secure, stopping bots and fraud, preventing abuse of free trials and invites, and keeping reports and acting on them so profiles, groups and shared decks stay safe.
- With your consent: product analytics and reminders on your device. You can withdraw it at any time.
How long it is kept
- Uploads that never finish are deleted within a day, and so are calendar links you previewed but didn’t keep.
- Records of AI requests keep their counts and cost, not their content, after 30 days.
- Records of what a connected AI app did, which never hold content, are kept for 13 months.
- Lecture transcripts follow the setting you chose (see Live lectures).
- Analytics events, if you share them, are kept for no more than 12 months.
- Your social profile, friendships and group memberships are kept until you delete them or close your account. An old photo is deleted when you replace it. A shared deck lasts until you stop sharing it, and copies others added are theirs. Reports are kept for 12 months after we decide on them, then deleted.
- Records of payments and refunds are kept for 6 years after the end of the company’s financial year in which they were made, because tax law requires it, even after you close your account. They hold what the accounts need, such as the amount, date, plan and payment reference, and nothing from your study.
- Everything else is kept until you delete it or close your account.
Closing your account
Delete your account yourself in Settings, under Account, on the web. You confirm with your password (or a fresh sign-in, if you use Google or Apple), and it deletes your account and everything in it at once, including your files, transcripts, social profile, photo, friendships, blocks, group memberships, shares and badges, and any analytics held by PostHog. A group you started passes to its longest-standing member, and decks others added from you stay with them, labelled “from a former Termspring student”. Reports about you are kept, without your account, for 12 months. Download all your data from Settings first if you want a copy.
A plan paid on the web ends at the same moment, and if your first payment, or a yearly one, was in the last 14 days, it is refunded in full. A plan paid through Apple has to be cancelled in your iPhone’s Settings, because only you can stop Apple billing it.
If you can’t sign in, write to hello@termspring.com from the address on your account and we will do it for you within 30 days, and tell you when it’s done. Copies in our database backups roll off on their own soon after. Records of payments are kept as described above, and Stripe and Apple keep their own payment records for as long as the law requires.
Your rights
You can ask for a copy of your data, ask us to correct or delete it, or object to how it is used. Download all your data from Settings at any time, free on every plan, in a format other apps can read. Where you have given consent, such as for analytics, you can withdraw it at any time. Write to hello@termspring.com. If you are unhappy with our answer you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.
Nullshift Development Ltd is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office. Registration number: ZC214743.
Changes
If this notice changes in a way that matters, Termspring tells you in the app before the change applies. The date at the top is the last update.
Nullshift Development Ltd · Registered in England and Wales, company 17284213 · 66 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NA