Privacy, in plain English.

Last updated 23 August 2026

This policy explains what Chill ATAR collects, why, who else sees it, and what you can do about it. It is written to meet the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). It forms part of our Terms.

1. Who we are

Chill ATAR is operated by an Australian sole trader, who is the entity responsible for the personal information described here. The operator's legal name, ABN and address for written privacy requests are available on request by emailing hello@chillatar.au.

Being operated from Australia does not mean your data stays in Australia — see section 7.

2. What stays on your device

Chill ATAR keeps the most sensitive processing on your device. The following are never uploaded to the Chill ATAR backend:

• Screen Time selections. When you choose apps to shield, iOS gives us an opaque token, not a list of app names. That token never leaves the device and we cannot read it as a list of apps.
• Camera frames and pose data used for push-up counting and Earn Your Scroll photo proof. Frames are analysed on-device and discarded.
• Photo-proof images for study proof.
• Wellbeing check-ins — how you say you are feeling. This is health-related information and we treat it as sensitive information under the Privacy Act. It is stored only on your device and there is no server field for it.
• School portal passwords. You sign in on your school's own page inside the app. Your school password never reaches us.
• Flashcard decks and study cards, which have no server table at all.

The exception you should know about: if you use an AI feature that reads a photo — such as sending a worksheet or a note to AI Explain — that image is uploaded so the AI provider can answer. That is a deliberate action you take, and it is covered in section 6.

3. Permissions we ask for

• Screen Time / Family Controls — to shield apps you choose during study sessions. On-device only.
• Camera — push-up counting, before/after study proof, scanning SAC sheets and notes. Processed on-device unless you send an image to an AI feature.
• Photo library — only for images you pick yourself.
• Notifications — study reminders, SAC deadlines and session prompts.
• Motion — on-device exercise counting.

You can change or withdraw any of these in iOS Settings at any time.

4. What syncs to the backend when you sign in

A cloud account is optional — planning, study and focus tools work without one. If you create one, we store:

• Account — email, username, display name, year level, hashed password or passkey records, and sign-in metadata.
• Study data — subjects, assessment items and SACs, marks you enter, timetable and school-portal-imported items, focus session completions.
• Notes and notebooks — including handwriting strokes themselves, page and notebook titles, and who a notebook is shared with. Handwriting is stored on the server when a notebook is in a cloud account.
• Social — friend requests, friendships, blocks, study activity you have chosen to make visible, study-room and challenge participation, encouragements, referrals and invites.
• Purchases and credits — subscription entitlement records from Apple, and your AI credit balance and ledger.
• Tutoring — see section 5.
• Safety — moderation reports you make or that are made about your content, and community contributions you submit.
• Product events — see section 9 on analytics.
• Device ID (a random installation identifier) that is used only to prevent duplicate referral and reward claims. We store a one-way digest, not the identifier itself. It is not an advertising identifier and we do not use it for tracking across other companies' apps or sites.
• Manually supplied area — if you choose in-person tutoring, you can type a suburb, region and travel radius so we can match nearby tutors and study opportunities. Chill ATAR does not request or collect your device's location.

5. Tutoring

If you create a peer tutor profile, the details you publish — suburb, region, travel radius, contact email, bio and any scores you claim — become visible to other users once the profile is approved. Approval is manual: profiles do not go live automatically. We also store match requests, session records and any reports made about a tutor. Do not put anything in a tutor profile that you are not comfortable being public. You can withdraw a profile at any time.

Payment for tutoring, if any, is arranged directly between you and the tutor. We do not process it and do not hold payment details.

6. AI features

If you use AI Explain, AI deck generation or note review, the relevant question, answer, classwork, notes, images and curriculum metadata are sent to the configured AI provider so the feature can respond. We also send a one-way pseudonymous code derived from your account, so the provider can trace abuse to a single account without ever receiving your name, email or account ID.

Some AI features currently use Google Gemini and OpenAI free-tier processing. On free tiers, providers commonly reserve the right to have prompts, images and outputs reviewed by humans and used to improve their services. Do not send anything through cloud AI features that you are not comfortable sharing with the provider on those terms. Where an on-device alternative exists, we use it.

AI review results are cached for up to 60 minutes and then discarded. AI can be incomplete or wrong — check important work against your teachers and official VCAA material.

7. Overseas disclosure

We disclose personal information to recipients located outside Australia. By using a cloud account or an AI feature, you acknowledge this. Under APP 8.2, where an overseas recipient is not bound by the APPs we may not be accountable for their handling of your information, and you may not be able to seek redress under the Privacy Act.

• Apple (United States and its global regions) — sign-in, subscriptions, notifications.
• Render (United States; our API region may be outside Australia) — API hosting; receives everything in section 4.
• Neon (United States) — managed Postgres database; stores everything in section 4.
• Google (United States and global) — Gemini AI processing; receives what section 6 describes.
• OpenAI (United States) — configured AI processing option; receives the prompts, images and associated context described in section 6.
• Cloudflare (global edge network) — website hosting and storage for website enquiries.
• Resend (United States) — transactional email such as password resets and verification.

8. Cookies

This website does not use analytics or advertising cookies. Cloudflare, which serves the site, may set strictly necessary cookies for security and performance. The app does not use cookies for tracking.

9. Analytics

Product analytics are off unless you turn them on. Nothing is sent while the switch is off. When on, we count product events — such as which features are used and when an explanation is reported as wrong — to work out what to fix. Security, purchase and account-operation records may still be processed where we need them to run the service.

10. What we do not do

We do not sell student contact details, study data, Screen Time data, notes or AI prompts. We do not run advertising in the app. We do not share your data with your school just because you imported from a school portal.

11. Students and younger users

Chill ATAR is built for secondary students, and many users are under 18. You must be at least 13 to hold an account. We assess capacity to consent individually and generally treat a student aged 15 or over as able to consent for themselves; below that we expect a parent or guardian to be involved. A parent, guardian or school wellbeing contact can email us to ask what we hold or to have an account closed.

Be aware of what others can see: a tutor profile's suburb and bio, your presence in study rooms and challenges, and any study activity you have chosen to share with friends are visible to other users. Everything else defaults to private.

12. Security

We protect information with HTTPS in transit, encryption at rest with our database provider, one-way password hashing, and access limited to people who need it. Passkeys stay protected by your device and Apple's authentication services. When you use Sign in with Apple we verify Apple's identity token and store an encrypted Apple refresh token, solely so your Apple authorization can be revoked if you delete your account. Private keys and raw refresh tokens are never shipped in the app.

No system is perfectly secure. If a data breach occurs that is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify affected users and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.

13. How long we keep things

• Account and study data — while your account is active, then deleted on account deletion.
• AI review results — cached up to 60 minutes.
• Website enquiry rate-limit IP records — used for a one-hour throttling window. Expired rows are removed when a later form submission runs, so they can remain longer when the form is not being used.
• Enquiry messages — until we have dealt with them and no longer need them.
• Purchase and entitlement records — kept as long as needed for tax, accounting and dispute purposes.
• Analytics events — kept for the life of the account.
• Backups — our database provider keeps encrypted point-in-time backups; deleted data can persist in them until they expire through the backup-retention cycle.

14. Access, correction, export and deletion

You have a right under the Australian Privacy Principles to ask for access to the personal information we hold about you, and to ask us to correct it if it is wrong. Signed-in users can export their cloud data and delete their account from inside the app. If you cannot get into the app, email hello@chillatar.au and we will handle it that way.

We aim to respond within 30 days. We do not charge for access. If we refuse access or correction, we will tell you why in writing and how to complain.

Deletion removes the active account, associated cloud data and local app profile, and revokes stored Sign in with Apple authorization where available. Backups are as described in section 13. Deleting your account does not cancel an App Store subscription — cancel that through Apple.

15. Complaints

If you think we have breached the Australian Privacy Principles, email hello@chillatar.au with “Privacy complaint” in the subject. We will acknowledge within 7 days and give you a written response within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied, you can escalate to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC): call 1300 363 992, visit oaic.gov.au, or write to GPO Box 5288, Sydney NSW 2001.

16. School and third-party services

When you connect a school portal, we read your subjects, assessments and timetable and store them in your account. Your school password never reaches us. Chill ATAR is not affiliated with, authorised by or endorsed by VCAA, SEQTA, Compass, Canvas, Schoolbox or any school unless we say so explicitly. Providers we disclose to are named in section 7.

17. Website enquiries

If you contact us through the website, we collect what you provide — name, email, organisation, message and which group you say you belong to — so we can reply or send product updates you ask for. We also record your IP address for a one-hour throttling window and remove expired rate-limit rows during later form use. Enquiries are stored in our private Cloudflare database and reviewed through our protected enquiry dashboard; the website does not forward them to an email relay.

18. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. We will change the “last updated” date and, for material changes, give notice in the app or by email before they take effect.

19. Contact

Privacy questions, access requests and complaints: hello@chillatar.au, or the support page.