Privacy Notice

Brum.Land is a free study site run independently by students. It is not part of the University of Birmingham. We are the data controller for the personal data described here. Contact: brum.land@tutamail.com.

You can browse the site without an account. An account is needed only for AI chat, module chats, practice mode, ratings, saved API keys, bookmarks that follow you across devices and email alerts.

• Account: your email address and password (stored hashed by Supabase Auth), sign-up and last sign-in times. Supabase also keeps short-lived auth logs that can include your IP address.
  Why: To let you sign in and to send account emails (confirmation, password reset).
  Kept: Until you delete your account.
• Chat username (the name you pick for module chats).
  Why: Shown next to your chat messages.
  Kept: Until you delete your account.
• Module chat messages, linked to your account.
  Why: To run the module chats and moderate them.
  Kept: Short-term. Messages are deleted automatically about 24 hours after posting. A message that has been reported is kept until a moderator resolves the report, for at most 7 days. All your messages are deleted at once if you delete your account.
• Chat reports you file (which message and an optional reason).
  Why: Moderation.
  Kept: Deleted along with the reported message, or when you delete your account.
• Question reports ("Report" on a question in the question bank): which question, your optional reason, and who sent it: your account ID, plus a keyed hash of your network (the first part of your IP address, shared by everyone on that network); the IP address itself is never stored. Reporting needs an account, like the question bank itself. Until October 2026 a report could also be sent signed out; those older reports carry the network hash only.
  Why: Moderation: so each person reports a question once, and so a question is hidden automatically only when signed-in users on several different networks report it.
  Kept: The reason is removed 30 days after a moderator has reviewed the question. Every question report is deleted 180 days after it was sent, reviewed or not: long enough to cover one exam season, after which the identifier has no use. Your reports are in your data export and are deleted straight away when you delete your account. The older reports sent while signed out are not linked to any account, so they are not in an export and deleting an account does not remove them; the 180-day rule does.
• Chat ban (if a moderator bans you from the module chats) and the reason given.
  Why: Moderation: to keep a banned account out of the chats.
  Kept: Until the ban is lifted or you delete your account.
• Module star ratings, linked to your account.
  Why: To show average ratings and let you change your own. Other users only ever see the average.
  Kept: Until you delete your account.
• Saved modules (bookmarks), if you are signed in: which modules you saved and when.
  Why: To show your modules on every device you sign in on. Bookmarks you made before signing in are added to your account the first time you sign in on that browser.
  Kept: Until you remove the bookmark or delete your account.
• Email alerts, only if you turn them on: which of your saved modules have alerts on and since when, whether alert emails are switched off for your account, a random ID used only in your unsubscribe links, and a record of which alerts were queued for you and when each was emailed.
  Why: To email you when a new paper, new solutions or an exam date lands for those modules, normally at most one email a day, and never twice about the same thing. Every alert email has an unsubscribe link that works without signing in. The link does not contain your account ID, and it stops working if you later turn alert emails back on.
  Kept: Which modules have alerts on: until you turn the alert off, remove the bookmark or delete your account. Whether alert emails are switched off (including after you unsubscribe from an email) and the unsubscribe ID: until you delete your account. The record of queued and sent alerts: 90 days.
• Your own AI provider API keys, if you save any. They are encrypted (AES-256-GCM) before we store them.
  Why: To send AI requests on your behalf with your key.
  Kept: Until you remove the key or delete your account.
• Reports and suggestions sent with the "Report an error" / "Add a paper" form: your description, the page address and, only if you choose to give them, your name and email.
  Why: To fix problems and reply to you.
  Kept: Your name and email are removed 30 days after the report is resolved, and resolved reports are deleted after 180 days. These reports are not linked to your account, so deleting your account does not remove them. Email us if you want one removed sooner.
• Rate-limit counters, keyed by your IP address or account ID (held in Upstash). This includes the free AI quota: a count of your free AI questions over the last 24 hours, keyed by your account ID. It does not include what you asked.
  Why: To enforce the daily free AI limit and stop spam and abuse.
  Kept: They expire automatically, within 48 hours at most.
• Server logs (Vercel). Errors can be logged together with your account ID.
  Why: Security and debugging.
  Kept: Short-term, under our hosting provider’s log retention.

Some things never reach our servers. They live in your browser’s local storage, and clearing your site data removes them:

• Your chosen year, and your bookmarks while you are signed out.
• While you are signed in: a copy of your saved modules (section 2) and, next to it, your account ID, so the browser knows whose list the copy is. Both are removed from the browser when you sign out or delete your account. Bookmarks you made before you ever signed in on that browser stay.
• When you last opened the home page, so it can mark what has been added to your modules since
• AI chat history: past AI conversations per document. On a shared computer, delete them in the chat panel or clear your browser data.
• Dark mode, which pop-ups you have dismissed, whether you accepted the chat rules, and your chosen AI provider

We do not store your AI questions or answers on our servers. To answer a question we send it to an AI provider, together with your recent chat history and, if you are asking about a document, that document’s text:

• Free tier: requests go through OpenRouter to free models hosted by third-party providers (for example NVIDIA or Google). Free model providers may log your prompts and use them to improve their models. Don’t put personal or sensitive information in AI chats.
• Your own key: requests go to the provider you picked (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini or OpenRouter) under your own account, and that provider’s terms and privacy policy apply.

We use only the cookies needed to keep you signed in (Supabase session cookies). There are no advertising cookies and no cross-site tracking. We do not sell or share your data for marketing.

Page-view counts. To see which pages are useful we count page views with Vercel Web Analytics. It is cookieless: it sets no cookie, stores nothing in your browser and does not follow you to other sites. For each view it records the page path (we strip the query string first), the referring site, your approximate location (country, region and city, derived from the request), your browser and operating system with their versions, your device type and the time of the view. The counts are not tied to your IP address or your account. Visitors are told apart by a hash made from the request, which is discarded after 24 hours. Admin pages are not counted.

• Contract: running your account and the features you use (sign-in, chats, ratings, saved keys, AI chat).
• Legitimate interests: keeping the site secure and usable: rate limits, moderation (including question reports), abuse prevention, error logs and anonymous page-view counts.
• Consent: the optional name and email on the report form (leave them blank if you prefer), and email alerts, which are off until you turn them on and can be turned off again at any time.

• Supabase: database and authentication. Hosted in the EU (Frankfurt, Germany).
• Vercel: website hosting and the anonymous page-view counts (section 5). Our server functions run in Frankfurt (EU). Pages are delivered from Vercel’s global edge network, usually its London location for UK visitors.
• Upstash: rate-limit counters.
• Resend: sends account emails and, if you turned them on, alert emails (your email address and the message).
• OpenRouter and the free-model providers it routes to: free AI answers (see section 4).
• OpenAI, Anthropic, Google: only when you use your own API key for them.
• Cloudflare: DNS for our domain only. Site traffic is not routed through Cloudflare.

Our database and server functions are in the EU, which the UK recognises as giving adequate protection. Some providers above (Vercel, Upstash, Resend, OpenRouter and the AI providers) are US companies and may process data in the US or elsewhere. They do so under their own data processing terms, such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, the EU Standard Contractual Clauses or the UK–US Data Bridge.

• Access / portability: download your data as JSON from your account page, or email us.
• Erasure: delete your account yourself on the account page. This removes your email, username, chat messages and reports, the question reports you sent while signed in, any chat ban, ratings, saved modules, email alert settings and saved API keys straight away, and the copy of your saved modules in the browser you delete the account from. Rate-limit counters expire on their own within 48 hours. If one of your chat messages is under moderator review, deletion waits until the review is finished (at most 7 days). Reports you sent through the report form are not linked to your account; email us to remove them.
• Rectification: change your chat username in a module chat, or email us to correct anything else.
• Objection / restriction: email us.

We reply within one month. If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk).

When we change this notice we update the date at the top. See also our Terms of Use.

Privacy questions and data requests:

brum.land@tutamail.com