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IELTS Writing practice

Privacy Policy

Last updated

IELTS Writing practice (band7.app) is an IELTS Writing Task 2 practice tool. This page explains, in plain English, what information we handle when you use it, why, who helps us process it, and the choices you have. Sign-in, grading and payments are being switched on in stages; this policy describes how each part works once it is live. The rules for using the site are in our Terms of Use.

What we collect

  • Your account. Sign-up and sign-in are handled by Clerk. Clerk stores your email address and sign-in details. We receive a Clerk user ID and use it to link your essays, reports, allowance and subscription to you. We do not keep a separate profile of you.
  • Your essays. When you submit an essay we store the Task 2 prompt, your essay text, its word count, the Writing Desk mode you used, and when you submitted it.
  • Your Grade Reports. We store each Grade Report (Estimated Band, Trait feedback and any Chinese Scaffold notes) with the essay it belongs to, plus a monthly count of the Grade Reports you have used.
  • Coach requests. When you use Coach, the prompt, your draft and any text you selected are sent for a reply. We do not store Coach replies in our database.
  • Subscription records. If you subscribe, payment happens on Stripe Checkout. Your card details go to Stripe, not to us. We store your Stripe customer ID, your subscription status and when the current billing period ends.
  • Technical data. Like any website, our hosting provider receives your IP address, browser type and the pages you request, and keeps short-lived server logs.

Please do not put personal details (such as your name, address or ID numbers) inside essays. They are not needed to grade your writing.

How we use it

We use this information only to run the service: to save your essays, produce Grade Reports and Coach replies, count your monthly allowance, give subscribers their higher allowance, keep the site secure and fix problems. We do not sell your data, we do not show ads, and we do not use your essays to build advertising profiles.

Services that process your data (sub-processors)

  • DeepSeek (AI model provider): receives your prompt and essay text, and Coach selections, to produce Grade Reports, Scaffold notes and Coach replies. DeepSeek may process this data outside your country, including in China.
  • Clerk: account sign-up, sign-in and session management.
  • Stripe: subscription checkout, billing and the billing portal where you manage or cancel a subscription.
  • Neon: hosted Postgres database that stores essays, Grade Reports, allowance counts and subscription status.
  • Vercel: hosts and serves the website and its server functions.

Each of these companies handles data under its own privacy terms. We share only what each one needs to do its job.

Cookies and similar storage

We do not use analytics, advertising or tracking cookies. Once sign-in is live, Clerk sets cookies that keep you signed in; the site cannot work without them. The Writing Desk sets one small cookie to remember whether its sidebar is open. Stripe sets its own cookies on Stripe Checkout pages.

How long we keep it

Essays, Grade Reports and allowance counts stay in your account until you ask us to delete them or your account is deleted. Subscription records are kept while you subscribe and afterwards for as long as we need them for billing, tax and accounting. Server logs are kept for a short period by our hosting provider. Clerk, Stripe and DeepSeek keep data according to their own policies.

Your rights

You can ask us to:

  • give you a copy of the essays, Grade Reports and records we hold about you;
  • correct information that is wrong;
  • delete your essays, Grade Reports and account data (records we must keep for billing or legal reasons are kept only for as long as required);
  • stop or limit how we use your data.

Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

Security

The site is served only over HTTPS. Essays and reports are tied to your account and are not shown to other people. No system is perfectly secure, but we limit who and what can reach your data.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle your data, we will update this page and the date at the top.