Privacy policy

This page explains what Smiling Bard keeps about you, why, and what you can do about it. It is written for teachers, not lawyers. If you would rather read the formal version, use the switch above.

The short version: we keep the details you give us and the lessons you make, we use AI to write lessons for you, we never sell your data, and you can download or delete everything from Settings whenever you like.

What we collect

• Your name, email address and school or organisation, when you sign up or write to us.
• The lessons, schemes, classes, student sets and SEND profiles you create.
• A lesson you make on the homepage before signing up. We keep it against your email address so it can be added to your account when you sign up.
• Which plan you are on and whether it is paid. Stripe holds your card details, we never see them.
• Technical details such as your IP address and browser, when you generate a lesson, sign in or send a message, so we can stop abuse.
• How you use the app, but only if you accept analytics cookies.

How we use it, and why we are allowed to

• To run Smiling Bard for you: your account, your lessons, your calendar. This is part of the deal when you sign up.
• To write lessons and resources with AI, which is the point of the service.
• To take payment if you choose a paid plan.
• To keep the service safe, fair and working, for example by limiting how many lessons one person can generate in a day.
• To reply when you contact us.
• To understand how the app is used and fix errors, only if you accept analytics cookies.
• To send you news about Smiling Bard, only if you opt in, and you can stop it at any time.
• To meet our legal obligations, such as keeping payment records.

We do not sell your data, we do not show adverts, and we do not use your content to train AI models.

AI and your lesson content

When you generate a lesson, go deeper on a section or personalise it, the brief and lesson content you provide are sent to Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI model, to produce the result. Anthropic does not use it to train its models and deletes it after 30 days. Your name and email address are never sent.

If you choose a SEND profile or student set when personalising or differentiating, its description is sent too, so the result can be tailored. Keep those descriptions general: a type of need and what helps, never a child's name or anything that could identify them.

Pupils and children

Smiling Bard is built for teachers, and we do not want pupil data. Students are described by a nickname or code, an attainment band and general notes. SEND profiles describe a type of need, not a person.

Please never enter a child's name, date of birth, or anything else that identifies them. If you do, your school remains responsible for that data, and we will delete it as soon as you ask.

We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18. Accounts are for adults.

Who we share it with

We use a small number of companies to run Smiling Bard. They only see what they need to do their job, and they are not allowed to use it for anything else:

• Supabase holds your account and everything you create.
• Vercel hosts the website and app.
• Anthropic generates lessons, as described above.
• Stripe takes payments and holds your card details.
• Resend sends our emails to you, such as sign-in codes.
• Cloudflare and Upstash help us block bots and limit abuse.
• Google Analytics and PostHog show us how the app is used, only if you accept analytics cookies.

We will also share data if the law requires it, for example a court order. We never sell it.

Where your data is kept

Your account and everything you create are stored in a database in the United Kingdom or Western Europe. Some of the companies we use are based in the United States: Anthropic, Stripe, Vercel, Resend, Cloudflare, Upstash and Google. When your data goes to them it is protected by the UK's approved transfer agreements, so you keep the same rights.

PostHog stores analytics data in the EU.

How long we keep it

• Your account, lessons, classes and everything else you create: until you delete them or delete your account. Deleting your account removes it all straight away.
• A homepage lesson saved against an email that never signs up: 90 days, then it is deleted.
• IP addresses and other technical records used to stop abuse: up to 30 days.
• Payment records: 6 years, because tax law says so. These are held by Stripe and in our accounts.
• Messages you send us: up to 2 years, so we can follow up.
• Analytics: as set out in our cookies policy, and never if you decline.
• Backups: overwritten within 30 days of the data being deleted.

How we protect it

• Everything travels over an encrypted connection and is encrypted where it is stored.
• Your data is only ever returned to you: the database itself enforces that one teacher cannot see another's lessons, classes or profiles.
• We never hold card details.
• Only the founders can access the systems that hold your data, and they use it only to run and support the service.
• If something did go wrong, we would tell you and the regulator as the law requires.

Cookies, analytics and bot protection

• We use a few essential cookies to keep you signed in and to remember your cookie choice. Analytics cookies are only set if you accept them, and you can change your mind any time from our
• cookies policy
• . We do not use advertising cookies.

Cloudflare Turnstile runs quietly on our forms to tell people from bots. It reads technical signals from your browser to do that. It is essential to keep the service available, so it does not need your consent.

Your rights

You can:

• See what we hold about you. Settings has a button that downloads all of it as a file.
• Fix anything that is wrong. Your name can be changed in Settings; for your email address, write to us.
• Delete everything. Settings has a button for that too, and it takes effect immediately.
• Take your data elsewhere, using the same download.
• Ask us to stop or limit what we do with your data, or object to it.
• Change your mind about analytics cookies or marketing emails at any time.

• Email
• hello@smilingbard.com
• for anything you cannot do from Settings. We will reply within a month. If you are not happy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at
• ico.org.uk
• or on 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top. If the change is significant we will email account holders before it takes effect.

Contact us

• Questions about your data? Email
• hello@smilingbard.com
• or write to Smiling Bard Ltd, 167-169 Great Portland Street, 5th Floor, London, W1W 5PF.