Privacy Policy

Welcome to Polymathy. As the creators and maintainers of this platform, we are committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains how we collect, use, and safeguard your information when you use the site. Our goal is to be transparent about the data needed to run Polymathy and to respect your privacy throughout the process.

To provide the service, we need to collect some information. We aim to collect only what is necessary for the platform to function effectively.

Information You Provide Directly

• Account Information: When you register for an account directly, we collect your email address, your name or username, and a securely hashed password.
• Third-Party Login: If you register using a third-party service like Google or GitHub, we receive your email address, public profile name, and profile image from that service. We do not collect or store your password from these services.
• User-Generated Content: We collect the content you create on the platform, including exercises, comments, suggested edits, and votes. This content is visible to other authenticated users, as described under "How We Share Your Information" below.
• Learning records: When you work on exercises, we record which exercises you were shown, whether each answer was correct, whether you chose to reveal the solution steps or skipped, and roughly how long you were actively working on each exercise, stored as a time range rather than an exact duration. We also store the local date and time zone offset when a session starts. We do not record keystrokes, mouse movements or anything you do outside an exercise.

Information We Collect Automatically

• Log and Usage Data: Like most websites, our servers automatically collect information when you access the site, such as your IP address, browser type, and operating system. This is collected by our hosting provider (Vercel) for security and operational purposes.
• Cookies and Local Storage: We use cookies to operate and secure the service. Specifically, we use cookies to keep you logged in (session cookies) and to remember your user interface preferences, such as the state of the sidebar (functionality cookies). We also keep some preferences in your browser's local storage, such as whether quiz sounds are muted. We do not use cookies or local storage for third-party advertising or detailed tracking.

Our goal is to use this information to create a reliable and effective learning environment. We use the information we collect to:

• Provide and Maintain the Service: Your account data allows us to provide access, and your usage data helps us operate and maintain the platform.
• Personalize Your Experience: We use information like your progress to tailor the content to your learning journey.
• Run and personalise your learning: We use your learning records to choose exercises, size practice sessions and track your progress. When we study whether changes to Polymathy help people learn, we use combined statistics, and only a small number of people can access the underlying records.
• Communicate With You: We use your email address to send important service-related notifications, such as password resets or security alerts. We will not send you marketing emails without your explicit consent.
• Improve the Platform: By analyzing how you and other users interact with the site, we can identify areas for improvement and develop new features.
• Ensure Security: We use log data to monitor for suspicious activity and to protect the security of the platform.

We do not sell your personal information. Transparency is important, so here's who we share information with and why:

• With Other Users: To create a community-driven platform, certain information is shared with other authenticated users. Your username and any content you contribute—including exercises, comments, edits, and votes—are visible to anyone who is logged into Polymathy. This information is not visible to the general public or search engines. Your email address is never shared.
• With Service Providers: We use a few trusted third-party services to operate the platform. These providers are contractually obligated to protect your data. Our service providers are:
  • Vercel (Hosting): We use Vercel to host the Polymathy website. As part of its service, Vercel may process log data for security and operational purposes.
  • Neon (Database Hosting): Our database, including your account information and the content you create, is stored with Neon on servers located in the European Union.
  • Sentry (Error Monitoring): We use Sentry to detect and diagnose errors on the platform. When an error occurs, Sentry may receive technical data such as your IP address, browser information, and the actions that led up to the error.
  • Resend (Email Delivery): We use Resend to send service emails, such as password resets. Resend processes your email address in order to deliver these messages.
• For Legal Reasons: If we are required to do so by law or in response to a valid legal request, we may disclose your information.

We take reasonable technical and administrative measures to help protect your personal information. For example, all communication with the platform is encrypted using HTTPS (in transit), and sensitive information like your password is encrypted when stored (at rest).

However, please be aware that no security system is impenetrable. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

We keep your account information for as long as your account is active. Detailed timing in your learning records is reduced to the day after six months, and individual answer records are deleted after 24 months. A record of which exercises you have seen and how each one ended is kept while your account exists, so we can avoid repeating exercises and track your progress. When you delete your account, or when an unused guest account is removed, all of your learning records are deleted. Combined statistics that cannot identify you may be kept.

We believe you should have control over your personal information. Here are the rights and choices you have on Polymathy:

• Access and Update: You can access and update your account information at any time through your account settings.
• Account Deletion: You can request deletion at any time by contacting us at the address below. After we verify the request, we permanently remove your account information, authentication data, and individual learning records. Your user-generated content (such as exercises, comments, and edits) is retained under an anonymous deleted-user identity so the community's shared knowledge base and its revision history remain intact. As outlined in our Terms of Service, you grant us a perpetual license to use this content.

Your Rights Under the GDPR

Because we are based in Sweden, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies to how we handle your data. In addition to the choices above, you have the right to request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data; to receive a copy of it in a portable format; to restrict or object to certain processing; and to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at the address below. Requests for access or a portable copy include your learning records.

We use your learning records to provide the service you signed up for. Studying combined statistics about them to find out whether changes to Polymathy help people learn is based on our legitimate interest in improving the service, with the safeguards described in this policy.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection (IMY) or your local supervisory authority.

Protecting the privacy of children is very important. This service is not intended for or directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we will take steps to delete that information as quickly as possible.

Our service may contain links to other websites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third party's site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit.

We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will post the new policy on this page and update the "Last Updated" date. For material changes, we will do our best to provide a more prominent notice (such as a notice on the platform's dashboard) before the changes take effect. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes.

If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at privacy@polymathy.com.