Tessera ("we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting the privacy of our users, especially the teens and families who rely on our app. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect (and do not collect), how we use it, and your rights regarding that information.
1. Our Core Commitment
We do not collect personally identifiable information about teens. Tessera is designed with privacy at its foundation. We never ask for a teen's last name, email address, phone number, or physical address. The information we do collect cannot be used to identify a specific individual.
We never sell or disclose data for advertising or marketing. No user data is sold, rented, licensed, or disclosed to any third party for advertising, analytics, or marketing purposes. The only third-party services that receive user data are our infrastructure and AI providers (Anthropic and AWS), as described in Section 6, solely to operate the app.
2. Information We Collect
2.1 Student Data
We collect the following non-personally-identifiable information from students:
- First name (no last name)
- Age and birthday month/day (not birth year)
- Grade level
- Gender (optional)
- State of residence
- School type (public, private, charter, homeschool)
- GPA range (optional)
- Session summaries (short recaps, not full conversation text)
- Interest and personality scores derived from conversations
This data is stored securely in the cloud using encryption. None of these data points, individually or in combination, constitute personally identifiable information. We cannot trace this data back to a specific person.
2.2 Parent Data
We collect the following information from parents who link their account:
- Full name
- Email address
- Relationship to teen (parent or legal guardian)
Parent information is used for account management, family linking, and optional product updates. Parent data is never shared with third parties and may be deleted at any time upon request.
2.3 Usage Data
We do not use third-party analytics services. We do not track individual user behavior, create user profiles for marketing, or use cookies for tracking purposes.
3. AI Conversations
Tessera uses AI (provided by Anthropic's Claude) to generate conversational questions and process responses. When a conversation occurs:
- Only the student's first name (for addressing purposes), the current question area, and recent conversation history are sent to the AI provider. No identifying information or full profiles are included.
- AI conversation data is processed in real time. Anthropic may temporarily retain API inputs for up to 30 days for trust and safety purposes, after which they are deleted. Anthropic does not use conversations to review, read, or build user profiles.
- We do not use student conversation data to train AI models. Under Anthropic's API terms, API inputs and outputs are not used for model training by default.
4. Data Storage and Security
All student and parent data is stored in the cloud using encrypted, secured infrastructure. This means:
- Your data is protected by industry-standard encryption at rest and in transit.
- Teen data is not personally identifiable and cannot be traced to an individual.
- If you delete your account or uninstall the app, your data is permanently removed.
- Minimal AI conversation context is sent to Anthropic for real-time processing only (as described in Section 3).
5. Children's Privacy
Tessera is designed for users aged 14 and older. Users under 14 are not permitted to use the app and are blocked during the onboarding process. Because we do not collect personally identifiable information from our users, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) obligations regarding data collection do not apply. Nevertheless, we take the safety and privacy of young users seriously and have designed the app accordingly.
6. Third-Party Services
Tessera uses the following third-party services for core functionality:
- Anthropic (Claude AI): Provides the conversational AI engine. Anthropic's API processes conversation requests in real time and may temporarily retain inputs for up to 30 days for trust and safety purposes. API data is not used for model training by default. See Anthropic's Privacy Policy for details on their data practices.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS): Provides secure cloud infrastructure for data storage and application hosting.
We do not use any other third-party services for analytics, advertising, social media integration, or tracking.
7. Your Rights
You have the right to:
- Access: Your teen's interest and personality insights are visible in the app. Parents can view shared insights through their linked account.
- Deletion: You may request deletion of all data at any time by contacting us. Uninstalling the app removes local data; cloud-stored data is deleted upon account deletion request.
- Portability: We plan to offer data export features in a future release.
- Opt out: If you opted in to email communications, you may unsubscribe at any time using the link in any email or by contacting us.
8. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify users through the app or via email (if provided). The "Effective Date" at the top of this page indicates when the policy was last revised.
9. Contact Us
If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us:
Privacy Inquiries
Email: privacy@smart4smart.com
We will respond to all privacy-related inquiries within 30 days.