Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains what personal data NextIELTS("we", "us") collects when you use the NextIELTS platform, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have.

1. Information we collect

Account information

When you sign up, our authentication provider, Clerk, collects and stores your email address, your name, and, if you provide one, a profile picture. We store a copy of this information (email, name, profile picture URL) in our own database, linked to your account.

Content you submit for AI feedback

The core of NextIELTS is AI-generated feedback on your IELTS practice. To provide this, the following content is sent to our AI providers, OpenAI and/or Anthropic, for processing:

• Writing task submissions (your essay text)
• Speaking practice audio recordings and their transcripts
• Messages you send to the AI tutor chat
• Reading and listening answers, for analysis and feedback

Speaking practice audio is also sent to OpenAI's Whisper transcription service to convert it to text. The resulting transcript is temporarily cached (up to 7 days) to avoid re-transcribing identical audio; the audio recording itself is stored separately (see "Speaking audio recordings" below).

Examiner prompts and instructions you hear as audio are synthesized from text using Microsoft's Edge text-to-speech service, with OpenAI's text-to-speech service as a fallback. This path converts our own prompt text to audio and does not involve your personal data.

Speaking audio recordings

Recordings of your spoken responses during speaking practice are stored on our cloud storage provider, Cloudflare R2, so you and our systems can review them later. At present, these recordings are retained indefinitely — we do not yet have an automatic deletion schedule for them. We are working on a defined retention window for this audio; this section will be updated once that is in place.

Payment information

Subscription payments are handled entirely by Stripe. When you subscribe, you enter your payment details directly on Stripe's hosted checkout page — we never receive or store your card number. We do store your Stripe customer ID, subscription status and billing period, and payment event records (amount, currency, and event type) for the purpose of managing your subscription and maintaining financial records.

Usage and product data

We record first-party product-usage data (such as drills completed, scores, and study-plan progress) in our own database to run the product and show you your progress. This data is not shared with any third-party analytics or advertising service — as of the date of this draft, we do not use any third-party analytics, error monitoring, or advertising tools.

Language preference

Your interface language selection is stored in a cookie on your device. We currently bill all subscriptions in US dollars regardless of your location.

2. How we use your information

• To provide, personalize, and improve AI-generated feedback and scoring
• To operate your account and process subscription payments
• To communicate with you about your account or the service
• To maintain the security and integrity of the platform

3. Who we share your information with

We share personal data only with the service providers needed to run NextIELTS, each acting as a data processor on our behalf:

• Clerk — authentication and account identity
• OpenAI — AI feedback generation, speech transcription (Whisper), and text-to-speech fallback
• Anthropic — AI feedback generation
• Stripe — subscription billing and payment processing
• Cloudflare (R2 storage) — hosting of speaking-practice audio recordings and profile pictures
• Microsoft (Edge text-to-speech) — generating spoken audio for examiner prompts (does not process your personal data)

We do not sell your personal data. Some of these providers, including OpenAI and Anthropic, are based in and process data in the United States; if you are located outside the United States (including in Vietnam), your data will be transferred to and processed in the United States as a result.

4. Data retention

We retain account and product-usage data for as long as your account is active. Financial and billing records are retained for longer, as required for accounting, tax, and dispute-resolution purposes. Speaking audio recordings are currently retained indefinitely, as noted above.

5. Your choices and rights

You may update your account information at any time from your account settings. To request deletion of your personal data, contact us using the email address at the bottom of this page and we will action the request manually. Some records — in particular, financial ledger entries — may need to be retained even after a deletion request, to comply with tax and accounting obligations and to resolve payment disputes.

6. Children's privacy

NextIELTS is not directed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children under that age.

7. Changes to this policy

We will update this page if how we collect or use your data changes materially, and will update the "last updated" date above when we do.

8. Contact us

If you have questions about this policy or want to exercise any of the rights described above, contact us using the email address below.