Privacy

How My Chemistry uses your data

My Chemistry is built for A-level students, including under-18s. Account activity is private by default: there are no public student profiles, advertising trackers or data sales.

Who is responsible

Torben Junker Nicol Smith, sole trader is the data controller for My Chemistry and the connected Chemistry Help learning records. You can contact the controller through Support or at torben@tutorchem.co.uk.

What we collect

Google Sign-In supplies the basic account information needed to identify and sign you in: a Google account identifier, name, email address and profile image. My Chemistry does not use Google Sign-In to access Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar or other Google services. You can choose a separate first name or nickname to use within My Chemistry.

When you use the site, we may store your chosen course, whether you tell us you are a student, resit student or teacher/tutor, a student’s rough current-grade estimate, answers, whether you report that a correct answer was a guess, specification ratings, saved questions, study sessions, review schedule, Chemistry Help tool results, help flags, one-tap learning feedback such as ‘Still stuck’, content issue reports, feedback, Student FAQ questions, support requests and account-data requests.

Why we use it

For the core account and learning tools, we rely mainly on our legitimate interests in providing, securing and improving the educational service you choose to use. For current tutoring clients, some processing may also be necessary to provide the tutoring service requested. Security and record-keeping may also be used where necessary to meet legal obligations or establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

We keep the amount of personal data used for recommendations and progress tracking as small as practical. The site does not use your learning data for advertising or unrelated profiling.

We may also record limited product-improvement events, such as whether a returning student was shown or used a share prompt. If an independent student chooses to answer the optional question about how they first found Chemistry Help, that answer is stored with the account so acquisition routes can be assessed. The question can be skipped.

Practice on chemistryhelp.co.uk

When you are signed in and complete a supported activity on Chemistry Help, My Chemistry can save the question or activity, result, duration and missed items. I also record when a signed-in account contacts My Chemistry, normally at most once a minute. This helps distinguish a recent account connection from a Google login or completed work; it is not a measure of time spent studying. The public Chemistry Help site does not receive your name, email address or My Chemistry authentication cookie.

If you practise while signed out, a supported activity can keep an unsaved result in this browser. A random browser key helps recover that result after closing the browser. When you next sign in, you can choose whether to add the unsaved work to your account. It is not attached automatically. The result can include the browser’s reported completion time so that work saved later can be shown against the day you did it. I keep the server receipt time separately. Browser storage can be cleared by you or your browser, so this is not guaranteed backup.

Remember this browser

On the Google sign-in page you can choose to remain signed in on your own browser for up to 30 days. This is optional and off by default. My Chemistry uses a random, secure first-party cookie to restore your sign-in if the normal session has ended. Its secret is not stored in readable form in the database. Signing out revokes this remembered-browser sign-in; clearing browser cookies also ends it. Avoid this option on a shared computer.

Running live classes

When you start a live class on Chemistry Help while signed in and allowing its statistics, My Chemistry can record that start against your existing internal account number. I use first and latest use dates, the second distinct use day, total starts and active-day counts to check whether classroom users return. The private dashboard shows group totals. Classroom analytics tables contain no names, email addresses, class codes, pupil identifiers, pupil answers or chemistry results. These records do not change your learning progress.

A short-lived, one-use confirmation of a successful class start prevents retries from counting twice. It contains no account or class identifier. Only its hash is retained for de-duplication, separately from accounts, and it is removed after 24 hours when cleanup next runs. Cleanup removes daily classroom counts older than 400 days and compact totals after 400 days without classroom use. Deleting the account removes its classroom records too. Administrator and staff-test accounts are excluded. You can stop new classroom-usage measurement by turning statistics off on Chemistry Help, and you can use the account-data request tools for existing records.

Virtual Chemistry

Some tutoring clients may also have access to Virtual Chemistry, a separate connected Chemistry tutoring service. If you connect it, My Chemistry may share your chosen used name and a limited Chemistry-learning summary such as your course, target grade, help flags, lower self-ratings and selected recent practice. This connection does not give Virtual Chemistry access to your Google Account. Details about AI processing, tutor chats, study uploads, memory and retention are provided in the Virtual Chemistry privacy notice.

Guests, security and fault reports

Guest practice on My Chemistry uses a random session identifier; supported Chemistry Help activities can also retain an unsigned result and recovery key in that browser. Neither identifies the browser owner by name until you explicitly sign in and choose to attach the results. The service also keeps limited technical records needed to prevent abuse and diagnose faults. Rate limiting uses a one-way derived browser/network identifier rather than storing the raw address in the rate-limit table; inactive rate-limit records are cleared after about 14 days. Ordinary connection tokens expire automatically. An optional remembered-browser sign-in lasts no more than 30 days and can be revoked by signing out.

Error records may include the affected page, time, account identifier where signed in and a short technical reference. Opening “Report an issue” on a question or Chemistry Help activity does not submit a report. If you send one, it includes the reason you chose with the activity/question context, site version and limited browser/display information needed to reproduce it; a written note is optional unless you choose “Something else”. If you leave the reporting panel open for a few seconds and then close it without sending, a low-priority signal may be kept separately from submitted reports so repeated trouble spots can be noticed. Support messages can include the reply email and browser details you choose to send.

Student FAQ questions from Chemistry Help

The public Student FAQ can send a site question, missing-resource report, suggestion or problem report into the private My Chemistry admin system. The form asks students not to include their name, email address, school or other personal information.

If you are signed in, your question can be linked to your account so you can find its answer again. Signed-out questions get a random reference code and may also be linked to the temporary guest session on the Members subdomain. Original student wording is private. An administrator can separately write a cleaned question and answer for publication in the public FAQ.

Quick suggestions from Chemistry Help

The Chemistry Help homepage has a short suggestion box for ideas about topics, questions and tools. It stores the message with the Chemistry Help page title and route so the request has enough context to review. The box does not ask for a name, email address or school.

Suggestions are stored without account identity unless the page tells a signed-in user that attribution is available. In that case the user can still choose Send anonymously. Attributed suggestions use the account’s chosen used name in the private admin view; the Google email address is not copied into the suggestion. If a suggestion is linked to an account, that link is treated as account data and can be covered by an access or deletion request.

Teacher feedback from Chemistry Help

The public Chemistry Help teacher page can send teacher resource requests, problem reports and feature ideas into the private My Chemistry admin system. A teacher may optionally include a board, year, topic, homework-interest flag and reply email. The form asks teachers not to include pupil names or other student personal information. These messages are used to maintain and improve Chemistry Help; optional reply emails are not used for marketing.

Who receives data

Administrators can inspect account and study activity where needed to support users, improve questions and investigate faults. Service providers used for hosting, email delivery and Google Sign-In process the information needed to provide those functions. If you connect Virtual Chemistry, the limited Chemistry-learning information described above is also shared with that separate service. Student names, email addresses and results are not displayed publicly.

How long we keep it

Account learning records are normally kept while the account remains available, or until you ask for deletion. Content issue reports may be kept after an issue is resolved where they remain useful as a quality-assurance history; reporter identity is not needed for that purpose unless follow-up is genuinely useful. Student FAQ questions, support, security and legal records are kept only for as long as reasonably needed to handle the request, investigate misuse, protect the service or demonstrate what action was taken. The shorter technical periods described above apply automatically. Virtual Chemistry has its own retention information in its privacy notice.

Under-18 users

Most of the service is designed to work without age profiling. Privacy is high by default, location is not requested, accounts are not public and there is no behavioural advertising. Under-18 users can use the same account-data request tools as adults. Privacy information should be understandable without needing to read legal jargon; if anything here is unclear, ask through Support.

Your rights

Depending on the circumstances and lawful basis, you may have rights to access personal data, correct it, have it deleted, restrict its use, receive a portable copy and object to processing. Signed-in members can make these requests through the account data form.

You can object at any time to processing based on legitimate interests. Use the account data form or Support and explain what you want us to stop or reconsider.

If processing relies on a choice you can switch off, such as the My Chemistry–Virtual Chemistry connection, you can also withdraw that choice using the relevant account controls.

If you are unhappy with how data is handled

Please contact Support first so the issue can be investigated. You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

Privacy notice updated 15 October 2026.