Privacy policy

Last updated: 4 November 2026.

This policy explains what personal data Nova collects, why it is used, who it may be shared with, how long it is kept and the choices available to you. It applies when you visit Nova, create an account, study, contact support or subscribe to Nova Plus.

Who controls your data

Zac Cameron-Webb trading as Nova is the data controller and service provider. Nova is a sole-trader business established in the United Kingdom and currently serves adults studying at UK universities in the United Kingdom.

For privacy, account or billing questions, email support@studynova.me.

Personal data Nova collects

• Account and identity data: your email address, password hash, verification status, sign-in and recovery records, and your Google OpenID identifier if you choose Google sign-in.
• Waitlist data: your email, any name, university and course you choose to provide, and confirmation, invitation and email-sending records. Nova uses these to manage the early-access place you request. Joining the waitlist does not subscribe you to product updates.
• Study content: modules, lectures, authorised sources and uploaded files, extracted text, generated study materials, outlines, study notes, highlights, flashcards, practice questions, answers, chats, study sessions, evidence and academic history.
• Shared module data: memberships and roles, invitations, file-matching records, class contributions and confirmations, resources and votes, shared changes, catch-up and file-request choices, reports and in-app notifications.
• Profile and friends data: display name, @handle, chosen avatar, university, optional course and year, sharing switches, hidden modules, friend links, requests, friendships and blocks.
• Studying together: challenge questions and your answers, activity invitations, goal progress, room presence and counts, shared timers, explanations, picks, notes and cards you offer to friends, and cards you copy into your own deck.
• AI and source data: prompts assembled from the relevant study context, model responses, citations, the provider route used, safety outcomes, and usage and quality records.
• Billing data: your plan and access status, Stripe customer, checkout and subscription references, payment status and billing-event records. Stripe collects your full payment-card details; Nova does not.
• Support data: the messages you send, case details, any time-limited content access you grant, and the resulting access history.
• Security and service data: session and CSRF data, IP addresses or privacy-minimised fingerprints, browser information, request and error metadata, feature activity and performance records needed to operate and protect Nova.
• Communication preferences: whether you opted in to product updates, when and where you made that choice, the wording shown to you and any later withdrawal.
• Conversion and analytics data: versioned journey steps, outcome codes, account activation and billing milestones, and a keyed first-party visitor fingerprint only after optional analytics consent. Nova excludes answers, source text, note content, generated study content and unrestricted URLs.

Nova receives this data from you, from Google when you choose identity-only sign-in, from Stripe for billing, from Resend for transactional-email delivery events and through operation of the service. Google sign-in does not request access to Google Drive, Google Calendar or unrelated Google data.

Why Nova uses your data

• To perform the contract with you: create and secure your account; store and process your study work; provide requested AI-assisted features, shared modules and friend activities; apply usage allowances and referral rewards; provide Nova Plus; and handle billing, cancellation and support.
• For Nova’s legitimate interests: keep the service reliable and secure, prevent fraud and abuse, diagnose failures, measure performance, improve safety, moderate reports and understand aggregate product use and anonymous class study patterns. Nova does not rely on legitimate interests for direct-marketing email.
• To meet legal obligations: keep and provide records where tax, accounting, consumer-protection, security or lawful-request duties apply.
• With your consent: send optional product updates and record first-party analytics about public landing, call-to-action and registration-start events. You can withdraw consent at any time without affecting processing that already took place lawfully.

Nova needs your account identity and the study data you choose to add to provide the service. Product updates and public-page analytics are optional and are not required to use Nova. Nova also records limited account events such as registration, verification, first use, allowance use and billing outcomes to operate the service and understand aggregate performance.

AI processing and automated decisions

Nova uses AI to extract and organise authorised sources, prepare source-grounded study material, explain content, provide feedback on attempts and recommend possible next moves. These outputs support your study; they do not determine a grade, admission, employment, credit decision or another legal right. Nova does not make solely automated decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.

When you upload tutor material or a published past paper allowed with AI, Nova may reuse generated study material from an identical upload, and reuse yours for another student who uploads an identical copy themselves. A page-identical copy can match even when its file bytes differ; annotated copies, handouts and changed exports do not qualify. Nova does not provide your uploaded file or extracted source document to another student. Your private notes, answers, evidence and material not allowed with AI are not reused. Outside shared modules, Nova does not identify who uploaded a reused file; a “ready in seconds” message may say someone uploaded the same file.

In a shared module, Nova prepares a lecture's class version from the class's permitted files and gives it only to members who upload their own identical files. The hidden class copy keeps extracted text while a member holds the file so Nova can prepare questions and check corrections. Content derived from several files requires the viewer to hold all of them. Classmates can see upload credits and file names as described below.

Class notes you deliberately contribute may adjust study emphasis and be supplied to classmates' tutor as labelled class context. The lecture remains the authority. AI reviews questions written for the class and corrections to class output against the permitted lecture. A class explainer uses lecture material and a signal about common gaps, not students' answer text. Explanations submitted in study activities may be marked by AI. Reports can automatically hide supported shared content until a person reviews it.

Nova sends only the study context needed for the feature you request to the configured provider. Production AI processing currently runs through Anthropic’s Claude API, so a request may be processed in any Anthropic region, including the United States. Anthropic deletes API inputs and outputs within 30 days, except content flagged for a usage-policy violation, and does not train its models on them. When Nova prepares an uploaded lecture, choosing what the lecture teaches and how it would be marked runs through OpenAI’s API, which may process the lecture in the United States. Nova asks OpenAI not to store the response; OpenAI keeps API inputs and outputs for up to 30 days to detect abuse and does not train its models on them. Google Vertex AI remains available as an alternative route. Amazon Bedrock, OpenRouter and Microsoft Azure OpenAI integrations are retained but are not active production routes unless separately reviewed and approved. Nova records the provider route used. Production controls require each active route’s region, retention, training and international-transfer arrangements to be reviewed and documented; provider training on Nova data is disabled.

What classmates and friends can see

Other students do not see your email address, uploaded files, extracted source documents, private evidence or full Study history. A profile can be identified through an exact @handle, friend link or QR code, or a shared-class suggestion before friendship. Nova does not offer a public directory or browsing of strangers.

Members of your shared module can see:

• Your display name, membership, role and join date; credits in the feed for uploads, preparation, shared contributions and changes. A single social profile supplies your classmate name.
• Who uploaded a lecture and its original file name, to help find it on the course page. Rename a file before uploading if its name includes personal information. Who studied a lecture is a count, not a named list.
• Class notes, shared explanations, accepted class questions, resources and module facts you contribute. Lecture content requires its files; module-level facts and resources are visible to members. Confirmations and votes show as counts.
• Only if you switch them on, all off by default: named class progress, strengths and highlight contributions. Named progress is reciprocal: you see others' progress only while sharing yours. Outline highlight counts require at least five sharing members.

Your personal exam-date override, priorities, private notes and “not in my exam” choices are not published to classmates. You can hide class activity in your outline without changing anonymous counts.

Friends can see:

• Your display name, @handle, avatar, university, optional course and year, mutual friends and when you became friends.
• Modules in common, on by default. You can turn this off or hide individual modules.
• This week's activity, progress, strengths and studying now only when you turn each on; all four are off by default. Sharing studying now lets a friend with an eligible lecture join your live room.
• Counts and results from activities you chose to do together, and notes, source highlights or cards you deliberately share with friends who hold the required file. Accepting a goal shares its progress with its participants regardless of the profile progress switch.

Friends may send preset nudges unless you turn nudges off; this preference is on by default. Notes shared with all friends can reach a friend who uploads the same lecture later. You can stop a share at any time, but cards already copied into another student's deck remain their own copies. Blocking ends friendship and hides social content and named activity between you; it does not remove either person from a shared class or change anonymous figures.

Class-wide figures

Anonymous class counts include all active members who hold the relevant lecture and contribute eligible study work. There is no opt-out from anonymous class counts. They describe common sticking points, missing explanation points, question statistics and pooled facts about past papers, never individual answers, scores or explanations. Study aggregates require at least five contributors and a class with at least five active members. A count is shown only with at least three people counted and at least two not counted; small cells are hidden.

Snapshots update at most every six hours. Leaving, removal, account deletion or erasing work does not cause an immediate new snapshot: your study stops contributing at the next scheduled recomputation, and existing counts can remain until then. Someone who knows when a classmate joins, leaves or removes work may be able to infer what changed by comparing snapshots, especially in a quiet class. Nova explains this on first use of the Class tab. Anonymous stat rows contain no user identifier.

Simple activity counts, such as how many studied a lecture or could not find its file, may use smaller numbers and do not name those people. A count-only “Your class is on Nova” hint may appear to students with the same university and module code once a matching class has at least five members. Nova does not provide a lecturer or university view of class study figures.

A group mock compares results only after marking closes, to students whose papers were fully marked. With three or four counted seats it shows only your position relative to the group's middle, without a group score. With at least five it shows the lower-middle mark and full-mark counts. The lobby shows invitations and responses, not who sat or marked. In a small group, people comparing notes can still work out roughly how a classmate did.

Notifications

Class and friend notifications stay inside Nova, including requests, changes, activity invitations, preset nudges and report outcomes. Nova does not email or send push notifications about classmates' or friends' study activity. Optional product-update email is a separate choice and does not opt you into study reminders.

Providers and recipients

• DigitalOcean: virtual-server hosting for the Nova web service and its locally managed PostgreSQL database and uploaded files.
• Anthropic: Claude API processing for production AI features.
• OpenAI: API processing of uploaded lectures while Nova prepares them.
• Google: Vertex AI processing when selected for a feature, identity-only OpenID Connect, Google Workspace for business email and Google Web Risk when configured. Web Risk checks resources links against unsafe-site lists; Nova sends the URL, not the member's identity. Without it, static link rules apply.
• Amazon Web Services: Bedrock AI processing when selected for a feature.
• OpenRouter: routing to an AI model when selected for a feature.
• Microsoft Azure OpenAI: AI processing when selected for a feature.
• Stripe: hosted checkout, payments, subscriptions, invoices, the billing portal and referral credits.
• Resend: transactional account-email delivery and metadata-only delivery events. Open and click tracking are disabled.
• Sentry, when error monitoring is enabled: content-free error types, application code locations, release identifiers and request timings. Nova excludes exception messages, frame variables, request bodies, account identifiers and academic content from these reports.

Other students see the information described above. Nova may also disclose data where required by law, to protect students or the service, or as part of a business transfer subject to appropriate safeguards. Nova does not sell personal data.

International transfers

Some providers may process personal data outside the United Kingdom. Where this is a restricted transfer, Nova uses the relevant UK adequacy regulations or an appropriate safeguard, such as an International Data Transfer Agreement or UK Addendum. For Anthropic’s Claude API, Nova relies on the Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK Addendum in Anthropic’s Data Processing Addendum. For OpenAI’s API, Nova relies on the Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK Addendum in OpenAI’s Data Processing Addendum. For Google Vertex AI, Nova relies on the UK-US data bridge, as Google LLC is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension, and on the Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK Addendum in Google’s Cloud Data Processing Addendum. Email support@studynova.me to ask which provider handled a feature or for information about the applicable safeguard.

How long Nova keeps data

• Waitlist details remain until you leave the list, an owner removes the signup, or you delete the associated Nova account. Every waitlist email includes a link to remove your details and cancel unused invitations.
• Account identity, current preferences, and core study content are kept while your account is active, unless you delete specific content or your account. Study session briefs, questions, submitted answers, feedback and Evidence are core study content.
• Operational activity records, including chat-operation records, are scheduled for deletion after 365 days by default. That operational schedule does not delete Study questions, answers, feedback or Evidence.
• Failed source-processing job records are scheduled for deletion after 30 days by default. Source originals and their academic history remain until you explicitly delete the Source or account, including when processing fails.
• Study material kept for identical uploads is not linked to any account. It is deleted once no student with that file still has it in Nova, when someone reports a problem with it, and after 12 months at most. Lectures already prepared from it keep their own copies.
• A shared module belongs to one academic year, but has no automatic end-of-year deletion. It remains readable until members leave or archive their copies; it closes when the last member leaves. Closing deletes its class copy and class content. A departed member's own individual copy remains theirs.
• When no member holds a class file, its extracted text copy is cleared. After seven days, the class preparation and bank output are removed; skill identities and class history remain so an identical later upload can be prepared again. Existing member-owned copies follow their own account's retention rules.
• Leaving keeps your class notes and shared explanations as “a former member” unless you choose “Remove my notes”. It ends your holdings, class invitations and confirmations. Contributions such as resource links and shared changes may stay with the class. Account deletion removes your class notes, explanations, authored question submissions, social activity entries and reports; accepted class practice items, resource links and module changes can remain without your name.
• Class invite links expire at the end of the academic year or when revoked. Unanswered friend requests expire after 30 days. Profiles, friendships, blocks, shares, notifications and reports remain until their related records or accounts are deleted.
• Live friend shares end when revoked or when the author deletes their account. Cards already copied into a friend's deck survive without the author's credit and remain until that friend deletes them or their account. Account deletion removes the student's own together answers and explanations; an activity can remain for its other participants without those contributions.
• Referral records preserve reward accounting: deleting an inviter deletes their referral records; deleting an invitee removes their identity while the inviter's record can remain for the yearly cap. Entitlement and payment records follow the billing rules below.
• Temporary AI response copies used to recover a repeated request expire after 24 hours. Erasing the related source or conversation also removes these copies. Saved study conversations follow the core study-content rules above.
• Transactional-email delivery metadata is scheduled for deletion after 90 days. Temporary export archives expire after 24 hours; deleting account content invalidates existing archives containing it.
• Temporary support access expires after 1, 4 or 24 hours. Support-access audit records are scheduled for deletion after 365 days.
• Privacy-request audit records may be retained for up to seven years. Billing, tax, fraud-prevention and legal records may be retained for the period required to meet those obligations.
• Account deletion removes account-linked records and queues stored files for erasure, with retries if storage is unavailable, except limited audit, security or billing records that must be retained for compliance or legal claims.

Security and support access

Nova uses access controls, password hashing, secure session and CSRF protections, encrypted HTTPS connections, account-scoped data access and privacy-minimised security records. No internet service can guarantee absolute security. Email support@studynova.me if you believe your account or data may be at risk.

Support does not have unrestricted access to study content. You choose which content categories support may inspect for a stated purpose and no more than 24 hours. A permission covers the selected categories across your account. You can revoke access early and review actual access activity in Privacy & Data.

Your choices and rights

When signed in, you can export account data, manage temporary support access and delete your account in Privacy & Data. Depending on the circumstances, you may also have the right to access, correct or erase personal data; restrict or object to processing; and receive portable data.

Your sharing choices include profile and class switches, hidden modules, editing or deleting your contributions, stopping a friend share, hiding outline activity, blocking, removing friends and leaving a class with “Remove my notes”. Named sharing is optional; anonymous class counts have no opt-out.

Your export is prepared in the background as a ZIP archive with structured records, readable text, original files and a list of any files that could not be included. It includes your memberships, contributions, invitations, profile, friend connections, blocks, reports, notifications, activity records and your side of referrals, not other students' answers or private work. Downloading requires recent identity confirmation. Archives remain available for 24 hours, and you can request a new archive once every 24 hours.

Account deletion first leaves your classes and deletes your account-linked social content. Some class-owned facts and practice material and independent copies other students made from your written cards can remain, as described above. Stored class figures contain no user identifier and are recomputed on their regular schedule.

You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests and to direct marketing. You can withdraw product-update consent in Settings or by using the unsubscribe option in a product-update email.

Email support@studynova.me to exercise a data-protection right. Nova may need to verify your identity and normally responds within one month, subject to any lawful extension.

Complaints and changes

Please contact Nova first so the issue can be investigated. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK data-protection regulator.

To report any shared content, including a name or module or lecture title, use its Report action where available or email support. For a moderation complaint or appeal, use the “Online safety” route in the Terms of use.

Nova updates this policy when its processing changes. Where required, material changes will be brought to account holders’ attention before the new processing begins.