Privacy policy

Who we are

Biro is run by Jason Luo (“we”). This policy says what Biro keeps, where it keeps it, who else sees it, and what you can do about it. Questions about it go to jluo6200@gmail.com.

The short version

• Your boards are kept in your browser, and a copy is stored with your account on our servers so they follow you to every device you sign in on: the drawings, pictures and PDF pages on them, the questions and answers, and the tutor conversation.
• To answer a question, what you ask and the board around it are sent to the AI service that writes the answer.
• Our servers keep your account, your plan and a record of what each answer cost, without the words you asked.
• There is no advertising and no analytics or tracking service in Biro. We do not sell your information.
• You can download your account data and delete your account at any time from Your data.

What we keep on our servers

• Your account: your email address, a password (stored by our sign-in provider in a form we cannot read), or the Google or Apple account you signed in with if that option is on; your plan; and when you confirmed you are 13 or older.
• Your boards: a copy of each board, so it is on every device you sign in on: its name, what is drawn on it, pictures you pasted and the pages of PDFs you opened (up to 25 MB a board), the text read from those PDFs, the questions you asked on it and the answers, practice questions, and the tutor conversation, with the name of the kind of device and browser that last saved it (for example “Windows · Edge”). A board you delete for good is removed from our servers at once; only its id and when it was deleted are kept, so your other devices delete it too.
• Share links: when you share a board, we keep the link, which board it opens, when you made it, when you revoked it and how many times it was opened. Anyone with the link can see that board’s name, what is drawn on it, its pictures and PDF pages, and each question asked on it with the answer Biro gave, as it is in your account now and as you change it. They never see your name or email, your conversation with the tutor, your practice, the text read from PDFs, or your other boards. Revoking a link, deleting the board or moving it to Trash stops the link at once. Shared pages are never indexed by search engines.
• Practice history: each practice question the tutor gives, on any board: the topic and skill it practised, the question as it was put, whether the first attempt was right, partly right or missed, the specific slip if there was one, how sure the learner said they were if they tapped it, and a list of numbers our server works out from the question so it never repeats one (no outside service sees the question for this). Not the learner’s answer, not the conversation. At most 2,000 a learner are kept; the oldest go first. The tutor uses it to bring missed questions back later, and it is what the Progress page counts. You can see it, remove one question or clear it all on Your data.
• Learner profiles: if you add profiles, each one’s name (a first name or nickname is enough), that the learner is 13 or older, when you confirmed you are their parent or guardian and which wording you agreed to, their English and subject level, and which boards and practice questions are theirs. See Learner profiles.
• Usage records: one line for each paid call an answer makes, with your account id, the route, the model, how much text went in and out, seconds of live voice, characters spoken and the cost. It does not hold your question or the answer. We use it to apply your plan’s limits and to understand our costs.
• Feedback: what you write on the Send feedback page, which kind you picked, the page you sent it from, and when, kept with your account so we can reply and fix what you report. It is in your data download, and deleted with your account.
• Learning signals: short events such as “answered”, “asked again” or “stopped”, tied to a code made from your account id with a secret key only we hold, never your name, email or question. We use them to find answers that did not help. They are deleted within about 90 days, and when you delete your account.
• Shared answer cache: when you type a first question on a fresh board, with no PDF, picture or selection attached, the question (up to 500 characters) and its answer may be kept for up to 7 days and shown to someone else who asks the same thing. Nothing linking it to you is kept with it. Please do not type personal details into a question.
• Answer patterns: when a newer way of planning answers is switched on, a shortened copy of a typed question (up to 300 characters, never one with a PDF or picture attached) and the plan made for it may be kept, without anything linking it to you, to help plan answers to other people’s questions.
• Server logs: our servers log what they do, which can include the first words of a question, an answer’s title and short parts of it, the search words used to find a picture, and a short description of a picture you attached. Our logs do not include your email. Our sign-in provider and our host also record IP addresses and browser details in their own logs, to keep the service secure.
• Waiting list: if you join the waiting list, your email address and where you signed up from.

Lecture notes and recordings

• Recordings: a lecture you record or an audio or video file you upload is stored for your account only, in our file storage, in a folder no other account can read. It is transcribed by Microsoft’s speech service (Microsoft Azure Speech), which sends back the words and when each was said; we keep that transcript, not the speaker’s voice in any other form.
• Notes: the notes made from it (or from a PDF, Word or PowerPoint file or text you add), with their flashcards, quizzes and podcast, are kept in your browser and with your account so they follow you to every device you sign in on. They are written by the same AI service that answers your questions; the podcast voices are made on our own servers.
• Deleting: a recording and everything made from it are deleted with your account. Deleting a notes document for good (“Delete forever” in the trash) deletes its recording and everything made from it. Downloading your data includes your notes, and lists each recording and file by name and size.
• Permission to record: you are responsible for having permission to record a class or a talk before you record it. Many schools and lecturers allow recording for your own study; some do not.

Biro in ChatGPT

You can ask Biro to draw an answer from inside ChatGPT. You do not need a Biro account for this, and Biro does not learn who you are.

• What Biro receives: only the question ChatGPT passes to Biro (and the level to explain at, if you gave one), plus the anonymous user and conversation codes OpenAI attaches to every request, which are not your name or email. Biro never receives your ChatGPT conversation, your other messages or your account details.
• How it is answered: the question goes through the same tutor as on heybiro.com, written by the same AI service (Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service), and may be answered from or kept in the shared answer cache described above.
• What Biro keeps: the board it draws, with its title, the question and what Biro said, in an account Biro runs for these boards, behind a link anyone who has it can open (like a share link, never indexed by search engines). It is not linked to you. To limit how many boards one person can ask for (5 a day), Biro keeps a one-way code made from OpenAI’s anonymous user code and a count for that day; it is deleted after two days. Each answer also leaves the usual usage record, without your words.
• What ChatGPT gets back: the board’s title, what Biro said, the words on the board and its link. OpenAI’s own privacy policy covers what ChatGPT does with them.
• Removing a board: write to jluo6200@gmail.com with its link and we will delete it.

What stays on your device

Your boards are stored in your browser first (IndexedDB), so they open at once and work offline, and are copied to your account as described above. A board over 25 MB, or one made while you were not signed in, stays in this browser only until it can be copied. Designs, decks, meeting notes, connected sources and Slack webhook addresses, recorded voice lines, your preferences and any unsent question are stored only in your browser (IndexedDB and local storage). If you turn on the voice on this device, its model is kept in your browser’s cache. Clearing your browser’s site data, or using “Delete everything on this device” on the Your data page, removes them from this browser; your boards stay in your account and come back when you sign in here again. Our servers cannot see or restore anything else kept only on your device.

Who else handles your information

We use these services to run Biro. Each receives only what it needs for its part.

• Supabase runs sign-in and our database, in the United States. An email delivery service it uses sends the sign-in and password emails, and receives your email address to do so.
• Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service writes the answers. With each question it receives what you asked, the text on the board, the text of an attached PDF, what you selected, any picture or screenshot you share, your answer preferences and earlier turns on the board. Microsoft may keep this for up to 30 days to detect abuse, and does not use it to train its models. Paid live voice conversations run on Microsoft’s Azure voice service, and your microphone audio goes straight from your browser to it.
• Microsoft Azure Speech reads answers aloud on paid plans. It receives the text of each spoken line. On some phones, answers are read aloud by a voice we run on Google Cloud, which receives the same text.
• Anthropic may write answers instead of Azure, if we switch it on, through its commercial API. It then receives the same things listed for Azure above.
• OpenAI writes your typed answers instead of Azure if you connect your ChatGPT plan in Settings. It then receives the same things listed for Azure above, under your ChatGPT account and OpenAI’s terms for it. From ChatGPT, Biro receives only your name, email address and profile picture, never your chats. Disconnecting in Settings stops this; to remove Biro’s access completely, also remove Biro in ChatGPT Settings.
• OpenRouter or TypeSafe may check the steps of an answer, only if we switch on that checking. They receive the question and the planned answer, not your account.
• Sentry may receive crash reports, if we switch it on: the error, the page address without anything after it, and your browser type. Never your questions, boards or email.
• Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Openverse and Flickr supply pictures for answers. They receive a few search words chosen from the question, never your question as written or anything about you, and our server then downloads the picture.
• Hugging Face and jsDelivr serve the files for the voice that runs on your device, downloaded by your browser only when you turn that voice on. They see an ordinary download request.
• Your browser may send your speech to its maker (for example Google, in Chrome) when you dictate a question, because dictation uses the browser’s own speech service.
• Google Sheets, GitHub and Slack, only when you connect one. Our server then fetches the shared sheet, the repository’s issues or the Slack channel you named, and posts to Slack only a message you approve. What it fetches can be sent with a question to the AI service above.
• The company that hosts our servers stores the server files and logs described above.

These services may process information in the United States and other countries. We use Microsoft’s and Anthropic’s services under their commercial terms, which say they do not train their models on what we send. OpenAI’s service, if you connect your ChatGPT plan, runs under your own ChatGPT account and its settings.

Learner profiles

One account can hold a profile for each learner, for example a parent’s account with a profile for each child. A profile is not a separate sign-in: it belongs to the account, and the account holder is responsible for it.

• Who can add one: the account holder, for a learner who is 13 or older, after confirming they are the learner’s parent or guardian (or the learner, using their own account). We keep when that was confirmed. Biro does not offer profiles for children under 13.
• What each profile keeps: its own boards, practice history and English and subject level, as described above, apart from every other profile on the account. What the account’s plan allows, including the daily limit, is shared by all of its profiles.
• Who sees it: anyone using the account can open every profile on it. The Progress page shows a profile’s practice to the parent and to the learner alike: the same page, never a hidden report. It counts practice questions attempted, misses later answered right without a hint, misses the learner was sure of, and topics due for review. It does not record or show time spent in Biro.
• Download one: on Profiles, “Download this profile” gives a file with that profile’s boards on this device and its practice history. The account download on Your data includes every profile.
• Delete one: on Profiles, “Delete profile” removes that profile’s boards, practice history and levels from our servers at once and from this device, and your other devices remove them the next time they open Biro. Only the profile’s id and when it was deleted are kept, so your other devices know to remove it. Deleting your account deletes every profile on it.

AI models and training

• Biro does not train, fine-tune or improve any AI model on what you or a learner write or draw, and does not sell or share it for anyone else to do so.
• Answers are written by Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service under Microsoft’s product terms and data protection addendum. Microsoft’s terms say what we send is not available to OpenAI or to other customers, is not used to train or improve models, and is not kept in the models between requests. Biro does not ask Azure to store conversations (it uses neither stored completions nor stored responses). To detect abuse, Microsoft may keep a question and its answer for up to 30 days, and its authorised staff may review them only when its automated systems flag them.
• The numbers kept with each practice question are made on our own server by a small open model, so the question is not sent to anyone for that.
• If you connect your ChatGPT plan, typed answers are written under your own ChatGPT account and OpenAI’s terms and settings for it, which you control. Do not use it on a learner’s profile unless you are content with that.

Schools

Biro is a service for individuals and families. It is not offered to schools or districts under a contract, and we do not receive education records from a school. If a teacher or school wants to use Biro with students, write to us first at jluo6200@gmail.com: that needs an agreement covering the US Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and any state student-privacy law, before any student uses it.

Cookies

Biro uses only the cookies it needs to work. None are for advertising or tracking.

• A sign-in cookie that keeps you signed in, from Supabase.
• A security cookie that protects your requests from other websites.
• A short-lived cookie, cleared once sign-in finishes, that remembers you confirmed you are 13 or older.
• An access-key cookie, kept for 30 days, only if you opened Biro from a private access link.

Your preferences are kept in your browser’s local storage, not in a cookie.

How long we keep it

Your account, boards, plan and usage records are kept until you delete your account (a board, until you delete it). Practice history is kept until you remove it, delete the profile or delete your account, and at most 2,000 questions a learner. A learner profile is kept until you delete it or the account. Learning signals are deleted within about 90 days and shared answers after 7 days. Answer patterns and server logs are kept until they are replaced or cleared, and never hold your name or email. After deletion, copies can remain in our providers’ routine backups for a short time until they are overwritten. What is on your device stays until you remove it.

Your choices

• Download: Your data gives you a copy of your account data, the boards in your account included, and a backup of the boards on this device.
• Delete: “Delete my account” removes your account, boards, plan and usage records from our servers at once. It does not remove data kept only on your device (delete that separately on the same page), a waiting-list entry, or the shared answers and answer patterns above, which hold nothing linking them to you. Write to us to remove a waiting-list entry.
• Ask: you can ask us what we hold about you, to correct it or to delete it at jluo6200@gmail.com. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to complain to your data protection authority.

Browser privacy signals

Biro does not track you across other websites, so it has nothing to switch off when your browser sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal. We do not sell or share your information for advertising.

If you are in the EU, UK or a similar place

We handle your information to provide Biro under our agreement with you (your account, answers and plan limits), for our legitimate interests in keeping Biro secure and working well (logs, learning signals, the answer cache), and with your consent where you turn something on (connections, the voice on your device). Your information is processed in the United States under the safeguards our providers offer. You can ask to access, correct, delete or download your information, or object to or restrict how we use it, by writing to jluo6200@gmail.com. We will answer within 30 days. You may also complain to your data protection authority.

Children

Biro is not for children under 13. Signing up asks you to confirm you are 13 or older, and a learner profile can only be added for a learner who is 13 or older. If you are under 18, use Biro with your parent or guardian’s permission. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under 13; if you believe a child under 13 is using Biro, write to us at jluo6200@gmail.com and we will delete their account or profile and everything it holds.

The parent or guardian of a learner who uses Biro on an account they do not hold (for example a teenager’s own account) can ask us at the same address to see, download or delete what Biro holds about that learner. We will ask for reasonable proof that the request comes from the learner’s parent or guardian before acting.

Security

Connections to Biro are encrypted, passwords are held by our sign-in provider and never seen by us, and our database lets each account read only its own rows. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a password you do not use elsewhere.

Changes

When this policy changes we will update the date at the top, and for a change that matters we will tell you in Biro or by email before it takes effect.