This Privacy Policy explains how Bonsai ("Bonsai," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, and protects information when you use the Bonsai application and related services (the "Service"). By using the Service, you agree to the practices described here.

1. Who this applies to & age requirement

The Service is intended for users aged 13 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us personal information, contact us at support@bonsaiedu.org and we will delete it. If you operate Bonsai in an educational setting with students under 13, additional requirements (such as COPPA in the U.S.) may apply, and verifiable parental or school consent may be required.

2. Information we collect

a. Account information

When you create an account we collect your name, email address, and a password. Passwords are never stored by us in readable form — they are hashed and managed by our authentication provider, Supabase. If you sign in with Google, we receive basic profile information from Google (such as your name, email, and avatar) as permitted by your Google account.

b. Content you create

Bonsai lets you interact with AI study tools. We process the content you provide to these features so they can respond, including:

• Messages and questions you send in Learn, Explain, and Discuss.
• Drawings, handwriting, and typed notes you make in the Notebook.
• Images you upload for the AI to read or describe.
• What you say when you use the microphone to dictate a message. The recording is turned into text and then discarded; we do not store it (see section 5).
• Quizzes and answers you generate or submit in Quiz.

Your Learn, Explain and Discuss conversations are also saved to your account so you can pick one back up later, and on another device. Photos you attach are the exception: those stay on the device you sent them from and are never saved to your account, so a conversation opened elsewhere shows that a photo was there but not the photo itself. Conversations are readable only by your own account.

Notes on what you already know. From your saved conversations (including those in the Chrome extension), Bonsai keeps a few short notes on your knowledge, such as "Algebra: comfortable with linear equations; new to quadratics", and at most a couple of notes on how you like things explained, such as "prefers worked examples". The notes are written by the AI model (section 3), refreshed from your newer conversations from time to time, and sent along with your later questions in Learn, Explain and Discuss so explanations start at your level. They are limited to subjects, knowledge level and learning preferences: the AI is instructed never to record personal details such as your name, age, school, location, family, health or feelings, and never to copy what an assignment or test said. Because they are written by AI, they can be wrong.

This is on by default. Under Settings → App preferences → Learning → What Bonsai remembers you can read the notes, edit them (anything you write there is used the same way), clear them, or turn the feature off. Turning it off erases the notes and stops Bonsai keeping new ones, on every device. The notes are readable only by your own account, and we do not use them for advertising or to make any decision about you other than how to explain things.

c. Approximate location (for the garden weather)

The home screen shows weather that reflects your local sky. To do this we ask your browser for your location, only with your permission. Your coordinates are rounded to roughly city-level (about 1 km) on your device before they're used to look up a place name (via BigDataCloud) and local weather (via Open-Meteo). We do not store precise GPS location, and if you decline, the garden simply skips the weather. You can change or re-prompt this permission anytime from Profile → Location or your browser's site settings.

d. Device & usage data

We store certain preferences locally in your browser (for example, your chosen theme/dark mode and selected AI model) using local storage. We and our providers may also process limited technical data such as browser type and basic logs needed to operate and secure the Service.

e. Usage counts (for plan limits and carbon accounting)

So that we can enforce plan limits and work out how much carbon removal your usage requires, we keep a running count, against your account, of:

• how many prompts you send in a calendar month;
• how many requests you make on a given day, so that daily plan limits can be applied;
• how many web searches you run in a calendar month, so that the free plan's monthly search limit can be applied;
• how many requests reached each AI model (Everyday or Deep Focus);
• how many tokens those requests used — a token is roughly a word or word-fragment; and
• which plan (free or Pro) you were on when that usage happened, so the carbon we remove for it matches the commitment that applied at the time.

These are counts only. They record how much you used the Service, not what you asked or what the AI replied — the numbers cannot be turned back into the text of your prompts. Token counts are reported to us by our AI provider rather than by your browser, so the figure shown in your garden reflects real usage. Monthly counts are kept per calendar month and are what the impact statistics in the app are calculated from; daily counts exist only to apply the day's usage limit.

f. Payment information

If you subscribe to a paid plan, payments are processed by our payment provider, Stripe. Your card number and full payment details are entered on Stripe and handled by Stripe — we never receive or store your full card number. We retain only limited billing records needed to provide and account for your subscription (for example, your Stripe customer and subscription identifiers, plan status, and renewal date). Stripe's handling of your payment data is governed by Stripe's own privacy policy.

g. Anti-abuse / bot protection

To protect sign-up, sign-in, and password reset from automated abuse, we use Cloudflare Turnstile, which may process your IP address and limited device/behavioral signals to tell humans from bots. This is done in our legitimate interest in securing the Service.

h. Information we receive from Google (Sign in with Google)

If you choose to sign in with Google, Bonsai requests only Google's basic sign-in permissions (openid, email and profile). It does not request access to your Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar, Contacts or any other Google data.

• What we access: your name, your email address, whether Google has verified that email address, your profile picture URL, and Google's unique ID for your account.
• How we use it: only to create your Bonsai account, sign you in, keep you signed in, show your name and email in your profile, and email you about your account (for example, confirmations and password resets).
• How we store and protect it: it is stored with your account record by our authentication provider, Supabase, over encrypted connections and with access limited to operating the Service. We never receive or store your Google password.
• Sharing: we do not sell Google user data and do not share it with anyone other than Supabase as described above. We do not use it for advertising, and we do not use it to train AI models.
• Retention and deletion: we keep it for as long as your account exists. Deleting your account (Profile → Delete account, or by emailing support@bonsaiedu.org) deletes it. You can also remove Bonsai's access at any time from the third-party connections page of your Google Account.

Bonsai's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

i. The Bonsai Chrome extension

The Bonsai extension for Google Chrome is part of the Service and works with the same Bonsai account. It handles your information in the same way as the website, with these specifics:

• Signing in: the extension keeps your sign-in session in Chrome's storage for the extension, on your device, so you stay signed in. It is removed when you sign out.
• Messages: questions you type in the extension are sent to the AI service providers in section 5 to generate a response, and conversations are saved to your account as described in section 2(b), where they can also inform your notes on what you already know.
• Screen captures: the extension only captures part of a web page when you select an area yourself. That image is sent with your question so the AI can read it. The extension does not read your browsing history or the pages you visit, and it asks Chrome for access to a site only when you capture something on it.
• Voice input: the extension uses your microphone only while the mic button is on. Chrome asks for your permission the first time. While it listens, your browser's built-in speech recognition (provided by Google in Chrome) shows your words as you speak, and when you stop, the recording is sent to us to be transcribed in the same way as dictation on the website (section 5). We do not store the recording.

3. How AI features process your content

When you use an AI feature, the content you submit is processed to generate a response. Depending on your configuration, this processing may occur locally on your device and/or through AI service providers we use to operate the Service. We do not sell your content, and we do not use it to identify you for advertising.

AI is also used to write and refresh your notes on what you already know (section 2(b)). This runs in the background, from your saved conversations, on the same AI provider (section 5), and the result is stored on your account. The notes only shape how Bonsai explains things to you; they have no legal or similarly significant effect on you, and you can turn them off at any time.

Web search and links. When you turn on web search (the globe button), or when Bonsai decides a question needs up-to-date information, a short search query based on your message is sent from our servers to Brave Search (section 5), and the top results are opened by our servers so the AI can read them. When a message contains a link, our servers open that page and pass its text to the AI. These requests come from our servers, not your browser, so the websites involved see our server rather than your IP address. We do not send your name, email address or account identifiers to Brave or to those websites. We do not store the pages themselves; an answer that used the web keeps the titles and links of its sources in your saved conversation, so you can find them again.

4. How we use your information

• To create and manage your account and keep you signed in.
• To provide the Service's features and generate AI responses.
• To personalize your experience (e.g., theme, weather scene, saved progress).
• To pitch explanations at your level, using the short notes on what you already know described in section 2(b), unless you turn them off.
• To count your usage against your plan's monthly limits.
• To measure the carbon your usage caused, fund its removal, and show you those figures in the app.
• To maintain security, prevent abuse, and debug problems.
• To communicate with you about your account (e.g., password resets).
• To comply with legal obligations.

5. Service providers we share data with

We share information only with providers that help us run the Service, under their respective terms and privacy policies:

• Supabase — authentication and database (account data, saved conversations and your notes on what you already know).
• Google — "Sign in with Google" (if you use it), Google Fonts, and, when you dictate in Chrome, the browser's built-in speech recognition, which shows your words as you speak.
• Open-Meteo and BigDataCloud — weather and IP-based approximate location.
• Scaleway — AI processing: your tutor messages and notebook images are sent to an open model hosted on Scaleway to generate responses. Which model receives them depends on the choice in your account settings: Google's Gemma (the default) or Alibaba Cloud's Qwen. Your notes on what you already know are sent with your questions, and are written from your saved conversations by Gemma, also on Scaleway. When you use dictation, the recording of what you say is sent to OpenAI's Whisper model hosted on Scaleway to be transcribed, and the transcript is tidied by Gemma; we do not store the recording.
• Brave Search — web search: when web search is used, the search query written from your message is sent to Brave's Search API with strict safe search on. Brave receives the query from our servers, not from your browser, and never your name, email or account details.
• Stripe — payment processing and subscription management (if you subscribe to a paid plan).
• Cloudflare — application hosting/delivery and bot protection (Turnstile).
• Our email provider — to send account emails such as confirmations and password resets.
• jsDelivr — delivery of the Supabase client library.

We do not sell or share your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

6. Cookies & local storage

We use browser local storage and similar technologies to keep you signed in and remember your preferences. These are essential to the Service's basic functionality. We do not use third-party advertising trackers.

7. Data retention

We keep your account information for as long as your account is active. You may delete your account at any time from within the app (Profile → Delete account), or by contacting us at support@bonsaiedu.org. When you delete your account we cancel any active subscription so you are not charged again, and we delete or anonymize your personal information, except where we must retain limited records to comply with the law (for example, tax and payment records relating to a paid subscription).

Saved conversations have a shorter life than your account does. A conversation is deleted about a month after the last message in it, unless you mark it a favourite, in which case it is kept until you delete it. You can delete any conversation yourself at any time from the list beside the chat, and deleting your account deletes all of them.

Your notes on what you already know (section 2(b)) are kept until you edit or clear them or turn the feature off in Settings, and are deleted with your account. Deleting a conversation does not remove what the notes already say, so clear or edit the notes too if you want both gone.

The usage counts described in section 2(e) are anonymized rather than deleted. They are detached from your account and merged into an anonymous monthly total that is no longer linked to you or to any individual. We do this because we have already committed to removing the carbon that usage caused: deleting the figures outright would mean removing less carbon than we actually emitted. What remains is a bare monthly total with no connection to you.

8. Your rights & choices

Depending on where you live (for example, under the GDPR or CCPA), you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or export your personal information, and to object to or restrict certain processing. To exercise these rights, contact us at support@bonsaiedu.org. You can also sign out, reset your password, or request account deletion at any time, and you can see, correct, erase or switch off your notes on what you already know yourself, in Settings (section 2(b)).

9. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information, including encrypted connections (HTTPS) and access controls. No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

10. International data transfers

Our providers may process and store data in countries other than yours (for example, the United States). Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards for such transfers.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date above, and significant changes may be communicated through the Service.

12. Contact us

Questions about this policy or your data? Contact us at support@bonsaiedu.org.