Who we are and how to contact us
QuillSquare Ltd is the controller of personal data used to operate the standard QuillSquare service. QuillSquare Ltd is registered in England and Wales under company number 17091181 and trades as QuillSquare.
Registered office: QuillSquare Ltd, 9 Elm Walk, London, United Kingdom, SW20 9ED. This is the address for formal company correspondence, not a staffed customer-support address.
For privacy questions or to use a data-protection right, email privacy@quillsquare.app. QuillSquare Ltd has not appointed a Data Protection Officer. The company remains responsible for its data-protection obligations.
Whose information this notice covers
This notice covers adult parent, guardian and tutor accounts; learners whose profiles, tasks or writing are handled through those accounts; learner logins created by an adult; and adults using a one-off guest evaluation. A tutor may be a separate controller for the tutoring relationship they manage, but QuillSquare Ltd remains controller for the standard product processing it decides, including storage, moderation, AI evaluation, billing evidence, security and retention.
QuillSquare does not ask for a learner’s legal name, school, exact date of birth or address. It cannot verify whether a profile represents a real child or whether the writer is the named user. We nevertheless apply child-protective handling wherever a learner profile, learner login or submitted school-age writing may concern a child.
Information we use
Writing, handwriting images, task sheets and reports can be personal data even when they contain no name. Please remove names, school details, addresses and unrelated private information before upload where possible.
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Adult account and contact | Email address, Google/Firebase identifier, display name supplied by the sign-in provider, parent or tutor profile type, account status and communications. |
| Learner profile and access | Adult-chosen nickname, optional birth month and year, pseudonymous learner login, profile relationship, assigned work and release status. |
| Writing and educational context | Task instructions, guidance, typed text, handwriting images or PDFs, OCR text and corrections, optional exam context, strengths, areas to develop and time spent. |
| Optional SEND information | A condition selected by the responsible adult where the SEND-aware feature is used. This can be special-category health data and is handled separately. |
| AI and product outputs | Moderation outcome, OCR output, evaluation report, scores, suggested next steps, provider/model/schema trace information and progress summaries. |
| Payments and credits | Stripe customer or checkout reference, purchaser email, amount, currency, payment status, credit grants, reservations, use, expiry, refunds and disputes. QuillSquare does not receive full card details. |
| Technical and security | Session and authentication events, browser-storage workflow state, request/correlation identifiers, IP address and device/request metadata in short-lived security or access logs, errors and fraud signals. |
| Support and rights | Messages, safe case or purchase references, the action requested and enough evidence to resolve the matter without copying learner work into the case record. |
Where information comes from
We receive information from the adult account holder or guest purchaser, from a learner using credentials created and controlled by an adult, from Google/Firebase sign-in, from Stripe for payment status, and from service providers that process a submission. A tutor may provide learner information without QuillSquare having direct contact with the parent or learner.
The adult creating or using a learner profile must have authority to provide the work and context and must make the child privacy information available to the learner and responsible adult. This does not transfer QuillSquare’s own transparency, security or rights duties to the customer.
Why we use information and our lawful bases
Core processing is not based on a general privacy-consent checkbox. Accepting the Terms or confirming adult authority is not described as GDPR consent. If QuillSquare relies on consent for optional SEND processing, it is asked for separately and may be withdrawn without affecting processing that was lawful before withdrawal.
| Purpose | Information | Lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| Provide and administer the adult account, guest purchase, credits and requested service | Adult account, contact, transaction and necessary workflow data | Contract with the adult, or steps requested before contract. |
| Provide the learner workflow, OCR, moderation, AI evaluation, report and account-linked progress features | Minimum learner profile, task, writing, context, output and history | Legitimate interests in providing the requested educational-feedback service, subject to the child-focused balancing assessment and safeguards described here. |
| Use an optional SEND selection to adapt evaluation | Selected SEND condition and linked submission/report context | A separate Article 6 basis plus explicit-consent/special-category condition where the feature is enabled. A parent/guardian must make the choice, or a tutor must confirm explicit parent/guardian agreement. |
| Secure the service, prevent misuse, investigate faults and keep it reliable | Authentication, request, moderation, security, error and narrowly accessed case data | Legitimate interests in protecting users and the service; legal obligation where a specific law applies. |
| Take payment, keep accounting evidence and handle refunds, disputes or legal claims | Minimum transaction, contract, communication and evidence records | Contract, legal obligation and legitimate interests in establishing or defending legal claims, as applicable. |
| Respond to privacy rights and regulatory duties | Identity/account-control evidence, request, decision and necessary audit record | Legal obligation. |
AI processing, progress and quality investigations
QuillSquare uses automated services to check submitted content, extract text from images or PDFs and produce structured educational feedback. At the date of this notice, Anthropic’s commercial API supports automated safety checks, document and handwriting analysis, OCR and structured writing evaluation.
QuillSquare may use generated evaluations and the learner’s evaluation history inside the authorised account relationship to create progress charts, comparisons and additional reports. This is part of the writing-feedback service; it is not training an AI model.
QuillSquare does not routinely browse learner work for product development and does not use it to train a QuillSquare model. If an adult reports a specific OCR failure, contradiction or inappropriate output, the company may use the safe evaluation reference to inspect only what is necessary to investigate that fault. We prefer a synthetic example for testing and keep the generic defect and outcome rather than copying the learner’s work into a development record.
Processing outside the United Kingdom
Some cloud, AI, email and payment providers may process information outside the United Kingdom. Where UK data-protection law requires a transfer safeguard, QuillSquare uses an applicable adequacy regulation, approved contractual safeguards and any necessary risk assessment. Contact privacy@quillsquare.app for information about the safeguard relevant to a particular provider.
How long we keep information
Backups and provider-controlled copies follow their verified overwrite/deletion schedules. Deleted information is put beyond ordinary use and is not restored into the live product merely because it remains temporarily in a protected recovery copy.
| Information | Normal period |
|---|---|
| Registered learner profiles, writing and reports | Available while the adult account is active. After 24 months with no account or evaluation activity, the ordinary content enters the warning and deletion process. |
| Successful guest writing, report and private result access | 90 days after successful evaluation. Download or save the report before access expires. |
| Account closure or valid erasure request | Access is disabled and ordinary live learner content, uploads, OCR text, reports and SEND selections are removed within 28 days, subject to a narrow legal hold. |
| Ordinary application/access/security logs | Normally up to 30 days; provider-controlled mandatory audit logs may have a different documented period. |
| Minimised operational/AI telemetry | Normally up to 90 days where identifiable; genuinely non-identifiable aggregate cost/performance totals may be kept for up to 24 months. |
| Moderation request and response evidence | No automatic time-based deletion currently applies. It remains in the private moderation-evidence store until an authorised erasure, account/guest lifecycle or legal review requires removal. QuillSquare will publish and implement a specific lifecycle before introducing one. |
| Terms, authority, rights and transaction evidence | The minimum evidence is normally kept for six years after the relevant relationship or transaction ends. It does not include learner writing or the report unless specifically needed for a live dispute. |
| Accounting and tax records | Normally six years from the end of the company financial year to which the record relates. |
| Support messages | Normally up to 12 months after resolution unless a shorter deletion or longer legal hold is justified. |
Your and the learner’s rights
Email privacy@quillsquare.app. Do not send learner writing, passwords, full payment details or a guest-result link. We may need proportionate evidence of account control before disclosing or changing information. Because QuillSquare deliberately avoids collecting a child’s legal identity, an email assertion alone may not identify a tutor-managed learner. We will use authenticated account control or another proportionate in-product method where available.
Ordinary profile changes do not rewrite an earlier point-in-time report. A valid erasure or full withdrawal request may require deletion of the whole affected report rather than editing the historical evaluation.
- Ask for access to personal data and an explanation of its use.
- Ask for inaccurate information to be corrected.
- Ask for deletion or restriction where the legal conditions apply.
- Object to processing based on legitimate interests.
- Ask for portable data where the right applies.
- Withdraw a consent used for optional processing, without affecting earlier lawful use.
- Complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Security and your choices
QuillSquare uses access controls, environment separation, encryption in transit, provider authentication, restricted service identities and private result tokens. No internet service can promise absolute security. Keep adult and learner credentials private, sign out on shared devices, and tell help@quillsquare.app if an account or private guest link may have been exposed.
Month and year of birth are optional. They help tailor age-appropriate feedback. Do not add a full birth date. Avoid names, school details, addresses, medical narratives and other information that is not needed for writing feedback.
Changes to this notice
We may update this notice when the service, providers or law changes. The page shows its version and review date. We will give a clear notice, and request a fresh choice where required, before a material new use takes effect. Earlier approved versions are retained as company evidence.