Privacy Policy

1. Overview

Circles is a unified education platform for guardians, students, hosts, and schools. We collect the minimum information needed to run the service safely and to keep families in control of their data.

This page is written in plain language. If you only read one thing, read the section on Children's privacy.

Circles is operated by Circles, Inc. This policy applies to our website, web app, and mobile apps. Where a school operates a private circle for its students, the school's own privacy notice may also apply, and the FERPA terms on our COPPA & FERPA page describe how we handle student records on a school's behalf.

2. Information we collect

We collect information you give us directly (account name, email, role, profile details, and payment information when you buy or sell a paid circle) and information your device provides automatically (IP address, device and browser type, and basic usage telemetry).

We also collect the content you create while using Circles: messages, posts, assignments, materials you upload, and the questions and answers you exchange with our AI assistant, Fez. The AI section below explains how that input is processed.

For children under 13, we collect only what is required to operate the account through their guardian. We collect a child's date of birth so we can derive their age and apply the right age-based safety settings, and we record the guardian's consent together with the method used and a timestamp.

• Account: name, email, a hashed password, and role.
• Profile: optional bio, avatar, languages, country, and links you choose to add.
• Activity: classes you join, materials you view, and messages you send within Circles.
• AI interactions: prompts and content you send to the Fez assistant, and what it remembers to help you over time.
• Payments: processed by Stripe; we never see or store full card numbers.
• Security and device data: IP address, approximate location derived from it, sign-in activity, and security tokens.

3. How we use information

We use information to provide the service, keep accounts secure, prevent abuse, support you, and improve features. We do not sell personal information, and we do not use children's data for advertising.

We process the content you send to the Fez AI assistant to generate responses and, where you allow it, to remember helpful context for next time. For accounts belonging to minors, Fez applies additional guardrails, and guardians can review and clear what it has remembered about their child.

Product analytics and error tracking only run after you accept them in our cookie banner, and we honor your browser's Do-Not-Track signal. We aggregate analytics where we can and limit how long we keep it. Specific recipients are listed in Sharing & disclosure below.

4. Children's privacy

Children under 13 can only use Circles through a guardian. The guardian gives consent during onboarding and remains in control of the child's profile, schedule, and messages. We are working to strengthen how we verify that consent; the COPPA & FERPA page describes this in more detail.

A minor's information is masked on public surfaces of the platform, and we never show third-party or personalized advertising to children. Guardians can review, manage, and delete what Circles and the Fez AI assistant know about their child.

5. Sharing & disclosure

We share information only with the service providers we need to run Circles and with the participants you have chosen to share with inside the platform. Our providers process data on our behalf under contract and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes.

We will disclose information when required by law, to protect users from harm, or with your explicit consent. We do not sell personal data.

• Payments: Stripe processes transactions and payouts.
• Email: a transactional email provider delivers account and notification emails.
• Analytics: PostHog, only after you accept analytics cookies.
• Error tracking: Sentry, only after you accept analytics cookies.
• Live video: a self-hosted or cloud LiveKit service powers class rooms.

6. Your choices & rights

You can review and update your profile at any time from Settings. From Settings you can also export your account data and delete your account.

When you delete your account, we erase your profile's personal details (your name becomes "Deleted user" and your bio, phone number, avatar, and website are cleared), purge what the Fez AI remembered about you, and revoke your active sessions. Some content you shared in threads may be retained in anonymized form, and limited records are kept where the law requires it, such as financial and tax records.

If you live in a jurisdiction with specific privacy rights (for example GDPR or CCPA), those rights apply to your data here, and our Contact section explains how to exercise them.

7. AI assistant (Fez)

Circles includes an AI tutor and assistant called Fez. When you interact with Fez, the content of your messages is processed to generate a response, and, where permitted, a summary of helpful context may be stored so Fez can assist you better over time.

For accounts belonging to minors, Fez applies extra guardrails, and a guardian can view and clear what it has remembered about their child at any time. Deleting your account also purges what Fez remembered about you.

8. Class recordings

Live classes can be recorded. Recording only begins after a consent step, and every participant sees a recording indicator while it is active. For classes involving minors, a guardian's consent is required before a recording can take place.

Recordings, and any captions or transcripts generated from them, are treated as part of the circle they belong to and are shared only with the people who have access to that circle.

9. Data security

We protect accounts with measures appropriate to the data we hold. Passwords are hashed, two-factor authentication is available using either an authenticator app or an emailed code, and sensitive third-party tokens are encrypted at rest.

We rate-limit sensitive actions, keep audit logs of important events, and restrict internal access. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to reduce risk and respond quickly if something goes wrong.

10. Data retention

We keep information only as long as needed for the purposes described in this policy. Account information is kept while your account is active, plus a limited period afterwards for fraud prevention and dispute resolution. Messages and class materials follow the retention rules of the circle they belong to.

Backups are encrypted and rotated. Deleting an account removes data from our production systems and, in time, from backups as they cycle out.

11. International users & data transfers

Circles is operated from the United States, and the providers we work with may process data in the United States or other countries. If you use Circles from outside the United States, you understand that your information may be transferred to and processed in countries whose data-protection laws differ from your own.

Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards for such transfers and ask our providers to handle your data consistently with this policy.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as Circles evolves or as the law changes. When we make a material change, we will update the "Last updated" date above and, where appropriate, let you know in the app.

13. Contact us

Privacy questions, data requests, or concerns about a child's account can be sent to hello@circles.app. We aim to respond within a reasonable time and within any period the law requires.