What we collect, and what we don't

The short version

• We do not sell your data. We never have and the business doesn't depend on it.
• We do not show you ads or use what you tell us to target you.
• Nothing goes to your school, your parents, or anyone else unless you turn that on yourself.
• You can download everything we hold, or delete all of it, at any time, without asking us.
• You have to be 13 or over to have an account.

What we collect

Only what the product needs to work:

• Your account: name, email, a one-way hash of your password (we never store the password itself), and your date of birth, which we use to check you're old enough.
• Your school context: grade, expected graduation year, school, and city or state. This is what lets us build a plan for the years you have left rather than a generic one.
• Your survey answers: what you said you'd enjoy, which subjects you like, and what matters to you, plus the scores and suggested directions we work out from them.
• Your plan: the directions you keep, what you check off, and any notes you add.
• Advisor conversations: if you use the advisor, we store the messages so the conversation makes sense next time.
• Courses you have already taken: if you choose to add them, the course name, level, year, and the grade you got. You type these in yourself. We do not accept transcript uploads, and we never request records from your school.
• Activities you list: clubs, jobs, projects and hobbies you write into the optional box, plus what we worked out about them.
• Anything you type in a free-text box: those fields are optional. Please don't put anything in them you wouldn't want stored.

We do not ask for your address, phone number, government ID, transcript file, test scores, or payment details. The grades we hold are only the ones you typed in yourself, for courses you chose to add, and you can delete them at any time.

Who else sees it

To answer your questions, the advisor sends your profile, results, and plan to Anthropic, the company that makes the AI model behind it. The school research feature sends your school's name and location the same way, and the activity lookup sends what you wrote in the activities box. They process it to produce the answer. [CONFIRM THE EXACT TERMS, RETENTION PERIOD, AND TRAINING-EXCLUSION LANGUAGE IN YOUR AGREEMENT WITH ANTHROPIC AND STATE THEM HERE.]

We also use Render to run the site and store the database. That's the complete list, no advertising networks, no data brokers, no analytics that follow you around the internet.

If your school or a parent gets access, it is because you switched it on in your settings, and you can switch it off again whenever you like.

How long we keep it

• Advisor conversations: deleted automatically after 180 days without activity.
• Surveys you start but never finish: deleted after 90 days.
• Everything else: kept while your account exists, and erased when you delete it.

If you're under 13

You can't make an account, and we don't knowingly collect anything from you. We ask for a date of birth at sign-up and stop there if you're too young , nothing typed on that form is saved. Every pathway page is free to read without an account.

If you think a child under 13 has made an account, email us at [CONTACT EMAIL] and we will delete it.

What you can do

• See it all: download a file with everything we hold, from your account page.
• Delete it all: permanently, immediately, from the same page. We don't keep a copy.
• Correct it: edit your profile any time, or retake the survey.
• Control sharing: counselor and guardian access are off unless you turn them on.

Depending on where you live you may have further rights. [LIST STATE-SPECIFIC RIGHTS AND THE REQUEST PROCESS, CCPA/CPRA AND EQUIVALENTS.]

Security

Passwords are hashed, never stored as text. Traffic is encrypted. Sessions use signed, HTTP-only cookies. No system is perfect, so if something goes wrong we'll tell you and whichever authorities the law requires. [ADD YOUR BREACH-NOTIFICATION COMMITMENT AND TIMELINE.]

For schools

[IF YOU CONTRACT WITH SCHOOLS OR DISTRICTS, FERPA, PPRA, AND STATE STUDENT-PRIVACY LAWS APPLY AND YOU WILL NEED A DATA PROCESSING AGREEMENT. DO NOT SELL TO SCHOOLS UNTIL COUNSEL HAS REVIEWED THIS.]

A limit worth stating plainly

Bearing works best alongside your school counselor, not instead of them. They have your actual transcript, your credits, and your school's graduation requirements, and we have none of those. What we can do is make sure you walk in with a specific list and real questions, rather than fifteen minutes and no plan. Bearing is also not a crisis service. If you're struggling, please talk to a trusted adult. In the US you can call or text 988 at any time to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Contact

[COMPANY LEGAL NAME], [POSTAL ADDRESS], [CONTACT EMAIL].