Markella operates in full compliance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. We act as the Data Controller for the personal information you provide directly to us when creating an account or using our services.

Our commitment is to process your data lawfully, fairly, and in a transparent manner. We only collect the minimum amount of information necessary to provide our exam preparation tools effectively.

We collect three primary categories of information to support your learning journey:

• Account Data: Name, email address, and school year to manage your subscription and login.
• Study Data: Your answers to mock papers, practice scores, and progress tracking metrics.
• AI Usage Data: The queries you send to our AI Help panel and the text you highlight for explanation.

We treat your interactions with our AI as private. Importantly, Markella does not use your personal study data or AI chat history to train public AI models. Your input stays within our secure environment.

The AI is designed to provide guidance and hints rather than direct answers, ensuring that your data is used solely to facilitate your own independent learning process.

We employ industry-standard security measures to protect your information from unauthorised access, alteration, or destruction. This includes:

• End-to-end encryption for data in transit and at rest.
• Regular security audits and vulnerability scanning.
• Strict internal access controls to ensure only necessary staff can handle data.

To provide our services, we use a small number of trusted third-party processors. These include cloud hosting providers (Supabase) and payment processors (Stripe). Each partner is vetted for GDPR compliance and is contractually bound to protect your data.

We do not sell your personal data to advertisers or any other third parties. Your information is only shared when absolutely necessary to run the Markella platform.

As an education platform, we take the privacy of students seriously. We design our features to be "privacy-first," ensuring that younger users are protected by default. We encourage parents and guardians to review our data practices alongside their children.

Our AI Help is strictly moderated to prevent inappropriate content and focuses purely on academic support within a safe, controlled environment.

We keep your data only as long as you have an active account with us. If you choose to delete your account, your personal information is permanently removed from our active databases immediately upon request.

Some anonymised study data may be kept for longer periods to help us improve our educational content, but this data will no longer be linked to your identity.

In the unlikely event of a data breach, we have a robust response plan in place. We will notify the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and any affected users within 72 hours of becoming aware of the breach, as required by UK law.

Our response includes a full investigation into the cause and immediate steps to mitigate any potential impact on our users.

Under UK GDPR, you have several rights regarding your data, including:

• The right to access the personal data we hold about you.
• The right to correct any inaccuracies in your information.
• The right to request the deletion of your data (the "right to be forgotten").
• The right to data portability, allowing you to move your data to another service.

We believe in being clear and open about how we use your data. If you have any questions or would like to exercise your rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer at admin@markellaexams.com.

We may update this statement periodically to reflect changes in our services or legal requirements. We will notify you of any significant changes via email or through the Markella dashboard.