WhizzNotes helps students learn science and maths. This page says what we keep about you, why, who can see it and how to delete it. If anything is not clear, email us at info@whizznotes.com.
The short version
- You can read every note without an account. An account is only for the quizzes and for saving your progress.
- We keep only what the site needs to work: your name, how you sign in, and your study progress.
- We never sell your information, never show adverts and never use tracking or advertising tools.
- We count visits to our pages without cookies and without knowing who you are, so we can see which chapters help most.
- You can delete your account at any time, and your progress goes with it.
What we keep
Your account
- Your name.
- Your email address. A student added by a parent or teacher has a username instead, and no email.
- Your password, stored only in scrambled form (a "hash"). No one, us included, can read it.
- Whether you are a student or a parent or educator.
- If you sign in with Google: Google's number for your account, and the name and email Google gives us. We never see your Google password.
Your study progress
- The year you study (10, 11 or 12) and the subjects you chose.
- Your best quiz score for each chapter.
- Your quiz attempts: the answer you picked for each question, and when.
- The last chapter and section you read, so you can carry on where you stopped.
Other things
- Which students a parent or teacher added.
- Feedback you send from a chapter, with the chapter, the part of it and your year.
- The devices you are signed in on (for example "Chrome on Windows") and when each was last used, so you can sign one out.
- When you last used the site.
- A record of the emails we sent you, so we never send one twice.
- Our server keeps a short record of internet addresses and of sign ins (when, which account, and whether the password was right), to stop people guessing passwords and to spot attacks.
On your device
Your browser keeps a copy of your progress, your year, your subjects and your light or dark choice, so the site works quickly and without the internet. It also keeps the quizzes you opened, for offline use. Signing out clears your progress and quizzes from that device; the year and the light or dark choice stay.
Signing in keeps you signed in on that device, with one cookie that is used for nothing else. The site has no adverts and no tracking or advertising tools. Counting visits uses no cookies and keeps nothing on your device.
Why we keep it
- To sign you in and keep your progress on every device you use.
- To let a parent or teacher see how their students are going.
- To send account emails: confirming your email, resetting your password, and safety notices.
- To send a few tips while you get started, and a weekly email for parents who ask for it. You can stop these at any time (see below).
- To fix mistakes and improve chapters, using the feedback you send.
Who can see it
- You.
- Your parent or teacher, if they added you as their student. They can see your year, subjects, scores and quiz attempts, set a new password for you and remove you. They cannot change your progress.
- Our admins. They can see the list of accounts, each account's progress and the feedback sent, to look after the site. Every account an admin opens or exports is recorded.
- The services that run the site for us, only to do that job:
- Render hosts our server and database, in Singapore.
- Postmark sends our emails, from the United States.
- Cloudflare delivers our pages for Render, and counts visits for us with Cloudflare Web Analytics. For each visit it sees the page, the site that sent you there, your country, your browser and type of device, and how fast the page loaded. It uses no cookies, does not know who you are and does not follow you to other sites. It is not used on the account or admin pages.
- Google, only if you choose to sign in with Google.
- Have I Been Pwned, a service that knows passwords leaked from other websites. When you choose a password, we send it the first 5 characters of a scrambled copy of your password, never the password itself, so we can warn you if your password is easy to guess.
- Google Firebase keeps accounts until we finish moving them to our own server. After the move we delete them there.
We never sell or rent your information, and we never share it for advertising.
Students under 15
Young students can use WhizzNotes with a parent or teacher. The easiest way is for the parent or teacher to make an account and add the student with a username, so the student needs no email. If you are under 15, ask a parent or teacher before you make an account yourself.
How long we keep it
We keep your information while you have an account. When you delete your account, we delete your account, your scores, your quiz attempts and your devices straight away. If a parent or teacher deletes their account, the student accounts they added with a username are deleted too. Feedback you sent stays, without your name. Copies in our database backups are removed within a few weeks.
Your choices
Account settings opens from the account button at the top of every page, once we finish moving to our own server. Until then, email us for any of these.
- See and change your details: in Account settings, change your email or password, and see the devices you are signed in on.
- Stop optional emails: in Account settings under Emails, or with the "Stop these emails" link in any of them. Account emails, like password resets, still come.
- Delete your account: in Account settings, under Delete your account.
- Get a copy of your information, or fix something wrong: email info@whizznotes.com and we will reply within 30 days.
Questions and complaints
Email info@whizznotes.com. If you are not happy with our answer, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
Changes to this page
If we change what we keep or why, we will update this page and the date at the top. For a big change, we will also email account holders.