Privacy Policy

Last updated July 16, 2026

GradeCube is a study tool that connects your own college course content to the AI assistant you already use (Claude or ChatGPT), so it can answer questions about your classes. This policy explains, in plain language, exactly what GradeCube handles, where it goes, and what we will never do with it. GradeCube is operated by SturdyBridgeSystems LLC. Capitalized terms we use but do not define here have the meaning given in the Terms of Service.

The short version

GradeCube reads your course content from your own school platform, using the session you are already logged into. We never see or store your school password.
A copy stays in your own browser, and the content also syncs to a private, per-student space on our server so your AI assistant can read it. Each student's data is designed to be kept separate from every other student's.
When you use Claude or ChatGPT with GradeCube connected, your course content is sent to that AI provider so it can answer you. That is the whole point of the product, and it happens at your own initiative each time you ask.
Your account is keyed to a private code, not your name or student ID.
We never sell your data, never share it between students, never use it for advertising, and never train AI models on it.
You can delete your synced data, and you control when content syncs by choosing when to open your courses.

What we handle, and why

When you open a course, GradeCube reads the material your school platform makes available to you (your "Course Content") and syncs the text and structure of it to your private space on our server. That is what lets your AI assistant answer questions about your classes. The content can include:

Course materials, such as syllabi, lecture slides, readings, and documents, stored as extracted text and, for visually important files, as rendered page images.
Coursework details, such as assignment instructions, due dates, rubrics, and announcements.
Your grades as they appear in your gradebook, so the AI can answer grade questions. Your gradebook stays the source of truth; GradeCube only reads it.
Notes, files, and class memory you choose to add yourself, if you use those features: study files you upload (including photos or scans of your own handwritten notes), notes you type or paste, and any short "class memory" you save to tell your AI assistant how to help you in a class. Together these are your "Added Content," which is distinct from your Course Content: Course Content is what GradeCube reads from your school platform, while Added Content is material you supply directly and license to us so GradeCube can work with it, as the Terms describe. Added Content gets the same protections as everything else you sync: stored in your private space, readable only through your own access and the AI assistant you connect, deletable by you at any time from where you added it, never sold, and never used by us to train AI models.

Some courses do not post the syllabus directly but embed it through a separate tool called Simple Syllabus. In those courses, GradeCube checks that page only to see whether a syllabus is actually there, so it knows whether one can be read. It does not collect personal information from it.

What we never have

Your school password. GradeCube runs inside your own browser on the session you are already logged into. Your credentials never pass through us.
Your real identity. Your account is keyed to a one way fingerprint derived from your school and your account identifier, not your name or student ID.
Your AI conversations. What you type into your AI assistant stays between you and that assistant's provider. GradeCube's panel on the AI site reads only its own synced course data, never your messages or chat history.

Where your data lives

Your course content lives in two places by design. A copy stays in your own browser so the extension can work, and the content also syncs to a private, per-student space on our server so your AI assistant can read it. On our server the data is designed to be kept separate per student and protected in transit by HTTPS. Our service runs on infrastructure we operate, currently DigitalOcean for hosting and Cloudflare for DNS and security. We may change these providers as the service grows, and when we do we require any new provider to protect your data under terms at least as protective as this policy. Beyond requiring those protective terms, each provider answers for its own conduct inside its own systems under its own terms; that goes for our hosting and network providers and for the AI assistant you connect. Your data exists here for one purpose, answering your questions about your classes, and we do not run advertising or use it to build marketing or behavioral profiles about you.

Your AI assistant reads your data (the important part)

GradeCube's entire job is to let the AI assistant you choose read your course content and answer questions about it. That assistant is currently Claude (made by Anthropic) or ChatGPT (made by OpenAI). So when you ask a question with GradeCube connected, the relevant parts of your synced course content are sent to that provider to generate the answer. This happens at your own initiative, each time you ask, and from that point your data is also handled under that provider's own privacy terms. This is the core function of GradeCube, not a hidden transfer, and aside from the infrastructure providers above, it is the one case where your content leaves our systems. Your AI assistant can only read what you have synced to your own private space, and it cannot reach another student's data or anything GradeCube has not synced, such as your live quiz and exam attempts, because that information never enters the connector in the first place. A reminder that also lives in the Terms: AI answers can be wrong, so always verify anything important, like a grade or a deadline, against your school platform itself.

Keeping your data secure

We protect your data with several safeguards: each student's data is designed to be isolated from every other student's, all traffic is encrypted in transit with HTTPS, and access to the systems that hold it is limited to what is needed to run the service. Being straightforward with you: today we rely on those safeguards rather than adding a separate layer of encryption to the content while it sits on our server, and we expect to strengthen this further as GradeCube grows. No system is ever perfectly secure. If we ever discover a breach affecting your information, we will investigate it without undue delay, notify you and any regulator that the law requires us to notify, within the time the law sets, and take prompt steps to address it. Because GradeCube does not collect your email, in-product notice is how we reach you today, and a signed-in contact method is planned. One more plain statement: GradeCube is not a backup service, so keep your own copies of anything you cannot afford to lose (the Terms say the same).

What we never do with it

Aside from sending your content to the AI assistant you connect, as described above, we never:

Sell it, rent it, or share it with data brokers.
Build advertising on it.
Use it to train AI models.
Share one student's content with another student, ever.

One honest boundary on the AI-training promise: it binds SturdyBridgeSystems LLC and GradeCube's own systems. Once content reaches the AI assistant you connect, whether that provider uses it to train its own models is controlled by that provider's terms and your own settings in your Claude or ChatGPT account, not by GradeCube.

A few more honest things

No analytics, no tracking. GradeCube contains no third-party analytics or trackers.
Functional cookies only. If you open your GradeCube dashboard, we set a small secure sign-in cookie on that device so you can keep working without re-entering your dashboard code on every action. For your privacy, it expires after about an hour of inactivity and your dashboard locks again until you re-enter your code. You can use the dashboard on as many devices as you like. Your dashboard and study pages may also set small preference cookies that only remember choices you make there, such as dark mode or sounds on or off. None of these cookies are used for advertising or tracking.
Read-only at your school. GradeCube only reads your school platform. It never changes your grades, submits work, or posts anything on your behalf.
It leaves classmates out. For discussion boards, GradeCube reads only the instructor's prompt, never the thread of classmate replies, and it stays off live quizzes and exams.
A few small operational records. To run the service we keep a handful of tiny records on your account that are not course content: one-time setup checkmarks (whether your account reached each step of first-time setup, so we can help students who get stuck), a record of your agreement to our Terms (which version you agreed to, when, and your confirmation that you are 18 or older, so your consent is provable), and a coarse last-active timestamp so routine cleanup never deletes an active student's data. None of this includes your name, your messages, or anything about what you studied.
Platform version only. The extension tells us which version of the school platform your school is running. That is a version number about your school's software, not about you. It exists so we can fix syncing quickly when a platform update changes something.

How we follow browser-store data rules

GradeCube is distributed through browser extension stores, such as the Chrome Web Store and Microsoft Edge Add-ons. Our collection and use of your data adheres to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements, and we apply the same practices on every store we distribute through. We use your data only to deliver the single purpose described above, helping you understand and stay on top of your own classes through the AI assistant you connect and through GradeCube's own dashboard and study features. We do not sell it. We do not transfer it except as needed to provide the service, which includes sending it to the AI assistant you connect (described above) and to the infrastructure providers that host it. We never use it for advertising, and we never use it to determine creditworthiness or for lending.

A note on incidental information. Your course content is yours to access, and you decide what to do with it, including syncing it to GradeCube and letting the AI assistant you connect read it. Course material can occasionally contain other people's information that a professor placed there, such as an instructor's email address inside a syllabus. When you sync a course, you are directing GradeCube to process your own course content on your behalf, and any such incidental information is handled as part of that content: stored in your private space, used only to run GradeCube for you, deleted when you delete your data, and never sold or shared with other students. We do not set out to collect instructors' contact details, but because we read your syllabi and course materials, those details can be present, and when they are we handle them as part of your course content, just as described here. On the rare occasion that course material includes something sensitive that was posted by mistake, such as a password or an access key, we treat it the same way, we do not use it for anything other than running the service, we never sell or share it, and you can remove it by deleting the course it is part of from your dashboard, or by emailing us to delete it. This removal path is open to non-students too: an instructor, or anyone else whose contact information incidentally appears in synced course material, can email contact@sturdybridgesystems.com and we will remove it.

If our business changes

If SturdyBridgeSystems LLC is ever part of a merger, an acquisition, or a sale of its assets, your information may transfer to the new owner only if that owner agrees to protect it under terms at least as protective as this policy, and we will give you notice in the product before any such transfer takes effect. A transfer of this kind, to a successor that is bound to honor these same protections, is not a sale of your data.

How long we keep it, and deleting it

We keep your synced content for as long as your account is active, so the tool keeps working across your semester. You control deletion in two ways: you can remove any course's data yourself, at any time, from your GradeCube dashboard, and for full deletion of everything you have synced you can email us at contact@sturdybridgesystems.com and we will remove it. Accounts that go unused for around 12 months are flagged for cleanup, and we then clear out their synced content, generally soon after. Your browser also keeps a local copy of recent course content; removing the GradeCube extension or clearing its storage clears that. One honest limit: deleting your data from GradeCube removes it from our systems and your browser, but it cannot reach anything an AI assistant already received while you were using GradeCube. Once your course content has been sent to Claude or ChatGPT to answer a question, that copy is handled under that provider's own terms, and a deletion request to us does not remove it from them. Separately, your account code is a one-way hash derived from your own school login (not your name or email), so it does not identify you on its own. We keep that minimal record, along with your school's web address and timestamps, while you may still be enrolled, and we periodically review and remove old account records that are clearly no longer needed, such as those well past a normal graduation timeline.

Your privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to see the data we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, or to ask us not to share it, and to not be treated unfairly for using those rights. Because GradeCube keeps your data under a private code rather than your name, the simplest way to use these rights is from inside the extension or your dashboard, where your own logged-in access confirms the data is yours. You can remove any course yourself, and for anything else, including a full deletion, email us at contact@sturdybridgesystems.com. We never sell your data, so there is nothing to opt out of there, and we will not treat you differently for making a request. We aim to respond to privacy-rights and deletion requests within 30 days. If we ever turn down a request, we will tell you why and how to ask us to look again, and you may also have the right to raise the issue with your state's attorney general or another consumer-protection authority where you live.

Student records and FERPA

GradeCube reads course content that you already have legitimate access to, acting on your behalf and at your direction, the same way your own browser does when you view those pages. We are not your school and we are not a school official. Your grades and coursework are education records, and we treat them with that seriousness: designed to be kept separate per student, never sold, never shared, never used by us to train models, and deletable on request.

Who this is for

GradeCube is built for enrolled college and university students. You must be 18 to use it on your own, and anyone under 18 uses it through a parent-owned account as the Terms explain. It is not directed to children under 13, it is not intended for K-12 students or K-12 coursework, and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 13. If we learn that we have collected data from someone under 13, we delete it. GradeCube is operated in the United States and is intended for students at US schools; your data is stored and processed in the US.

Changes to this policy

If we change how GradeCube handles your data, we will update this page and move the date at the top. Meaningful changes will be called out in the product so you are not surprised.

Contact

Questions about any of this, or a request to delete your data, can go straight to contact@sturdybridgesystems.com.