Privacy policy
Last updated 1 October 2026
Who we are
ielts.bot is run by Nick Rogerson, a sole trader in the United Kingdom. We decide how your information is used. Contact us about anything in this policy at admin@ielts.bot.
What we collect and why
When you make an account
- Your email address and name, and how you sign in. Clerk runs sign-in for us.
- When you joined and when you last signed in.
- Your internet (IP) address when you sign up and when you visit our pricing page, with details of your browser. We use it to spot one person making many free accounts.
- Your country, worked out from your internet connection the first time you see our prices, so we can show the prices for your country. For accounts made before 27 September 2026, the country and city were looked up from the internet address by ip-api.com.
When you practise
- Writing: your essays, the questions, any chart you upload, and our marks and feedback. We also record how each essay was written: how much was typed or pasted, and how long it took.
- Speaking: we send your recordings to our AI provider to be turned into text. We keep that text (the transcript) with our marks, and we do not keep the recordings.
- Listening and Reading: if you are signed in, your answers and scores.
- Your target band and test date, if you give them.
- What you tell us if you question a mark.
- How many essay ideas you ask for (not the ideas themselves).
- That you asked to be told when Speaking opens, if you did.
When you buy
- You pay on Stripe's checkout page. Stripe handles your card details, and we never see them.
- We keep what you bought, when, its price and currency, and the billing country and postcode Stripe passes to us.
- For teachers' codes, we keep who bought them and which account used each one.
How the site is used, and our advertising
- PostHog records the pages you visit and what you click on. When you are signed in, this is linked to your account, including your email and name. PostHog stores it in the European Union.
- Meta (Facebook) measures whether our Facebook adverts lead to visits, sign-ups and purchases. The Meta pixel loads on every page and records the visit. When you sign up or buy, we also send Meta your email, name and postcode in scrambled (hashed) form, with your internet address and browser details.
- Videos in blog posts are played from YouTube, which may set its own cookies.
AI marking and model training
We use an AI provider's models to mark Writing and Speaking and to suggest essay ideas. We take part in its data-sharing programme. This means our AI provider may use what we send it to train and improve its models: your essays and charts, the questions, and your Speaking recordings and their transcripts. We do not send your name, email or account details with them.
Our reasons for using your information
- To provide what you ask for: your account, the marking, your passes and codes.
- Our legitimate interests: keeping the site secure; stopping misuse, such as one person making many free accounts; understanding how the site is used, so we can improve it; measuring our advertising; and taking part in our AI provider's data-sharing programme, which keeps the marking affordable.
- The law: keeping payment records for tax.
Who we share it with
We do not sell your information. These companies handle it for us:
| Company | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Clerk | sign-in and your account | United States |
| Google Firebase | storing your account and your work; storing uploaded charts | Germany; charts in the United States |
| Our AI provider | marking, essay ideas, and training its models (above) | United States |
| Stripe | payments | United States and Ireland |
| Amazon Web Services | sending our emails | United States |
| Vercel | hosting the site; its logs record visits | United States |
| PostHog | understanding how the site is used | European Union |
| Meta | measuring our adverts | United States and Ireland |
Where a company is outside the UK, the transfer is protected by the UK–US data bridge (for companies certified under it) or by contract terms the UK government approves.
How long we keep it
- Your account and your work: while your account is open.
- If you delete your account, or ask us to delete it, we delete your account details, essays, transcripts and results from our database within 30 days.
- Payment records: as long as UK tax law requires, which is currently at least five years after the tax return deadline for the year of the payment.
- Records of how the site is used are kept in PostHog, and we delete yours there if you ask. The hosting company's server logs are kept only for a short time.
Your rights
You can ask to see the information we hold about you, and to have a copy of it. You can also ask us to correct it, delete it, or stop using it. Email admin@ielts.bot, and we will answer within a month.
Cookies and other storage on your device
- Needed for the site to work: Clerk's sign-in cookies.
- Your settings, kept in your browser: your essay draft until it is marked, your light or dark theme, recently shown Speaking questions, and your Reading word-help choice.
- Analytics: PostHog's cookie.
- Advertising: Meta's cookies (_fbp and _fbc).
- YouTube's cookies, on blog posts with a video.
Keeping it safe
Your account and your work are kept with Google Firebase, and only the site's own server can read them. Payments go through Stripe.
Changes to this policy
When we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. Our terms cover buying and using the site.