Privacy Policy

Last updated: 15 September 2026

Preparation Guru ("we", "us", "our") provides an online test-preparation platform for competitive exam candidates. This Privacy Policy explains what personal data we access, collect, use, store, and share when you use the Preparation Guru website and applications (the "Service"), why we use it, who we share it with, how we protect it, how long we keep it, and what control you have over it.

We have tried to write this policy so that a student preparing for an exam can understand it, while still covering everything the law requires us to tell you. It is deliberately detailed. Section 7 covers the Google user data we access when you sign in with Google, in full.

We are the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. You can reach us at any time at support@preparation.guru.

1. Who we are, and what this policy covers

Preparation Guru is an online exam-preparation service for candidates preparing for the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) CGL and CHSL examinations. The Service turns a bank of quantitative aptitude (Maths) questions into short, adaptive practice tests that concentrate on the topics each individual candidate is weakest at.

This policy applies to the Preparation Guru website and web application available at https://preparation.guru, and to any Preparation Guru application that links to it. It describes our own data practices only.

This policy is a custom policy written specifically for the Preparation Guru application. It is not a template, sample, or example policy, and it is not shared with or reused by any other product or organisation.

Who this policy does not cover. This policy does not apply to:

• third-party websites, products, or services that we do not control, even where we link to them or where they are mentioned in this policy;
• Google's own handling of your Google Account data, which is governed by Google's own privacy policy and terms; or
• any exam, college, coaching institute, or employer that you deal with outside the Service.

Our role. We are the data controller (also called the data fiduciary in some jurisdictions) for the personal data described in this policy. That means we decide why and how your personal data is processed when you use the Service, and we are responsible for answering your questions about it.

2. Definitions

To keep this policy readable, we use the following terms in the following way.

• Service means the Preparation Guru website, web application, and any related features we make available at https://preparation.guru.
• Personal data (also called personal information) means any information that relates to an identified or identifiable person. It includes your name and email address, and also data that can be linked back to you, such as your test history.
• Processing means anything we do with personal data: collecting it, storing it, reading it, using it, sharing it, or deleting it.
• Google user data means the personal data we receive about you from Google when you choose to sign in with Google. Section 7 describes exactly what this includes.
• Account means the Preparation Guru account created for you when you first sign in.
• Authentication means the process of confirming that you are who you say you are when you sign in.
• Test data means your attempts, answers, scores, timing, and the topic-level estimates we derive from them.
• Guru Score means the ability estimate we calculate for you from your performance across questions and tests, described in section 8.
• Processor (also called a sub-processor) means a company that processes personal data on our behalf and on our instructions, such as our database provider.
• De-identified data means data that has been stripped of identifiers so that it can no longer reasonably be linked back to you.

3. Information we collect

We collect only what the Service needs in order to work. We collect the following categories of information.

3.1 Account information

• Your name, as held in your Google Account.
• Your email address, and whether Google has verified that address.
• The URL of your Google profile picture.
• A unique Google account identifier, which we use only to link your Google sign-ins to your Preparation Guru account.

We store these to create and identify your account. We do not store a password for you, because the Service does not use passwords.

3.2 Test and performance data

• The tests, mocks, and practice sets you start, and when you start them.
• Which questions you attempt, the option you select for each, and whether you skipped or flagged a question.
• How long you spend on each question, and your total time per test.
• Your scores, accuracy, and the topic-level estimates we derive from them.
• The order in which questions were drawn into each test.

3.3 Study preferences

• Questions you bookmark, and the bookmarked practice sets you build.
• The chapters, topics, and subjects you choose to work on, and the test configurations you save or reuse.
• Interface preferences, such as where you have placed the assistant button.

3.4 Technical and usage data

• Your browser type and version, and your device type.
• The pages and endpoints you request, and the times you request them.
• Your IP address, which our hosting and database providers record in their standard access and security logs.
• Error and diagnostic information recorded when something goes wrong, so that we can fix it.

3.5 What we do not collect

We want to be explicit about the data we do not collect, because the Service is deliberately designed to need very little:

• Payment and financial data. The Service is free to use. We do not collect card numbers, bank details, billing addresses, or any other payment information.
• Government identifiers. We do not collect national identity numbers, passport details, or any similar identifier.
• Precise location. We do not collect GPS data or precise location. Our providers may infer a coarse country or region from your IP address in their security logs.
• Sensitive categories of data. We do not collect data about your health, biometrics, religion, political opinions, trade union membership, sex life, or sexual orientation.
• Your contacts, photos, and files. We do not access your contacts, your camera roll, your documents, or the contents of your device.
• Other Google products. We do not access your Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, or Google Photos. See section 7.
• Advertising identifiers. We do not collect advertising identifiers, and we do not use advertising or cross-site tracking on the Service.

We do not buy, rent, or receive personal data about you from data brokers or any other third party, and we do not infer sensitive characteristics about you from the data we hold.

4. How and when we collect it

Almost all of the personal data we hold is data you give us directly by using the Service. In detail:

• When you sign in. We receive your account information from Google at the moment you complete Google Sign-In, and on each later sign-in when the identifiers are confirmed.
• When you take a test. We record your attempts, answers, flags, and timing as you work through a test, including autosaved answers if you refresh the page mid-test.
• When you submit a test. Your answers are graded server-side against the correct answers, and your scores and topic-level estimates are calculated and stored.
• When you configure practice. We record the chapters and topics you select, so that the Service can build your next test.
• When you bookmark. We record which questions you save.
• Automatically, as you browse. Our hosting and database providers record the technical and usage data described in section 3.4 in their standard logs.

We do not collect personal data about you from social networks, data brokers, advertisers, or other third parties, and we do not combine your data with data purchased or obtained elsewhere.

5. How we use your information

We use your personal data to:

• Create your account and authenticate you when you sign in.
• Run the practice tests, mock exams, and timed sessions you start, including drawing questions and enforcing time limits.
• Grade your tests and calculate your results.
• Analyze your performance by chapter and topic, and estimate your ability so that the Service can choose what you should practise next.
• Generate personalized practice recommendations, study plans, and revision sets based on your own performance.
• Show you your own history, progress, statistics, and bookmarks, and let you resume a test you started earlier.
• Maintain, troubleshoot, and improve the Service, using aggregated or de-identified analysis wherever possible.
• Contact you about your account, security matters, or important service changes.
• Detect and prevent abuse, fraud, automated scraping, and attempts to overload or attack the Service.
• Comply with our legal obligations and respond to lawful requests.
• Enforce our Terms of Service.

We do not use your personal data for any purpose that is incompatible with the purposes listed above. If we ever want to use your data for a new purpose, we will update this policy first and, where the law requires it, ask for your consent.

6. Legal bases for processing

Some privacy laws, such as the GDPR in Europe and the UK, require us to tell you the legal basis on which we rely when we use your personal data. Where those laws apply, we rely on the following.

Consent. Where we rely on your consent, you may withdraw it at any time. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of anything we did before you withdrew it.

Legitimate interests. Where we rely on our legitimate interests, we have weighed those interests against your rights. The interests are: operating a working and secure Service, preventing abuse, and improving the Service using aggregated data. You may object to this processing as described in section 17.

Contract. Where we rely on performance of a contract, the contract is our Terms of Service. If you do not provide this data, we cannot create your account or run tests for you.

We do not currently send marketing or promotional email. If we ever do, we will ask for your consent first, and every message will include a way to opt out.

7. Google user data: what we access, how we use it, and how we share it

Sign-in to the Service is provided by Google Sign-In. This section explains, in full, what Google user data we access, how we use it, with whom we share, transfer, or disclose it, how we protect it, how long we keep it, and how you can have it deleted.

Preparation Guru accesses each item in the table below only when you choose to sign in with Google. The subsections that follow explain every entry in full.

7.1 What Google user data we access

When you choose "Continue with Google", we access only the following Google user data, which you have provided to us through your Google Account:

• Your name, as held in your Google Account.
• Your email address, and whether Google has verified that address.
• The URL of your Google profile picture.
• A unique Google account identifier, used only to link your Google sign-ins to your Preparation Guru account.

We request only the openid, userinfo.email, and userinfo.profile scopes. We do not access, request, or receive your Google password, the contents of your Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Google Photos, or any other Google product, or your Google advertising identifiers. We do not request access to any Google Workspace API, and we do not request any sensitive or restricted Google OAuth scope.

7.2 How we use Google user data

We use the Google user data described above only to:

• Create your Preparation Guru account the first time you sign in, and identify you on return visits.
• Authenticate you and keep your session active.
• Display your name and profile picture inside the Service.
• Contact you about your account, security matters, or important service changes, at the email address you signed up with.
• Keep the Service secure, and detect and prevent abuse and fraud.
• Comply with our legal obligations.

We use Google user data only to provide and improve the user-facing features described in this policy. We do not use Google user data in exchange for payment, to determine credit-worthiness or for lending purposes, or for any advertising purpose.

7.3 How we share, transfer, or disclose Google user data

We do not sell, rent, or trade Google user data, and we do not transfer or disclose it to third parties for their own purposes or for advertising. We disclose it only to:

• the infrastructure providers named in section 10 (Supabase, Cloudflare, and Google), which process it on our instructions solely to run the Service;
• authorities or other parties where we are legally required to disclose it; and
• third parties where necessary to protect the rights, safety, and security of our users or the Service.

We do not share Google user data with any other third party. We do not use Google user data for advertising, and we do not build advertising or marketing profiles, audiences, or databases from it. We do not disclose Google user data to any party for the purpose of resale.

7.4 Limited Use and prohibited uses

Our use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. In particular, we do not and will not:

• use Google user data for targeted, personalised, retargeted, or interest-based advertising;
• sell Google user data, or transfer it to data brokers, information resellers, or advertisers;
• use Google user data to build, enrich, or maintain advertising or marketing databases;
• use Google user data to determine credit-worthiness or for lending purposes; or
• use Google user data to develop, improve, or train generalised or non-personalised artificial-intelligence or machine-learning models.

We do not use Google user data to train any artificial-intelligence or machine-learning model of any kind, whether personalised or non-personalised, and we do not transfer Google user data to any third party for that purpose. Google Workspace APIs are not used by this application at all.

No person reads your Google user data, except where you have asked us to, where it is necessary for security purposes such as investigating abuse, or where we are required to do so by law. We do not allow our staff to browse user accounts for curiosity or for any purpose other than support, security, and legal compliance.

7.5 How we protect Google user data

Google user data is protected by the measures described in section 12. It is encrypted in transit over HTTPS, it is stored in our Supabase database behind row-level security policies so that your records are readable only by you, and access by our own staff is limited to support, security, and legal-compliance purposes.

7.6 How long we keep Google user data, and how to remove it

We keep Google user data for as long as your account is active, as described in section 13. You can ask us to delete your account and the Google user data associated with it at any time by emailing support@preparation.guru from the address linked to your account; we delete your personal data within 90 days, except where the law requires us to retain specific records. Section 15 sets out the deletion process step by step, and section 16 explains how to revoke Preparation Guru's access to your Google Account, which stops any further access; email us if you would also like the data we already hold to be deleted.

8. Automated analysis, profiling, and your Guru Score

Preparation Guru is an adaptive practice tool, so automated analysis is central to what the Service does. We want you to understand exactly what it does and does not do.

8.1 What the automated analysis does

• It looks at the questions you answered, which ones you got right or wrong, and how long you took.
• It estimates how strong you currently are in each chapter, topic, and subtopic. These estimates are sometimes shown with the symbol theta (θ).
• It calculates your Guru Score, which is a summary estimate of your ability based on your performance across questions and tests, rather than a simple percentage of marks.
• It uses those estimates to choose what you should practise next, so that weaker topics come back more often than ones you already handle well.

8.2 What the automated analysis does not do

• It does not make any decision that has a legal effect on you, or any decision that significantly affects you outside the Service.
• It does not determine your eligibility for any exam, job, course, college, or scheme. It is a study aid only, and no third party sees your ability estimates unless you choose to share them.
• It does not use your data to decide whether to offer you the Service, or to set a price (the Service is free).
• It does not use your personal data to train any artificial-intelligence or machine-learning model. The logic that adapts your practice sets is ordinary statistical calculation applied to your own answers, run inside our own system.
• It does not profile you together with other users to build advertising audiences.

8.3 Your control over it

You can influence the analysis directly by how you use the Service: you can choose your own chapters and subjects, build custom tests, and skip recommendations in favour of any practice set you prefer. Automated recommendations are suggestions, never requirements.

If you are in a jurisdiction that gives you the right not to be subject to solely automated decision-making with legal or similarly significant effects, note that we do not carry out that kind of decision-making at all. If you believe our analysis has produced something incorrect, you can contact us at support@preparation.guru and we will explain how the estimate was produced and, where appropriate, correct it.

9. Cookies and similar technologies

We use a small number of cookies, and one item of browser local storage, that are needed to run the Service. We do not use advertising cookies, third-party tracking pixels, or cross-site behavioural advertising cookies. We do not run third-party analytics that build a profile of you across other websites.

You can clear cookies and local storage at any time through your browser settings. If you block or clear the authentication cookies you will be signed out and will need to sign in again. If you block the security cookie, the Service may refuse some requests as a precaution.

We do not use cookie walls or consent-bypass mechanisms, because the cookies we set are strictly necessary to provide the Service. If we ever add a non-essential cookie — for example an analytics cookie — we will update this policy and, where the law requires it, ask for your consent before setting it.

We do not track you across other websites, and we do not respond to "Do Not Track" signals, because we do not track you in the first place. If we ever introduce cross-site tracking, we will honour such signals and say so here.

10. Where your data is stored and who processes it

We do not run our own servers. We rely on established infrastructure providers, who process data on our behalf and only on our instructions, under their own data processing terms and security commitments.

What our providers cannot do. They process your data only to provide their service to us. They are not permitted to use it for their own marketing, and they are not permitted to sell it.

Access controls. Access to your personal data is restricted by database-level access controls (row-level security), so your records are readable only by you. Our administrators can access account records only for support, security, or legal compliance purposes.

Changes to providers. If we add or replace a provider that processes personal data, we will update this policy so that it always lists the providers we actually use.

Disclosure to authorities. We may disclose data if we are legally required to do so, or to protect the rights, safety, and security of our users or the Service. If we are ever asked for your data by a public authority, we will only disclose what the law requires, and we will seek to narrow the request where we reasonably can.

11. International data transfers

Preparation Guru operates from India, and the providers listed in section 10 may store and process your personal data in countries other than your own, including the United States. This means your personal data may be transferred to, and processed in, a country whose data protection laws differ from those where you live.

Where personal data is transferred internationally, we rely on the providers' contractual safeguards, such as standard contractual clauses and equivalent data processing terms, together with the providers maintaining equivalent technical protections (encryption in transit and strict access controls) wherever the data is held.

Because we use a small number of well-established providers rather than our own infrastructure, we do not select an arbitrary hosting location per user. If you have a question about where your data is held, contact us at support@preparation.guru.

12. How we protect your data

We take the following measures to protect your personal data:

• Encryption in transit. All traffic to and from the Service is encrypted using HTTPS (TLS).
• Session security. Sessions are managed with httpOnly cookies and short-lived tokens that are refreshed automatically, so session credentials are not readable by page scripts.
• Database-level access control. Database access is enforced with row-level security policies rather than application-side checks alone, so one user cannot read another user's records even if an application check is bypassed.
• Server-side grading. The correct answers to test questions are never sent to the browser during a test, and tests are graded on the server, so the answer key cannot be read from the page.
• Least-privilege staff access. Access to account records by our own administrators is limited to support, security, and legal-compliance purposes, and is not part of normal operation. We never use the application service-role key in the browser.
• Data minimisation. We collect only the data the Service needs, and we do not store payment details or special-category data at all.
• Keeping dependencies current. We keep our frameworks and libraries up to date so that known vulnerabilities are patched.

No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a security incident ever affects your personal data, we will notify you and any relevant regulator without undue delay and as required by applicable law, and we will tell you what happened, what data was involved, and what we are doing about it.

You also have a part to play: keep your Google Account secure, because anyone who can sign in to your Google Account can access your Preparation Guru account. We recommend enabling two-step verification on your Google Account.

13. How long we keep your data

We keep your account and test data for as long as your account is active, so that your performance history, accuracy estimates, and personalized recommendations stay accurate over time. This is the core of the Service: if we deleted your history, we could not tell you which topics to practise.

If you delete your account, we delete your personal data within 90 days, except where we are required to retain specific records by law. Encrypted backup copies may persist for a short period before being overwritten as part of our normal backup rotation.

Where we are required to keep a specific record by law, we keep only that record, only for as long as the law requires, and we restrict access to it.

14. Aggregated and de-identified data

We may create aggregated or de-identified data from your personal data — for example, the average accuracy on a particular question across all users, or how many tests were taken in a month. We use this to understand whether the question bank and the Service are working, and to improve them.

Aggregated and de-identified data does not identify you, and we do not attempt to re-identify it. We do not sell it, and we do not use it for advertising. Because it can no longer reasonably be linked to you, it may remain after you delete your account.

15. How to delete your data or close your account

You can ask us to delete your Preparation Guru account and the personal data associated with it at any time, free of charge. To do so:

• Email support@preparation.guru from the same email address you use to sign in to Preparation Guru, so we can confirm the request came from the account owner.
• Tell us whether you want your whole account deleted, or only specific data removed. You do not need to give a reason.
• We will confirm that we have received your request, and we aim to respond within 30 days.
• We delete your personal data within 90 days, except where the law requires us to retain specific records.

Deleting your account removes:

• your account record, including your name and email address;
• your test attempts, answers, and scores;
• your topic-level accuracy and ability estimates;
• your bookmarks and study preferences; and
• your link to your Google Account identifier.

The following may remain after deletion: aggregated or de-identified statistics that can no longer be linked to you; records we are legally required to retain; and encrypted backup copies, until they are overwritten in the normal backup rotation.

If you only want to stop using the Service, you can simply stop signing in. Your data will be retained as described in section 13 until you ask us to delete it.

16. How to revoke our access to your Google Account

You can revoke Preparation Guru's access to your Google Account at any time, independently of us, from your Google Account permissions page. Sign in to the Google Account you used, find Preparation Guru in the list of apps with access, and remove its access.

Revoking access stops any further access to your Google Account immediately. It does not by itself delete the data we already hold — your account record and test history remain in our database. To have that data deleted, email support@preparation.guru as described in section 15.

You can also remove access to Google Sign-In for Preparation Guru without deleting your Preparation Guru data, for example if you simply want to stop signing in with that Google Account.

17. Your rights

Subject to the law where you live, you have the right to:

• Access a copy of the personal data we hold about you, and information about how we use it.
• Correct data that is inaccurate or incomplete. Much of your account data comes from Google, so you can also correct it at source in your Google Account.
• Delete your account and the personal data associated with it, as described in section 15.
• Restrict or object to certain processing, including processing based on our legitimate interests.
• Port the data you provided to us in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, or ask us to transmit it to another controller where technically feasible.
• Withdraw consent at any time, where processing is based on consent.
• Complain to your local data protection authority, and to seek a judicial remedy.
• Not be discriminated against for exercising any of these rights. We will not degrade the Service, or charge you, because you made a privacy request.

How to exercise your rights. Email support@preparation.guru from the address linked to your account, and tell us which right you want to exercise. We may ask you to confirm that the request comes from the account owner, because we do not want to disclose or delete the wrong person's data. We aim to respond within 30 days of receiving everything we need.

There is no charge for making a request, and we will not treat you differently for exercising your rights. If a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive — for example, repeated identical requests — we may decline it or charge a reasonable fee, and we will explain why. If we cannot fulfil a request, we will tell you why and what else you can do.

18. Regional privacy notices

This section adds specific information for users in particular places. It supplements, and does not replace, the rest of this policy.

18.1 European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland

Where the GDPR or the UK GDPR applies, we process your personal data on the legal bases set out in section 6, and you have the rights set out in section 17. International transfers are made using the safeguards described in section 11. You have the right to lodge a complaint with your national supervisory authority at any time.

18.2 California, United States

We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined by the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act, and we have not done so in the preceding twelve months. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for any purpose other than providing the Service.

The categories of personal information we collect correspond to the categories described in section 3: identifiers and account information, internet or network activity, and inferences drawn from your activity on the Service (your performance estimates). We collect them for the purposes described in section 5, and we disclose them to the service providers listed in section 10.

You have the right to know what personal information we collect, to request access to it, to request its deletion or correction, and not to be discriminated against for exercising these rights. To make a request, contact us as described in section 17.

18.3 India

Where India's data protection law applies, we act as the data fiduciary for the personal data described in this policy. We process it for the lawful purposes described in this policy, we keep it only for as long as section 13 describes, and we apply the security measures in section 12. You may contact us at support@preparation.guru to exercise your rights, to withdraw consent, or to nominate another person to exercise your rights on your behalf in the event of your death or incapacity.

18.4 Other regions

If you live somewhere else and your local law gives you rights over your personal data, we will honour those rights. Contact us and tell us where you live and what you would like us to do, and we will work with you.

19. Children's privacy

The Service is intended for users aged 13 and older. It is designed for candidates preparing for competitive examinations, and it is not directed to children.

We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you believe that a child under 13 has created an account, contact us at support@preparation.guru and we will delete the account and its data promptly. If we learn that we have collected personal data from a child under 13, we will delete it.

If you are between 13 and the age of majority where you live, please make sure you understand this policy and, where required, that a parent or guardian is aware that you are using the Service.

20. Third-party links and services

The Service relies on the providers listed in section 10, and may contain links to websites we do not control — for example, a link to Google Account permissions. Once you follow a link to a third party, that party's own privacy policy applies to what happens next, not this one.

We do not control, and are not responsible for, the privacy practices of third-party websites or services. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of any site you visit from the Service, especially before giving it personal data.

21. Business transfers

If Preparation Guru is ever involved in a merger, acquisition, reorganisation, financing, or sale of assets, personal data may be transferred as part of that transaction. If that happens, we will continue to protect your personal data as described in this policy, and we will give you notice before your personal data becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

If we ever plan to close the Service, we will give you reasonable notice so that you can request a copy of your data and have it deleted, as described in sections 15 and 17.

22. No sale of your data, and no advertising use

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data. We do not share it with advertisers, advertising networks, data brokers, or information resellers, and we do not allow anyone else to use it for their own marketing purposes.

We do not use your personal data, including Google user data, for targeted, personalised, retargeted, cross-context, or interest-based advertising. We do not use it to build, enrich, or maintain advertising or marketing databases or audience segments, and we do not use it to determine credit-worthiness or for lending purposes.

We do not use your personal data, including Google user data, to develop, improve, or train generalised or non-personalised artificial-intelligence or machine-learning models.

The Service does not show third-party advertising, and we do not operate an advertising business. If that ever changed, we would update this policy first, and we would not use Google user data for advertising under any circumstances.

23. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the Service changes or as the law requires. When we do, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page, and we will keep the current version published here.

If we make a material change to how we use Google user data, or to how we use your personal data generally, we will notify you by email or by a clear in-app notice before the change takes effect, so that you have the chance to review it and, where the change relies on consent, to withdraw that consent. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept the updated policy.

Version history. First published 12 September 2026. The current version, published 15 September 2026, adds the Google user data disclosure, the retention schedule, the deletion process, the provider details, and the sections on automated analysis, regional notices, and business transfers.

24. How to contact us

Questions, requests, or complaints about this policy or your personal data can be sent to:
Preparation Guru
Email: support@preparation.guru
Website: https://preparation.guru

Please include enough detail for us to understand your request — for example, the email address you signed up with, and what you would like us to do. We take privacy questions seriously and will always try to resolve them directly with you first. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may also complain to your local data protection authority.

Our Terms of Service govern your use of the Service, and form the contract referred to in section 6 of this policy.