Privacy notice

Tom's School is run by Tom Carter, a sole trader. Tom Carter is the "data controller", which means we decide how and why your personal information is used.

Contact: hello@tomsschool.co.uk

We follow the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, and we have designed the service with the ICO's Age Appropriate Design Code (the "Children's Code") in mind.

Tom's School is for school-age students. Accounts are set up and managed by a parent or guardian, or by a young person with a parent or guardian's permission. If your child is under 13, you must set up the account. If you think a child has created an account without a parent's knowledge, please email us and we will deal with it.

Account details

• Name (as given to Tom) and the email address used to sign in.

About the student

• Year group, interests and the exam sitting they are preparing for (November or Summer).
• Learning progress: which topics they have worked on, and how they got on.
• Short written summaries of recent sessions, so Tom can remember where they left off.

Messages and photos

• What a student types to Tom, and any photo they choose to send, is sent securely to our AI provider so that Tom can reply. We do not keep full transcripts of conversations. We keep only the short summaries and notes described above.
• We do not record students' voices. Students type to Tom. Tom's replies are turned into speech, and the audio is played to the student and not stored by us.

Payments

• Subscriptions are handled by Stripe. We never see or store card numbers. We keep your subscription status and a Stripe customer reference.

Technical information

• Our servers keep standard technical logs (for example error records and anonymised usage figures) for security and to keep the service running.
• When you visit our website, cookies and similar technologies may be used. See the cookie section below.

We only collect what we need to run Tom's School.

We do not sell personal information and we do not use it to make decisions with legal or similarly significant effects on anyone.

Tom is an AI tutor. He can occasionally get things wrong, and we encourage students to challenge him. Tom is a learning aid. He does not replace teachers, parents or professional support, and he is not a counselling or emergency service. If a student tells Tom they are in danger or very upset, Tom will encourage them to talk to a trusted adult or a suitable support service.

Messages are processed by AI providers acting on our behalf under business terms. Under those terms, the content is not used to train their AI models.

We only share information with companies that help us run the service, and only what they need:

• Microsoft (Azure hosting and Entra sign-in): our systems and database are hosted in the UK.
• Anthropic: processes students' messages and photos to generate Tom's replies.
• OpenAI: turns Tom's written replies into speech.
• Stripe: processes payments and manages subscriptions.
• Google: advertising and measurement services, only with your consent where cookies are involved.

We may also share information where the law requires it, or where it is necessary to protect a child from harm.

Some of these companies (such as Anthropic, OpenAI and Stripe) may process information in the United States or other countries. Where that happens, we rely on recognised legal safeguards, such as an approved UK data transfer mechanism or standard contractual clauses, so your information stays protected.

We keep account and progress information while your account is open. If you close your account, we delete it within 90 days, unless we have to keep something for legal or accounting reasons, such as payment records. You can ask us to delete it sooner at any time.

We use secure, encrypted connections, sign-in through Microsoft Entra, access controls and monitoring to protect personal information from loss, misuse and unauthorised access. Access to personal information is limited to those who need it.

Under UK data protection law you can ask us to:

• tell you what information we hold about you or your child, and give you a copy
• correct anything that is wrong
• delete your information
• restrict how we use it, or object to certain uses
• give you your information in a portable format
• withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent

To use any of these rights, email hello@tomsschool.co.uk. We will reply within one month. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We would appreciate the chance to put things right first.

If we change how we use personal information we will update this page and the date at the top.

Last updated: 6 October 2026

Cookies and similar technologies (such as your browser's local storage) are small pieces of data stored on your device. Tom's School uses them as follows.

When you first visit our website you will be asked to accept or decline analytics and advertising cookies. You can change your choice at any time using the cookie settings link on the site, and you can also delete cookies in your browser settings. Declining will not affect your use of Tom's School.

If you have any questions, email hello@tomsschool.co.uk.