Privacy policy

Last updated 11 October 2026

Focal is a study app that helps high school students practise the topics they find hardest. This policy explains what information we collect when you use Focal, why we collect it, and the choices you have.

Information we collect

Account details. Your email address, and your name if you sign in with Google. If you choose a username or add your school during onboarding, we store those too.
Study content. The questions, topics, teacher feedback, notes and answers you add or type into Focal, and the photos you upload of tests, notes or written work.
Progress data. Your drill results, weakness profile, XP, streaks and grade forecasts.
Payment status. If you subscribe to Pro, payment is handled by Stripe. We store your subscription status and a Stripe customer ID — we never see or store your card details.
Feedback. Messages you send through the in-app feedback button.
Technical data. Basic information your browser sends, such as device type and IP address, which our hosting and advertising providers may log.

How we use it

To run Focal: generating practice questions, marking your answers, tracking your progress and showing leaderboards.
To process subscriptions and send sign-in emails.
To respond to feedback and fix problems.
To show advertising to users on the free plan (see below).

We do not sell your personal information.

AI processing

Focal uses Anthropic's Claude AI to generate questions, read uploaded photos, mark answers and answer questions you ask. The relevant study content and photos are sent to Anthropic to produce a response. Anthropic does not use this data to train its models under its commercial terms.

Leaderboards

If you appear on a leaderboard, other Focal users can see your username (or a generic name like "Student 4" if you haven't set one), your school, level, streak and weekly XP. They cannot see your email or your study content.

Advertising and cookies

Focal uses Google AdSense to show ads to users on the free plan. Google and its partners use cookies to serve ads based on your previous visits to this and other websites. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads based on your visits to Focal and/or other sites on the internet.

You can opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings, or opt out of some third-party vendors' use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info. To learn more, see how Google uses information from sites that use its services.

We also use your browser's local storage to remember settings such as dark mode and to keep you signed in.

Service providers

We rely on these providers to run Focal, each of which processes data on our behalf:

Supabase — accounts, sign-in and database storage
Vercel — website hosting
Anthropic — AI question generation, marking and photo reading
Stripe — payments for Pro subscriptions
Resend — sending emails
Google — Google sign-in and AdSense advertising

Keeping and deleting your data

We keep your data for as long as you have an account. You can ask us to delete your account and all associated data at any time using the feedback button in the app, and we will do so within 30 days.

Students and younger users

Focal is designed for high school students and is intended for users aged 13 and over. If you are under the age required to consent to data processing where you live, please use Focal with a parent or guardian's permission. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, contact us through the feedback button and we will delete it.

Security

Data is sent over encrypted connections (HTTPS), and access to your study data is restricted to your own account. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect your information.

Changes to this policy

If we make significant changes we will update the date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, let you know in the app.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data? Use the feedback button inside the Focal app and we'll get back to you.