Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

The Rhetoric Studio is an independent project focused on helping people practise thinking and speaking on their feet. The site lives at therhetoricstudio.com. For anything privacy-related, reach us at support@therhetoricstudio.com.

2. What data we collect and why

Guest users (no account)

Nothing is stored on our servers. Your practice history is saved only in your own browser's local storage — it never leaves your device, and it disappears if you clear your browser data.

Registered users (with an account)

When you create an account or sign in, we collect and store the following:

• Email address — collected when you request a sign-in link. We use it only to send that link. We do not send newsletters, marketing emails, or any unsolicited communications.
• Practice attempts — each time you complete a scored attempt, we store: the prompt you were given, the transcript of what you said, your scores (content, language, structure, delivery, and total), your speaking pace (words per minute), the duration, the focus area you chose, and the date and time.
• AI-generated feedback — the summary, phrasing suggestions, strengths, improvements, and factual notes returned for each attempt are stored alongside the attempt so you can review them later in your history.
• Voluntary feedback messages— if you submit a message via the feedback widget, we store the message text and, if you're signed in, your email address, so we can follow up if needed.

Analytics data (all users)

We use Vercel Analytics, which collects anonymous, aggregated usage data: pages visited, country, browser type, and device type. This data cannot be used to identify individual users, and no cookies are set for this purpose.

3. How we use your data

• To let you sign in securely without a password (magic-link authentication).
• To save your practice history and display it to you across devices.
• To show you your score trends and progress over time.
• To respond to feedback messages you send us.
• To understand, in aggregate and anonymously, how the app is used, so we can improve it.

We do not sell your data, share it with advertisers, use it to train AI models, or use it for any purpose beyond operating this app.

4. AI processing of your transcripts

When you submit a spoken response for scoring, the text of what you said — along with the prompt and your speaking statistics — is sent to Anthropic's API (the company behind Claude) to generate your feedback. This is necessary for the app to function.

We do not send your email address or any other identifying information alongside the transcript. Anthropic processes the text solely to produce the feedback response.

Anthropic's own privacy policy governs how they handle data sent to their API. As of the date of this policy, Anthropic does not use API inputs to train their models by default.

Our scoring rubric is adapted from the Public Speaking Competence Rubric (Schreiber, Paul & Shibley, 2012), a publicly available framework from communication studies research. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by the authors.

5. Third-party services we use

The following third-party services process data as part of running this app:

• Supabase (privacy policy) — stores user accounts, practice history, and feedback messages. Data is stored on servers in the EU/US.
• Vercel (privacy policy) — hosts this website and provides anonymous page-view analytics.
• Anthropic (privacy policy) — processes spoken transcripts to generate AI feedback scores and suggestions.
• Groq (privacy policy) — processes audio recordings (your spoken responses) to generate transcripts. Audio is not stored after transcription.
• Brevo (privacy policy) — delivers sign-in emails to your inbox.

6. Cookies and local storage

We use a minimal amount of browser storage:

• Authentication cookie — Supabase sets a small cookie to keep you signed in between visits. This is strictly necessary for the sign-in feature to work.
• Local storage (guest users)— if you use the app without an account, your practice history is saved in your browser's local storage. This data never leaves your device.
• Preferences— a few small items (your last chosen focus area, whether you've dismissed certain one-time messages) are saved in local storage to improve your experience. These contain no personal data.

We do not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels, or any third-party analytics cookies.

7. How long we keep your data

• Practice history — kept until you delete it (you can do this yourself on the History page) or until you request account deletion.
• Account / email address — kept until you request account deletion.
• Feedback messages — kept for a reasonable period to allow follow-up, then deleted periodically.
• Analytics data — anonymous and aggregated; kept as long as Vercel retains it per their own policy.

8. Your rights

Depending on where you are, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Access — request a copy of the data we hold about you.
• Correction — ask us to correct inaccurate data.
• Deletion — ask us to delete your account and all associated data. You can also delete your practice history yourself from the History page at any time.
• Portability — request your data in a machine-readable format.
• Objection — object to certain types of processing.

To exercise any of these rights, email support@therhetoricstudio.com. We will respond within 30 days.

If you are in the European Union or United Kingdom, these rights are protected under GDPR / UK GDPR. If you are in California, you have additional rights under the CCPA, including the right to know what personal information is collected and to opt out of its sale (we do not sell personal information).

9. Children

This app is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

10. Changes to this policy

If we make significant changes to this policy, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top. Continued use of the app after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy. For material changes, we will make a reasonable effort to notify signed-in users.

11. Contact

For any questions, requests, or concerns about this policy, email support@therhetoricstudio.com.