Privacy

Last updated 17 October 2026

Phil Nicholls, Individual Entrepreneur (Georgia) runs Guru Shishya and is responsible for the information it keeps about you. We collect only what the site needs to work, we never sell it, and your recordings are deleted once they are scored.

Your recordings

When you play or sing a phrase, the recording is sent to us, scored and then deleted straight away. We keep the score, not the sound.

A few phrases say on their page that their recordings are kept. Those recordings are kept so that the people who tune our scoring can listen to them and rate them; they never see your name. We don't use them for anything else, and we delete them when you ask.

Some pages let you listen back to your attempt, or record a note so the site can find your Sa. Listening back happens in your browser alone; a recorded Sa is analysed and deleted at once.

What we keep

• Your account: your email address and a scrambled form of your password, or, if you sign in with Google, the name, email address and picture Google shares.
• Your profile, if you fill it in: a picture (we strip its location and other details), your Sa, your daily goal, and a display name if you join the leaderboard, where other players see that name and picture.
• Your practice: which phrases you played, when, and their scores; your streaks, guided runs and badges.
• Without an account, the same practice details are kept against an anonymous id in your browser's session, and join your account if you make one.
• If you joined a teacher's lessons through their link, that you are their student. Your teacher sees how many students have joined.
• If you pay: your plan, its dates and Paddle's id for you. Your card details go to Paddle, never to us.
• Your internet address, counted for a day to limit free use without an account, and in our web server's logs for about two weeks.

Cookies and your browser

We use cookies to keep you signed in, to protect forms and to remember your language. Your preferences on the practice pages (such as showing the notes or keeping the screen on) are saved in your browser and never sent to us. We also use Google Analytics, which sets its own cookies, to count visits and see which pages are used. In the EU, the UK and Switzerland (judged from your device's time zone) it runs only if you say yes, and you can change your mind under Cookie settings at the bottom of any page.

Who else handles it

We use a few services to run the site. Each gets only what it needs and may only use it for us:

• DigitalOcean hosts the site and its data, in London.
• Paddle takes payments and handles tax, as the merchant of record, under its own privacy policy.
• Twilio SendGrid sends our emails.
• Google, if you sign in with Google, and for Google Analytics.
• Sentry receives reports of errors on the site: the page and what went wrong, without your name, email or recordings.
• GitHub stores the problem reports that invited testers send with the Feedback button.

Guru Shishya is run from Georgia and its data is stored in London. Some of these services work in the United States and elsewhere. Where the law requires it, information sent abroad is protected by safeguards such as standard contractual clauses.

Emails

We email you about your account and your plan: confirming your address, password resets, receipts and renewals. Any other email, such as practice reminders, can be switched off from a link in the email.

How long we keep it

We keep your account and practice for as long as you have an account. If you ask us to delete your account, we delete it and your practice, except what the law makes us keep, such as records of payments.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of what we keep about you, ask us to correct or delete it, or object to how we use it. We use your information to provide the service you asked for, to improve the scoring and the site (our legitimate interest), and to keep records the law requires. If you're unhappy with how we handle it, you can complain to the data protection authority where you live (in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office; in the EU, your country's authority; in Georgia, the Personal Data Protection Service).

Children

Accounts are for people aged 13 and over. If you think a younger child has made one, tell us and we will delete it.

Contact

Write to Phil Nicholls, Individual Entrepreneur (Georgia) at help@gurushishya.app.