ShutterScholar is built to run mostly on your own device. This page explains, in plain language, what we collect, what we don't, and what happens to anything you send us.
Your learning progress (missions, streaks, course completion), your gear profile (camera and lenses), photos you open in the Develop editor, and any AI API key you add all live in your browser's local storage on your device. We never see them and they are never uploaded. Clearing your browser data deletes them.
If you allow location for Missions, the sun and light calculations happen on your device. Your approximate coordinates are used to fetch local weather (Open-Meteo) and nearby public places (OpenStreetMap/Overpass, Wikimedia Commons for spot photos). Your location is never sent to ShutterScholar's servers or stored by us.
Our host, Cloudflare, processes IP addresses to serve the site and we use them briefly for rate-limiting (they expire from our storage within a day). If we enable analytics, it will be Cloudflare Web Analytics — cookie-less, no cross-site tracking, no personal profiles. We use no advertising trackers and we don't sell or share data with anyone for marketing.
ShutterScholar isn't directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from them. Under-18s should use the gallery and feedback features with a parent's, guardian's, or teacher's OK — a first name or nickname is plenty for a photo credit. Teachers running ShutterScholar with a class: submissions are moderated before anything appears publicly, and we'll remove a student's photo immediately on request.
Email hello@shutterscholar.com and we'll delete your waitlist email, feedback, or gallery photos — usually within a few days. On-device data you can clear yourself in your browser settings.
If this policy changes in a way that matters, we'll note it here with a new date. Questions: hello@shutterscholar.com.