Version 2 · Effective October 23, 2026

StudyStream Privacy Policy

The short version

StudyStream is run by Knowledge Collective Ltd, a UK company. We are the data controller.
You can use Focus Rooms without an account. To do more, you create an account with an email address and date of birth. You must be at least 16.
Focus Rooms are live and public to everyone in the room. We do not keep recordings of your stream. While your camera is on, still frames are checked automatically for safety; a frame is only kept if the check flags it, so a moderator can look at it. If you choose to make a timelapse, we capture frames of your own camera to build it.
We use third-party services to run the platform: hosting, video, payments, email, analytics, moderation AI and a small number of AI features. They are listed by name below, with what each one receives.
We never sell your personal data. We share limited data with Meta and OpenAI to measure our advertising (in the UK, the EEA, Switzerland and Monaco only with your consent, elsewhere unless you turn it off from the Cookies link), and in the free mobile apps we show ads.
You can see, correct, download and delete your data. Contact us at team@studystream.live.

1. Who we are

The service is provided by Knowledge Collective Ltd, company number 11870531, registered at 167-169 Great Portland Street, 5th Floor, London W1W 5PF, United Kingdom ("we", "us", "StudyStream").

We operate two branded versions of the same platform from the same systems: a student platform at studystream.live and app.studystream.live, and a professionals platform at cowork.live and app.cowork.live. This policy covers both, plus the StudyStream mobile apps for iOS and Android.

Privacy questions: team@studystream.live

Moderation and safety: webapp.reporting@studystream.live

2. Who this applies to

Visitors browsing the website.
Anonymous participants who join a Focus Room without creating an account. Anonymous participation is time-limited and you cannot chat, follow or message others.
Registered members, including members who have not yet finished verifying their email address or phone number.
Paying members on a paid plan, or who bought a one-off product.

3. What we collect

3.1 Information you give us

Account. Email address, password (stored as a salted hash, never in plain text), date of birth. Phone number if you complete phone verification. A referral code, invite or register code if you used one.
Sign in with Google, Apple or Facebook. Your name, email address and profile picture from the provider, and for Facebook your birthday where you allow it. We keep the provider's identifier for your account, not its sign-in tokens.
Profile. First and last name, display name, gender, pronouns, country, timezone, area of study or work, interests, bio, avatar, profile cover image, links to your social profiles (for example Instagram, Discord, LinkedIn), your relationship status, and what you are looking for on StudyStream (study partners, friends, accountability, dating). Relationship status and dating are available only to members aged 18 and over. Every profile field except display name and avatar has a privacy setting that controls who can see it.
Onboarding answers. Whether you are a pre-university student, university student or professional; where you heard about us; whether you are ready to start now.
Content you create. Direct messages and group chats (text, voice notes, files, images, GIFs), Space and channel messages, replies, reactions, bookmarks, feed posts and comments, study statuses, encouragements sent to others, tasks and task labels, focus-buddy posts, testimonials, poll answers, survey responses, feedback, and cancellation feedback.
Reports you make. The reason, your description, and screenshots or recordings you attach when you report another member.
Payments. Card details are entered directly with Stripe, or with Apple or Google on mobile; we never see the full card number. We hold your Stripe customer ID, plan, billing period, trial dates, purchase and invoice history, and any discount you accepted.
Support. What you tell us in the support chat, by email, or in the feedback portal.
Newsletter. Your email address and name, and the interests you pick.
Inviting others. The email address of the person you invite and your message to them.
Spotify (optional). If you connect Spotify, a token that lets us read the track you are currently playing so it can be shown on your video tile.
AI Quiz and AI Notes (optional, paid plans, currently in the mobile apps). The text, links, PDFs, audio files or voice recordings you submit, and the quizzes and notes produced from them.
Cookie and policy choices. Your cookie consent decision, and which version of our terms, privacy policy and cookie policy you accepted, acknowledged or were told about, with the date and where it happened.

3.2 Information collected automatically

Live video and audio. When you turn on your camera, microphone or screen share in a Focus Room, the stream is relayed live to other people in the room through our video provider. We do not record or store the live stream.
Camera frames for safety. While your camera is on, your browser or app sends a still frame to us at regular intervals. Each frame is checked automatically for nudity, sexual content, violence, self-harm and hate imagery. A frame that passes the check is never stored. A frame the check flags is kept so a second automated check and, where needed, a human moderator can review it, and your camera is turned off for a short time while the frame is reviewed. How long flagged frames are kept is in section 8.
Timelapse (optional). If you start a timelapse, frames of your own camera are captured for the duration of that timelapse and rendered into a video you can title, show on your profile, or delete at any time. Nothing is captured unless you start one, and other people's cameras are never included.
Presence and activity. When you are online, when you were last active, which rooms and Spaces you joined and for how long, your daily study minutes, streaks, pomodoro sessions, pins, hand raises and statuses.
Study statistics. Total and weekly study time, streak length, and your position on the leaderboards.
Who looked at you. We log when another member views your profile, avatar, social links or video tile so we can show you profile-viewer counts and who is pinning you.
Device and connection. Your IP address, the country derived from it, browser or app type and version, operating system, device type, and the page that referred you. In the mobile apps, also your device's model and an identifier generated when the app is installed.
Mobile advertising identifiers. In the mobile apps, with your permission (the "allow tracking" prompt on iPhone; on Android, subject to your device's advertising settings), your device's advertising identifier is shared with Meta and our subscription provider to measure which ads led to installs and purchases. You can withdraw this in your phone's privacy settings.
Reminders. Study reminders you set are scheduled on your device using its timezone.
Request log. For signed-in members we log each request your device makes to our servers (time, endpoint, IP address, device type and browser) for security, debugging and product analytics.
Usage analytics. Page views and in-app events such as joining a room, changing a setting, starting a trial or cancelling, using the analytics tools listed in section 6. On the web this starts only after you accept analytics cookies where consent is required (see section 12).
Session recordings and surveys. On the website and web app, Hotjar may record how you move around pages (mouse movement, clicks, scrolling) and occasionally show you a short survey, after you accept analytics cookies where consent is required (see section 12). Text you type into inputs is masked.
Errors. Crash and error reports containing the page, your user ID and the error message. On the web these are collected by Datadog and by ReproKit, our own bug-diagnostics tool, which also records failed requests (without their contents), console errors and repeated clicks that go nowhere, with anything you type masked. In the mobile apps, by Firebase Crashlytics.
Email engagement. Whether you opened or clicked a link in our emails.
Identifiers stored on your device. An authentication token, your theme and language, an anonymous participant ID for people without an account, your cookie consent choice, and a marker of when you registered or deleted an account, which we use to stop banned or underage users re-registering immediately.
Change history. A record of changes to your profile and settings, and previous display names and timezones.

3.3 Information from other sources

Advertising attribution. If you arrived from a Meta or ChatGPT ad, the browser identifiers those platforms set (Meta's _fbp and _fbc, OpenAI's __obref) are read so that we can attribute your registration or purchase to that campaign. Where consent is required (see section 12), only after you accept marketing cookies.
Email checks. When you register, the domain of your email address may be checked against a list of disposable-email providers.
Referrals. If someone invited you, we link your account to theirs.

4. Why we use it and our legal basis

Creating and running your account and the study features. Account, profile, content, presence, statistics. Basis: contract.
Relaying live video, audio and screen share in rooms. Live streams. Basis: contract.
Keeping rooms safe: automated scanning of camera frames and chat text, keyword filters, human moderation, timeouts and bans. Camera frames, messages, reports, account. Basis: legitimate interests (protecting members, many of whom are 16 to 18) and legal obligation (online safety).
Age gate and preventing re-registration by banned or underage users. Date of birth, device markers, IP address. Basis: legal obligation and legitimate interests.
Taking payments, managing subscriptions and tax. Payments. Basis: contract and legal obligation.
Sending service emails (verification, receipts, security alerts, deletion confirmations, notices about changes to these policies). Email address. Basis: contract.
Sending messages prompted by your activity or inactivity, by email, push or in-app: for example a welcome series, a daily summary of unread messages, a warning that your streak is at risk, a note when you lose it, tips after you sign up, feature updates, and "we miss you" when you stop coming. We test and change these over time. Email address, activity, plan, sign-up date. Basis: legitimate interests; you can turn each type off in Settings or via the unsubscribe link.
Marketing emails to newsletter subscribers. Newsletter data. Basis: consent.
Measuring how the product is used and running A/B tests. Usage analytics, profile attributes such as country, user type, plan, age band and gender. Basis: consent for the analytics tools on the web where consent is required, legitimate interests elsewhere; legitimate interests for statistics we compute on our own servers and in the mobile apps.
Measuring advertising campaigns. Hashed email and profile details, user ID, IP address, browser, Meta and OpenAI identifiers, purchase value. Basis: consent where it is required (the cookie banner on the web, the tracking prompt in the apps), legitimate interests elsewhere.
Showing advertisements to free members of the mobile apps. App context, advertising identifier. Basis: legitimate interests for contextual ads; consent for personalised ads, through your phone's settings.
Optional timelapse. Frames of your own camera. Basis: consent, given when you start the feature.
Optional AI Quiz and AI Notes. Your uploaded content. Basis: contract (a feature of your plan).
Research: surveys, interviews and user testing. What you tell us when you take part. Basis: consent.
Optional Spotify now-playing. Spotify token. Basis: consent, withdrawn by disconnecting.
Security, fraud prevention, debugging. Request log, errors, IP address. Basis: legitimate interests.
Keeping a record of what you agreed to. Cookie and policy choices. Basis: legal obligation (we must be able to show your consent) and legitimate interests.
Responding to support and legal requests, defending claims. Any relevant data. Basis: legitimate interests and legal obligation.

Where we rely on legitimate interests we have checked that your rights do not override them. You can object at any time (see section 10).

5. Who can see what on StudyStream

StudyStream is a community product, so some information is visible to other members by design:

Always visible to other members: display name, avatar, online status, your live camera or screen when you turn it on in a room, your country flag in room filters, follower and following counts, and your position on the leaderboards. Leaderboards are public and cannot be opted out of; they show your display name, avatar and study time.
Visible according to your privacy settings: birthday, pronouns, country, timezone, area of study, interests, social links, relationship status, what you are looking for, task history, focus session history, and who can message you, pin you, enlarge your tile or listen to you.
Your video. You can limit who sees your camera (everyone, only members with their camera on, only Premium members, or only accounts older than 7 days). Please note rooms are public spaces: anyone who can see your camera can screenshot or record it on their own device and could share it elsewhere, including on social media. Our rules forbid this and we act on reports, but we cannot technically prevent it or recover a recording once made. If you do not want to be recorded, keep your camera off.
Timelapses you choose to display on your profile are public and can be viewed by anyone with the link.
Anonymous participants can see and be seen in the room like anyone else.

6. Who we share it with

We use other companies to run parts of the service. They act on our instructions and may only use your data to provide the service to us, except where marked. Our servers and database are in Microsoft Azure's UK South region.

The providers are grouped by what they do for us. We add and replace providers as the product changes; we keep this list current and, where a change is material, tell you in the app or by email. Swapping one provider for another that does the same job does not change what we collect or why.

Running the platform

Microsoft Azure. Servers, database, file storage, real-time messaging, logging. Receives all data held by the service.
Netlify. Hosts the website, the web app and the blog. Receives your IP address and browser when pages load.
LiveKit (our own servers, with LiveKit Cloud as fallback). Live video and audio, frame capture. Receives live streams, camera frames, user ID and display name.
Google Firebase. Sign in with Google, Apple and Facebook; phone verification by SMS; push notifications; in the mobile apps also remote configuration. Receives sign-in tokens, phone number, push token, app and device details.
Google reCAPTCHA Enterprise. Bot protection at registration. Receives browser signals, IP address.
SendGrid (Twilio). Sending our emails. Receives email address, name, email content.
Customer.io (EU region). Messages prompted by your activity, such as a lost streak or a welcome series. Receives user ID, email, first name, user type, country, plan and the date you were last active.
Stripe. Payments, invoices, tax, billing portal. Receives email, user ID, plan, billing address, IP address and browser at checkout.
RevenueCat, Apple App Store, Google Play. In-app purchases on mobile. Receive purchase and subscription events tied to your user ID, your device's advertising and vendor identifiers, IP address, and the ad campaign that led to the install.
Supabase. Stores AI Quiz and AI Notes history, uploaded PDFs and audio (mobile apps); runs the function that turns audio into notes. Receives quiz and note inputs, uploaded files, user ID, push token for the "your note is ready" notification.
Chatwoot. Support chat on the web and in the apps, loaded only when you open it. Receives user ID, email, name, your messages to support.
Featurebase. Feedback and roadmap portal, loaded only when you open it. Receives your user ID, email, display name, profile picture, pronouns, birthday, country, area of study, user type, plan and sign-up date, what you post and vote on, and which portal pages you visit.
ip-api.com. Country lookup. Receives IP address.
verifymail.io. Disposable-email check at registration, where enabled. Receives email domain only.
Snowflake, Fivetran and dbt. Copy data from our database and from Stripe into our analytics warehouse and prepare it for reporting. Receive account, activity, billing and request-log data.
Metabase. The reporting tool our team uses to read the warehouse. Reads the warehouse; receives nothing new.

Internal tools our team works in

Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Drive). Email, documents and spreadsheets, including exports and backups. May hold support conversations, user lists, report and research data.
Notion. Team documentation, support and moderation notes. May hold names, emails and case notes where relevant.
Dovetail. Storing and analysing user research. May hold interview and survey responses, names and emails of participants.

Keeping the community safe

Microsoft Azure AI Content Safety. First automated check of camera frames. Receives camera frames.
Hive AI. Second automated check of flagged camera frames, and automated moderation of chat text. Receives flagged camera frames, message text.

Optional features

OpenAI. AI Quiz and AI Notes generation, and transcription of your recordings (mobile apps). Receives the text, links, documents or audio you submit.
Spotify. Now-playing on your tile. Receives your Spotify account link.
Tenor (Google) and Klipy. GIF search in chat. Receive your search terms.
Typeform. Surveys, questionnaires and applications you choose to fill in. Receives what you enter in the form.

Analytics, testing and error reporting

PostHog (EU region). Product analytics in the web app, after you accept analytics cookies where consent is required (see section 12). Receives your user ID and in-app events; no session recording, no automatic capture of what you click, no email or name.
Amplitude. Product analytics in the mobile apps. Receives user ID, in-app events, plan name, the campaign that brought you.
Mixpanel. Usage analytics for the AI features in the mobile apps. Receives feature usage events, not linked to your user ID.
Google Analytics. Website and web app traffic, after you accept analytics cookies where consent is required (see section 12). Receives page views, cookie ID, IP address (truncated by Google).
Hotjar. Heatmaps, session recordings, surveys, after you accept analytics cookies where consent is required (see section 12). Receives page interactions, survey answers, user ID or anonymous ID.
Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics (mobile apps). App usage analytics and crash reports. Receive device and app events, crash details, user ID.
GrowthBook. Feature flags and A/B tests. Deciding which version you see is always on; recording that you saw an experiment happens after you accept analytics cookies where consent is required (see section 12). Receives user ID and the profile attributes used for targeting (country, age band, gender, user type, area of study, plan, sign-up date, milestones).
Datadog (EU). Client error logs. Receives user ID, display name, error details.
ReproKit. Our own bug-diagnostics tool, run by our team on our own systems. Receives the error details described in section 3.2.

Advertising

Meta (Facebook) Pixel, Conversions API and mobile SDK. Measures whether our ads led to sign-ups and purchases, and builds audiences for our advertising. Receives, in hashed form, your email, name, phone number, birthday, gender and country, plus your user ID, IP address, browser, Meta cookies and purchase value; in the apps also install events and your advertising identifier. On the web after you accept marketing cookies where consent is required (see section 12); in the app after you allow tracking. Meta may use this for its own purposes under its terms.
OpenAI (ChatGPT ads). Measures whether our ads in ChatGPT led to sign-ups and purchases. Receives your hashed email, browser, the OpenAI browser identifier and purchase value. After you accept marketing cookies where consent is required (see section 12).
Google AdMob. Shows advertisements to free members in the mobile apps. Receives advertising identifier, device details, app context. You can limit ad personalisation in your phone's settings.

We may also share data with professional advisers, with authorities when the law requires it, and with a buyer or successor if our business is sold, in which case this policy will continue to apply.

We do not sell personal data. Under some US state laws, sharing data with Meta and ad partners for cross-context advertising counts as "sharing" or "targeted advertising"; you can opt out as described in section 10.

7. International transfers

We are based in the UK and host data in the UK. Some providers listed above process data in the United States or elsewhere. Where we transfer personal data outside the UK or EEA we rely on the UK International Data Transfer Addendum or the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or on the provider's certification under the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

8. How long we keep it

Account, profile and content. While your account exists, then as described under "Deleting your account" below.
Camera frames that passed the safety check. Never stored.
Camera frames flagged by the first check and cleared by the second. Deleted 7 days after capture.
Camera frames waiting for a moderator. Kept until reviewed, and at most 12 months.
Camera frames a moderator reviewed with no action needed. Deleted 7 days after the review.
Camera frames where a moderator issued a warning, ban or further review. 12 months from capture.
Moderation records (that a frame was flagged or a report was made, the automated scores, the moderator's decision). Kept as a record that the check or report happened. After your account is deleted, the images and attachments are removed unless the account was banned.
Report attachments (screenshots and recordings attached to a report). 90 days after the report is closed, or for as long as the reported account remains banned because of it.
Timelapse videos. Until you delete them or your account is deleted. The raw frames are removed within 7 days of the video being made.
Study statistics from our earlier Zoom-based rooms (before 2023). Kept as part of your account's study history.
Direct and group messages you sent. While your account exists; after it is deleted they are replaced with a note that they were deleted.
Profile change history and who-viewed-your-profile records. While your account exists.
Your cookie choice and policy acceptance records. While your account exists.
Emails we sent you (copy and delivery status). 21 days.
Server logs. 2 months.
Read notifications. 30 days.
Request and activity log (data warehouse). While your account exists, with IP addresses and other identifying details removed from records older than 12 months; after your account is deleted, removed from all your records within 12 months.
IP address history. 12 months.
A copy of your data you asked us for. The download is available for 7 days, then deleted; we keep a record that you asked.
Payment records. 6 years after the transaction, for tax law.
Re-registration markers on your device. 90 days after registration, and for a short period after deletion.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account from Settings > Account. You must first cancel any active subscription. When you delete your account we immediately deactivate it, stop all emails and notifications (your details are removed from our email providers, SendGrid and Customer.io), and release your email address. Within 30 days we anonymise the account: we remove or scramble everything that identifies you (your name, date of birth, phone number, bio, interests, social links, avatar and cover photo, sign-in tokens, IP address history, the history of changes to your profile, records of who viewed your profile, and any flagged camera frames unless the account was banned) and keep the rest with no identity attached. We keep a one-way hash of your email address so that a banned account cannot simply re-register. At the same time we delete your support chat history in Chatwoot and remove your email, name, picture and profile details from our feedback portal, Featurebase.

What remains after that:

Messages and posts you sent are replaced with a note that they were deleted, and their attachments are removed. Conversations become read-only for the other participants.
Study statistics are kept with no identity attached.
Payment records are kept for as long as tax law requires.
Moderation records are kept as a record that a check or report happened; their images and attachments are removed unless the account was banned.
Analytics records in our data warehouse are stripped of your IP address and other identifying details within 12 months.

If you do nothing, your account and data stay as long as your account exists. We do not delete inactive accounts automatically.

9. Automated decisions

Some decisions are made automatically:

Camera safety scanning turns your camera off for a short time when a frame is flagged, while the frame is reviewed. A human moderator then reviews the frame and may lift or extend the restriction, or take no further action.
Chat filters reject messages, names, bios and posts containing blocked words, and automated text moderation flags conversations for human review.
Bot protection may block a registration attempt that looks automated.
Age gate deactivates an account whose date of birth shows the member is under 16.

Any of these can be queried by emailing webapp.reporting@studystream.live and a person will review it.

10. Your rights

You can:

Access the data we hold about you and receive a copy.
Correct it, mostly directly in your profile and settings.
Delete your account (section 8) or ask us to erase specific data.
Object to processing based on legitimate interests, including all engagement emails and analytics.
Restrict processing while a complaint is resolved.
Port the data you gave us in a machine-readable format. Email us and we will send it within one month.
Withdraw consent at any time, for example by turning off a feature, disconnecting Spotify, or changing your choice from the Cookies link in the footer.
Opt out of "sharing" or targeted advertising (US state residents) by turning off advertising cookies from the Cookies link in the footer, or by emailing us. We also treat a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal from your browser as this opt-out. We do not knowingly sell personal data and do not use sensitive personal data for advertising.

Email team@studystream.live. We respond within one month. We may ask you to confirm your identity from the email address on your account.

You can complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) or your local data protection authority in the EEA. We would appreciate the chance to resolve it first.

If you are in Brazil, you have the equivalent rights under the LGPD: confirmation that we process your data, access, correction, anonymisation or deletion of unnecessary data, portability, information about who we share it with, and withdrawal of consent. The legal bases in section 4 correspond to those in the LGPD. You may complain to the ANPD.

11. Children

You must be at least 16 to use StudyStream. We ask for your date of birth at sign-up and deactivate accounts we find belong to anyone younger. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 16; if you believe we have, email us and we will delete it.

Members aged 16 and 17 are welcome. Please be careful about what you share on camera and in chat, use the privacy settings, and report anything that makes you uncomfortable.

12. Cookies and similar technologies

We use cookies and local storage as described in our Cookie Policy. Strictly necessary items (your sign-in token, theme, language, anonymous participant ID, security markers, your consent choice, and our own error diagnostics) are always set. In the UK, the EEA, Switzerland and Monaco (and their territories), analytics, session-recording and advertising-measurement cookies are set only after you accept them in the consent banner. Elsewhere they are set by default, unless your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, which we treat as turning them off. Wherever you are, you can accept or turn them off at any time from the Cookies link in the footer. The mobile apps set no cookies but use advertising identifiers as described in the Cookie Policy.

13. Security

We protect your data with encryption in transit (HTTPS), hashed passwords, encrypted two-factor secrets and Spotify tokens, role-based access for staff, rate limiting, bot protection, and short-lived signed links for private files. Only a small number of trained staff and moderators can view reported content or conversations, and only for moderation. No system is perfectly secure; keep your password private and turn on two-factor authentication in Settings.

14. Changes to this policy

We will post changes here and update the version and effective date. For material changes we will tell you in the app or by email before they take effect. Earlier versions are available on request.

15. Contact

Knowledge Collective Ltd
167-169 Great Portland Street, 5th Floor, London W1W 5PF, United Kingdom
team@studystream.live