Your information
Privacy Policy
Effective: August 11, 2026
Ask Grounds is an independent educational and planning assistant, primarily for University of Virginia students. This Policy explains what information the service handles, why it is needed, and the choices available to you.
1. Who this Policy covers
This Policy applies to the Ask Grounds website, account system, chat, Calendar, and connected features. Ask Grounds operates in the United States and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the University of Virginia (UVA).
The service is for people age 13 or older. It is not directed to children under 13, and children under 13 may not create or use an account. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided information, contact us so we can investigate and delete it as appropriate.
2. Information we collect
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Account and verification | Email address, password hash, email-verification status, optional verified UVA email status, account role, and preferences. |
| Chats and activity | Your prompts, saved conversations, assistant responses, tool requests and results, citations, feedback, approval decisions, and related AI-run records. |
| Calendar and connected services | Calendar entries, imported calendar data, encrypted feed links, and information you ask the service to retrieve from connected university systems. |
| Security and device signals | Essential session identifiers, browser and device labels, request timing, rate-limit and abuse-prevention signals, authentication events, and security audit records. |
| Support | Information you include when contacting us about the service, privacy, or your account. |
Please avoid putting sensitive information in a chat unless it is needed for the help you request. Ask Grounds does not ask for or receive your UVA password, Duo authentication details, or UVA browser cookies. The browser connector uses your existing signed-in UVA session to make allowlisted requests, then returns only the requested response data to Ask Grounds.
3. How we use information
We use personal information to:
- create, secure, verify, and support accounts and sessions;
- provide chat, educational planning, Calendar, search, and connected-service features;
- send service, account, security, verification, recovery, invitation, and requested notification emails;
- select and operate AI assistance, retrieve relevant information, preserve conversation history, and show tool activity;
- prevent abuse, diagnose failures, enforce role and approval boundaries, and protect users and the service;
- comply with law, respond to valid legal process, and establish or defend legal claims; and
- maintain and improve service reliability using operational information that does not add optional product analytics.
4. AI processing and connected sources
Ask Grounds uses third-party AI service providers selected by the application. Relevant prompts, conversation context, and tool results may be sent to those providers to generate, route, or title responses. AI providers may process this information on our behalf under their service terms. AI output can be incomplete, outdated, or wrong.
When you ask Ask Grounds to use a public source or connected service, information needed for that request may be sent to the university or other source provider. Requested results may become part of your saved chat, tool history, or AI context. Ask Grounds is not an official UVA advising or enrollment system, and UVA controls its own systems and records.
5. When information is shared
We disclose information only as needed for the purposes above, including to:
- AI service providers that process relevant chat and tool context;
- hosting, database, security, email-delivery, and other infrastructure providers;
- UVA and other public or connected data sources when you request a feature that uses them;
- professional advisers and authorities when reasonably necessary to comply with law, protect rights or safety, or address a dispute; and
- a successor in a merger, financing, reorganization, or sale, subject to applicable law and continued protection of the information.
Current V1 practice: Ask Grounds does not sell personal data, share it for cross-context targeted advertising, display advertising, use third-party marketing cookies, or run optional product analytics. Ask Grounds does not send marketing email in V1.
6. Cookies and browser storage
Ask Grounds uses essential, first-party cookies for authentication, session continuity, security, and human-verification protections. These cookies are not advertising cookies. Your browser may also store theme and interface preferences, route or filter state, and notification receipts. Disabling essential storage may prevent sign-in or other features from working.
7. Retention and deletion
- Chats: Saved until you delete chat history or delete your account. Deleting chat history removes saved conversations, messages, tool traces, pending approvals, and generated titles associated with those chats.
- Account deletion: A deletion request immediately revokes active access and removes encrypted application secrets. A seven-day cancellation period follows. If you do not cancel, the account and associated primary application records are purged after that grace period.
- Security audits: Pseudonymized authentication and security audit records may be kept for up to 90 days.
- Encrypted backups: Deleted data may remain in encrypted backups for up to 30 days before those backups expire.
- Optional private misuse reports: This feature is disabled by default. If enabled, a narrowly redacted and encrypted report may include excerpts from up to three same-thread user messages and may be kept for up to 90 days.
- Aggregate safety counts: Content-free daily outcome counts may be kept for up to 365 days.
Some limited information may be retained longer when required by law or reasonably necessary to resolve a security incident, enforce an unresolved legal claim, or document compliance. We will not use retained information for a new, incompatible purpose.
8. Your controls and privacy requests
Account settings let you delete chat history, reset preferences, clear temporary cache, manage sessions, change your password, and request account deletion. Ask Grounds does not currently provide an automated account-data export.
You may ask to access, correct, delete, or obtain a portable copy of personal information, or exercise other rights available under applicable law, by emailing contact@askgrounds.com. We may need to authenticate your request. If we deny a request and applicable law gives you an appeal right, reply with the subject “Privacy Appeal” and explain why you believe the decision should be reconsidered. We will not discriminate against you for exercising a privacy right.
9. Security
Ask Grounds uses administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed for the nature of the information it handles, including password hashing, encrypted storage for designated secrets, access controls, session protections, and approval boundaries for consequential actions. No service can guarantee absolute security. Protect your password, use a unique password, and contact us if you suspect unauthorized access.
10. Policy updates
We may update this Policy as the service or law changes. The posted effective date shows when the current version applies. We will provide direct notice or request consent when applicable law, the nature of a material change, or the terms of an earlier consent require it. Otherwise, the updated Policy applies when posted.
11. Contact
For privacy questions or requests, email contact@askgrounds.com.