Privacy policy

For children: the short version

Your tutor is a computer program (AI), not a person.
We keep notes about your lessons so your tutor can help you learn. Your parent or carer can read them, and your lessons.
When you talk, we turn your voice into words and then delete the recording.
We never sell your information or show you adverts.
If something you say makes us worried about your safety, we will tell a grown-up who can help.
You can ask your parent or carer to see, change or delete your information at any time.

1. Who we are

Tallgrove is a service run by Nexform AI (NEXFORMAI LTD, registered in England and Wales, company number 16972967), registered office 3rd Floor, 86–90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE (“we”, “us”). We are the controller of the personal data described in this policy and are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) under number ZC204919.

Contact our data protection lead at hello@tallgrove.co.uk or by post at the address above.

2. What we collect

About parents and carers

Name, email address, mobile number, postcode and billing address
Account login details and the devices you approve
Payment records. Card details are handled by Stripe, or by Apple or Google if you pay in our app; we don’t see or store your full card number
Messages you send us and records of support calls
Your answers to our feedback survey, if you choose to give them
Your marketing preferences and cookie choices

About children

First name, school year and, if you choose to tell us, information about learning needs
Learning records: subjects, levels, lesson plans, answers, scores, mock tests and reports
Mock exam certificates: the name you confirm for the certificate (first name, and a surname only if you add one), the subject, level, grade, percentage, date and certificate number
Lesson transcripts: the text of what your child and their tutor say and write in lessons
The tutor’s notes: strengths, gaps, common mistakes, pace and interests used to personalise lessons
Usage information: lesson times, hours used, the device used and basic technical logs

When your child speaks in a lesson, the audio is converted to text and the audio is then deleted. We don’t use cameras, collect images of children or use facial or voice recognition to identify anyone.

Information about a child’s learning needs or wellbeing can be special category data. We only collect it if you choose to give it to us, or if it comes up in a lesson, and we protect it with extra care.

3. How we use it

To provide tutoring, personalise lessons and keep track of progress
To produce reports, mock test results and alerts for parents
To book exams with exam centres on your behalf
To take payments and manage your package
To keep children safe, including filtering lesson content and reviewing safeguarding concerns
To prevent fraud and enforce our fair use policy, for example by spotting accounts shared between households
To answer questions and handle complaints
To improve Tallgrove, using information that has been aggregated or de-identified where possible
To send news and offers, only if you’ve agreed

Mock exam certificates and online checking

When your child passes a mock exam, you confirm the name to print on their certificate. You can leave the surname off. We make the certificate as a PDF, keep it in your parent account and email you a copy.

Each certificate has a number (like TG-26-0001-7Q4K). Anyone who has the number can check it at tallgrove.co.uk/verify. The check shows only your child’s first name and the first letter of their surname (if you gave one), the subject, the level, the grade and the date it was awarded. It never shows the percentage, the full surname, your details or anything else about your child.

Online checking is on for each new certificate so that you can share it, for example with a tutor or school. You can switch it off, and back on, for any certificate in the parent app (Reports, then the mock exam result). When it’s off, the check page only says that checking is switched off.

Feedback surveys

About three weeks after your family’s first lesson (or sooner, once most of your package hours are used), we ask you once, in the parent app and by email, how Tallgrove is going: a star rating, what you love, what you don’t like, what we could do better, which features you’d like, and anything else. Every question is optional, and you can say no or ask us to remind you later. Children are never asked. We use your answers only to improve Tallgrove, and we look at star ratings across families as a whole. Like other messages you send us, your answers are checked for safety: if something suggests a child may be at risk, it goes to our safeguarding lead. Afterwards we invite everyone to rate the app in the app store; any rating you leave there is handled by Apple or Google.

4. Our lawful bases

Contract: to provide the service you’ve signed up for, including lessons, reports and exam bookings.
Legal obligation: for tax and accounting records, and to make safeguarding referrals where the law requires.
Legitimate interests: to keep the service secure, prevent misuse, improve lessons and keep children safe. We weigh these against children’s interests and rights, in line with the ICO’s Children’s Code.
Consent: for marketing emails and non-essential cookies. You can withdraw consent at any time.
Special category data: where you give us information about your child’s needs, we rely on your explicit consent. For safeguarding, we rely on the substantial public interest condition for safeguarding children under the Data Protection Act 2018.

5. AI tutors and your data

Tutors are AI systems. They use your child’s learning record and recent lessons to decide what to teach next.
No decision with a legal or similarly significant effect on your child is made by AI alone. Safeguarding concerns are always reviewed by a person.
We don’t use children’s data to train AI models, and our contracts with AI providers don’t allow them to use it for training.
Lesson content is filtered before and after the AI responds, in line with the Department for Education’s generative AI product safety standards.
Mock exams are marked against the mark scheme: number and short answers by computer, written answers by AI. When the AI is unsure, the answer is marked again. The result is a practice result, not an official qualification.
You can read, correct, download or delete your child’s tutor notes from your parent account.

We use trusted suppliers (processors) who act on our instructions under a written contract:

Hosting: Hostinger. This website is hosted by Hostinger, and the Tallgrove app and its databases run on a Hostinger server in Manchester, UK
AI model provider for tutoring: Anthropic (Claude)
Voice providers for speech-to-text and text-to-speech: ElevenLabs
Live tutor video (the tutor's face and lip movement): Anam
Payments: Stripe, and Apple or Google for payments made in our app
Email delivery: Postmark. Text-message alerts to our safeguarding lead (not to families): Twilio, once switched on
App notifications and app builds: Expo (push notifications and EAS app builds), with Google Firebase Cloud Messaging delivering notifications to Android devices
Analytics, only with your consent: none in use yet. We will name the provider here before we switch any on

We also share information with exam centres when you ask us to book an exam, and with local authorities, the police or other agencies when needed to protect a child or when the law requires. We never sell personal data.

7. International transfers

Our main systems are hosted in the UK. Some suppliers, such as AI and voice providers, may process data outside the UK. When they do, we use safeguards approved under UK law, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or transfer to countries covered by UK adequacy regulations.

8. How long we keep it

Account and learning records: while your account is open, then 12 months after it closes so you can come back or ask for a copy
Mock exam certificates: while your account is open, then 12 months after it closes. Online checking stops when the certificate is deleted
Lesson transcripts: 24 months from the lesson, unless needed for a safeguarding record
Feedback survey answers: 2 years from when you answer, or until your account is deleted if that’s sooner
Voice recordings: deleted immediately after they’re converted to text
Payment and tax records: 6 years, as the law requires
Safeguarding records: in line with statutory guidance, which can mean until the child is 25 or longer

9. Security

We protect data with encryption in transit and at rest, access controls, multi-factor authentication for staff, regular security testing and staff training. We are Cyber Essentials certified.

10. Your rights

You, and your child, have rights under UK GDPR to:

access the personal data we hold
have inaccurate data corrected
have data deleted
restrict or object to some uses
receive data in a portable format
withdraw consent at any time

Parents can make most requests from their account. Otherwise email hello@tallgrove.co.uk. We reply within one month. Older children can exercise their own rights, and we will help them understand their information.

11. Complaints

Please contact us first and we’ll try to put things right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office: ico.org.uk, telephone 0303 123 1113.

12. Changes to this policy

We’ll tell you by email before any important change to how we use your information.