The rules.

Terms of Service

By creating an account or using Monarch, you agree to these terms. If you're under 18, your parent or guardian also agrees to these terms on your behalf. Please read carefully.

1. What Monarch is

Monarch is an online study platform for secondary school students preparing for IGCSE, GCSE, A-Level, and equivalent qualifications. Depending on the subject, we provide flashcards, quizzes, past papers, Harko (our AI tutor), study notes, and other study tools. Not every tool is available for every subject; the subject page shows what is included. Our goal is to help you walk into the exam ready.

Monarch is run by Edoardo Zenari and Mateo Morina, two individuals based in Milan, Italy, with contact details listed under Contact. Monarch is not an incorporated company and has no company or VAT registration number. References to “Monarch,” “we,” “us,” and “our” mean the two of us.

2. Your account

• Minimum age: You must be at least 14 years old to create an account. If you are under 16 and located in the European Union, you confirm that you have your parent or legal guardian's permission to use Monarch, as required under Article 8 of the EU GDPR. If you are under 14 in Italy, or under the applicable digital consent age in your country, you may not use Monarch without verified parental consent.
• Accurate information: You must provide accurate information when signing up and keep it current.
• Account security: You are responsible for keeping your password secure. Do not share it with others. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account.
• One account per person: Do not create multiple accounts. We reserve the right to suspend or delete duplicate accounts.
• Suspension: We may suspend, restrict, or delete accounts that violate these terms or our community guidelines, with or without prior notice for serious violations.

3. Acceptable use

When using Monarch, you agree to:

• Use the platform for personal, non-commercial educational purposes only;
• Treat other students respectfully, including in study groups, comments, and any social features;
• Not send bullying, harassing, threatening, discriminatory, or sexually explicit messages;
• Not share content depicting violence, self-harm, illegal activity, or anything intended to harm minors;
• Not attempt to access other users' accounts, data, or sessions;
• Not use automated tools (bots, scrapers, headless browsers) to scrape content, extract flashcards in bulk, or abuse the AI tutor;
• Not attempt to manipulate XP, leaderboards, badges, or any other reputation features through cheating or exploitation;
• Not use Monarch to facilitate academic dishonesty in a way that violates your school's or examination board's policies. Monarch is a study aid, not a way to cheat on coursework or live assessments;
• Not reverse-engineer, decompile, or extract the underlying code, AI prompts, or proprietary algorithms behind Monarch's features;
• Not redistribute, resell, or sublicense any part of Monarch's content or features.

4. AI tutor and AI marking

Harko, Monarch’s AI tutor, and Monarch’s AI marking are designed to help with academic questions and practice work in subjects offered on the platform. Responses are generated by large language models (currently provided by Anthropic) and may occasionally contain errors, omissions, or outdated information. Always verify important information with your textbook, teacher, or official examination-board mark schemes.

The AI features are study aids, not a replacement for a qualified teacher. AI marking is not an assessment of record: it does not feed into any school gradebook, examination-board score, or official transcript. It is for practice and feedback only.

We do not guarantee that the AI tutor will be available at all times. AI features may be unavailable during model provider outages, scheduled maintenance, or where we exhaust our daily quota with a provider.

5. Subscriptions and payments

Available plans

• Free: Access to core features, including all past papers, at no cost. Free accounts have daily limits on some features (such as Quick checks, flashcard sessions and past papers) and a monthly allowance for Harko and the other AI features.
• Pro Monthly: €4.99 a month, renews monthly, cancel anytime. Access continues until the end of your paid month.
• Pro Annual: €49 a year, renews yearly, cancel anytime. Access continues until the end of your paid year.
• Lifetime: €119, paid once, no renewal. Permanent access to the paid features available on the date of purchase. “Lifetime” means for as long as Monarch operates; if we ever close Monarch we will give at least 90 days’ notice (section 9).
• What Pro adds: no daily limits on Quick checks, flashcard sessions or past papers, generous daily amounts of AI explanations, a much larger monthly AI allowance, and creating study groups. The Pricing page shows the current limits and allowances.

Billing

Payments are processed by Stripe. You enter your card details on Stripe’s page; we never see or store your card number. Prices shown are in EUR and include any applicable VAT. Monthly and annual subscriptions renew automatically at the start of each billing period at the then-current price. You may cancel at any time via Settings → Billing; access continues until the end of the paid period. We do not pro-rate refunds for mid-period cancellations. This does not affect your right of withdrawal below.

Right of withdrawal (EU consumers)

If you are a consumer in the EU, you have 14 days to withdraw from a paid plan without giving a reason. This right comes from the EU Consumer Rights Directive (Directive 2011/83/EU), implemented in Italy by the Codice del Consumo (Legislative Decree 206/2005). The 14 days start on the day you buy.

Starting straight away. Your plan starts as soon as you pay. So on Stripe’s payment page you are asked to tick a box that reads: “I agree to the Terms of Service. I ask Monarch to start immediately and understand my 14-day right to withdraw ends once the service is fully performed. If I withdraw before then, I pay only for what I have used. If I am under 18, my parent or guardian has approved this purchase.” You cannot pay without ticking it. By ticking it you expressly consent to immediate performance and acknowledge that your right of withdrawal ends once the service has been fully performed.

If you withdraw after your plan has started. You can still withdraw within the 14 days. We refund what you paid minus an amount in proportion to the service you received up to the day you told us. For a monthly plan that is the days used out of the days in that month; for an annual plan, the days used out of 365; for Lifetime, €4.99 for each month or part of a month started. Example: you withdraw from a monthly plan on day 3 of a 30-day month, so we keep 3/30 of €4.99 (€0.50) and refund €4.49.

How to withdraw. Email contact@studymonarch.com within the 14 days with a clear statement that you are withdrawing. You can also withdraw with the ‘Withdraw from contract’ button in Settings > Plan & billing. You can copy the form below, but you do not have to. We refund within 14 days of receiving it, to the card you paid with, at no cost to you.

Refunds

Outside the 14-day withdrawal period, send refund requests to contact@studymonarch.com and we will look at each one individually. Nothing in these terms limits the rights you have under consumer law, for example if the service is faulty or not as described.

Codes

We sometimes give out codes. Each code gives one reward: an amount of gems, a number of streak freezes, or Pro for the period stated on the code, starting when you redeem it. A code can have an expiry date and a limited number of uses, can be redeemed only once per account, and gives nothing once it has expired or been switched off. You cannot redeem a Pro code while you already have an active paid plan or while a subscription payment is failing; the code is not used up in that case. While Pro from a code is active you cannot also buy a subscription, so you are never charged twice; you can subscribe once it ends. Gems have no cash value. Pro from a code ends if you delete your account. Pro from a code is free: it has no cash value and is not refunded. Codes may not be sold or traded, and we may switch off a code that was sold or abused. After five wrong codes in 15 minutes, redeeming pauses for 15 minutes.

Parental consent for paid plans

If you are under 18, you need a parent’s or guardian’s authorisation before you buy any paid plan, and the payment page asks you to confirm that you have it. If a parent or guardian tells us a purchase was made without their authorisation, we will refund it in full on request. Email contact@studymonarch.com with the receipt or the email address of the account.

6. Content ownership

Monarch's content

Original study content created by Monarch, including flashcards, study notes, AI prompts, illustrations, branding, and proprietary feature implementations, is the intellectual property of Monarch. and protected by copyright. You may use it for personal study purposes. You may not redistribute, republish, sell, or use it to train competing AI models without our written permission.

Examination board content

Monarch hosts copies of some past examination papers and mark schemes, and links to others on the exam board’s own website. The exam boards own the copyright in their papers:

• Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE / CIE), © UCLES
• AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance), © AQA
• Pearson Edexcel, © Pearson Education Ltd
• OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations), © OCR
• Other awarding bodies as applicable

Monarch does not own this material and claims no rights in it. We serve Cambridge papers from our own copies, except the June 2024 series, which opens on Cambridge International’s website. AQA, OCR and Pearson papers open on the board’s own website. If you represent an exam board and want a paper removed, email contact@studymonarch.com and we will remove it promptly.

If you are a representative of an examination board and wish to discuss our use of your material, please see our Copyright & DMCA section below.

Your content

Personal study data you create (flashcards you make, notes you write, decks you build, progress data, AI tutor conversation history visible to you) belongs to you. You grant Monarch a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to host, store, process, and display this content solely for the purpose of providing Monarch's services to you. This licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except where we are legally required to retain certain records.

Content you post in shared spaces, such as study groups and messages where available, may be visible to other users. We may moderate this content for safety, and we may remove content that violates these terms.

7. Limitation of liability

Monarch is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, except where such warranties cannot lawfully be excluded under your local consumer protection law.

We do our best to ensure accuracy and reliability, but we cannot guarantee that:

• The platform will always be available, uninterrupted, or error-free;
• All study content is 100% accurate (mistakes happen; please report them to contact@studymonarch.com);
• The AI tutor will produce correct answers in all cases;
• Your data will be permanently retrievable in the event of a catastrophic system failure (we maintain backups but make no absolute guarantee).

We are not liable for exam results or academic outcomes. Use Monarch as one part of your study preparation, alongside your teachers, textbooks, and official examination board guidance.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total liability to you for any claim arising out of or relating to Monarch is limited to the amount you have paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim, or €100, whichever is greater. This limitation does not apply to liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, fraud, gross negligence or wilful misconduct, or any liability that cannot be lawfully limited under the consumer law of your country.

8. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. If we make significant changes (changes that materially affect your rights or our obligations), we will:

• Update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page;
• Post a notice in the app or send an email to your registered address at least 14 days before the changes take effect;
• Give you the opportunity to cancel your subscription and request a pro-rated refund if you do not accept the new terms.

Continued use of Monarch after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the new terms.

9. Termination

You may terminate your account at any time via Settings → Delete Account or by emailing contact@studymonarch.com. Upon deletion, your personal data is removed in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

We may terminate or suspend your account if you materially breach these terms, if required by law, or if we discontinue the Monarch service. Where we discontinue Monarch entirely, we will provide at least 90 days' notice and offer a way to export your data.

10. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by Italian law. If you are a consumer, this choice does not take away the protection of the mandatory rules of the law of the country where you live (Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008, “Rome I”). Specifically:

• If you are a consumer resident in the European Union, you benefit from the mandatory protections of the consumer law of your country of residence;
• Monarch is established in Milan, Italy. Nothing in these terms deprives you of the mandatory protections of the consumer law of your country of residence, and as a consumer you may bring proceedings in the courts of your own country of residence.

Before initiating any formal dispute, please contact us at contact@studymonarch.com so we have an opportunity to resolve the matter informally.

Privacy Policy

Many of our users are under 18. We take this seriously. This policy explains what data we collect, why, and how we protect it, in plain language both students and parents can understand.

1. Who we are

Monarch is run by Edoardo Zenari and Mateo Morina, two individuals based in Milan, Italy (20145 Milano (MI), Italia). Monarch is not a company. We decide together how and why your personal data is used, so we are the data controllers under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Italian Legislative Decree 196/2003 as amended, supervised by the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali.

Contact for privacy matters: contact@studymonarch.com

Monarch is established in Italy. If you have a complaint we cannot resolve, you can complain to the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali (garanteprivacy.it), or to the data protection authority of the EU country where you live or work. In the UK, you can complain to the ICO.

2. Age requirements and parental consent

By creating an account, you confirm that you are at least 14 years old. If you are under 16 and located in the European Union, you confirm that you have your parent or guardian's permission to use Monarch, as required under Article 8 of the GDPR.

If you are under 14 in Italy or under the digital consent age applicable in your country, you may not use Monarch without verified parental consent. We may ask for verifiable parental consent if we have reason to believe a user is under the relevant age.

We do not knowingly collect data from children under 14. If we learn that we have done so without proper parental consent, we will delete the data immediately. Parents who believe their child has provided data without their knowledge can email contact@studymonarch.com for immediate action.

Extra care for under-18s. Most people on Monarch are under 18. We do not ask your age, so we give everyone the settings we would choose for a child: your profile and activity are visible to friends only, people who are not friends of your friends cannot send you a friend request or a message, nothing you do on Monarch is used to train AI models, and analytics stay off unless you are 16 or over and say yes. If you are under 18, a parent or guardian must authorise any purchase (see the Terms, section 5).

3. What data we collect

When you create an account

• Account information: your email address, the name and username you choose and, if you set one, a password stored only as a bcrypt hash. When you sign up with email we send a verification link; it works once and expires after 24 hours. When you finish your profile we also record the date and time you accepted these terms.
• Sign in with Google: if you choose “Continue with Google”, Google confirms who you are. Google sends us your Google account ID, your email address and whether Google has verified it, and the name and profile picture on your Google account. We keep your email address and your Google account ID so we can recognise you next time. We do not use your Google profile picture. We ask Google only for basic sign-in permission (“openid”, “email”, “profile”), so signing in does not let us see your Gmail, Drive, Calendar or contacts. If you choose “Connect Google Calendar” (below), you give Google a separate permission for your calendar only. Google learns that you signed in to Monarch; how Google handles that is covered by Google’s own privacy policy.
• The “are you human” check: when you create an account, when you continue with Google, and before we serve a past-paper PDF, we run Cloudflare Turnstile. Your browser sends Cloudflare technical signals (such as your IP address and browser details) and Cloudflare tells us whether the check passed. We keep only the result. We use it to stop automated sign-ups and scraping, never for advertising or to follow you around the web.
• Your privacy choices: your cookie and analytics choice (and, if you said so, that you are 16 or over), where you made it (the banner, Settings, or your browser’s privacy signal), the policy version you saw and when, so we can show what you agreed to.
• Security records: your signed-in devices (browser type, a shortened IP address, when last used), a log of account actions (IP address, action, time) and, if you turn them on, your passkeys and two-step verification settings.

When you study

• Study progress: flashcard ratings, quiz attempts and scores, topics and units completed, streaks (including the days a streak freeze kept your streak going, which do not add to the count), XP, badges and gems, and your study plan and calendar.
• Study history: each time you answer a quiz question or rate a flashcard we record which question or card it was, its subject and topic, whether you got it right or how you rated it, which option you picked, how long you took, how sure you said you were (only if you said), and when. This is how Monarch shows you what you are getting better at and decides what you should review next. We also look at these records added up across all students, without names, to find questions that are unclear or have the wrong answer marked.
• Timetable photo (optional): if you upload a photo of your school timetable, we send it once to our AI provider, Anthropic, to read the lessons, days and times from it. As soon as it has been read, the photo is deleted. We never store it. We keep only the timetable it produced, which you can edit or delete at any time. A timetable can show your school, class and teachers’ names, so crop out anything you do not want read, and please do not upload a photo that shows other students’ details.
• Harko, the AI tutor: what you write to Harko and its replies are kept for 30 days so you can carry on a conversation, then deleted automatically. You can delete a chat sooner yourself. Your messages are sent to Anthropic to produce the replies. Your chats are never used to train AI models, by us or by Anthropic.
• Your notes: the notes you write in Monarch (a title, the subject and the text), saved to your account so they are on all your devices. Only you can see them.
• Daily activity: the days you use Monarch and roughly how long you are active each day (for your streak and daily XP), and how many Quick checks, flashcard sessions, past papers, searches, AI explanations and AI markings you use each day, so we can apply your plan’s daily limits.
• Quests and your settings: your progress on quests, the courses you study and the options you choose for them, how you arrange your dashboard, and your display preferences.
• AI marking: written answers you submit for marking are sent to Anthropic, and the result is shown to you. We do not keep the results long-term.
• Files you attach to Harko: you can attach up to 4 pictures or PDFs (4 MB each at most) to a Harko message. They are stored privately in Cloudflare R2, linked to you and that chat, and nobody else can see them. They are sent to Anthropic, first to check them for instructions aimed at the AI and then to answer you. They are deleted when you delete the chat or your account, and after 30 days at most. They are never used to train AI models.
• Listen (text-to-speech), Lifetime plan: if you use it, the text you choose is sent to ElevenLabs to make the audio. We do not keep the audio.
• Practice and interactive papers: when you answer a practice set or an interactive paper, we save your typed answers, equations, table and graph answers, drawings, highlights and notes on the page, the time you spend, your marks and your best mark for each part of a question, so you can carry on from another device. Photos of your working stay on your device and are never uploaded.
• Lessons: which lessons you have finished, and when.
• Lesson notes: notes you write on a lesson, and where in the lesson each one is attached. They are saved to your account (plain text, up to 2,000 characters each) so they are on all your devices. Only you can see them, and they are never sent to Harko or anyone else. Deleting a note, or your account, deletes it.
• Rewards and badge levels: we keep a record of the rewards you claim and the badge levels you reach, so each can be given only once.
• AI allowance: we count the AI you use each month (the AI tokens and what they cost us) so we can apply your plan’s monthly allowance. We keep the count, never the content.
• Calendar link (optional): if you turn on the calendar link, we store a scrambled form of its secret (never the link itself), when you created it, and when your calendar app last fetched it. Anyone holding the link can see your study sessions, so treat it like a password. You can reset it or turn it off at any time, and it stops working when you log out everywhere or delete your account. Your calendar app (for example Apple or Google) fetches the link under its own privacy terms.
• Imported calendars (optional): if you import your own calendar, by pasting its private link (for example Google Calendar’s secret address in iCal format) or uploading a .ics file, we show its events in your Monarch calendar. We keep the import’s name, colour and status and its events (title, start and end, time zone) from 30 days back to 12 months ahead. We store the link encrypted and treat it like a password; the events are visible only to you. We never show the full link again, never log it and never put it in your data export. Our server fetches the link about every 30 minutes, and when you open Calendar, to keep the events up to date (less often, down to once a day, while the link keeps failing); the request goes straight to your calendar provider. Removing the import deletes it and its events, and so does deleting your account.
• Google Calendar (optional): if you choose “Connect Google Calendar”, you give Google a separate permission for two things: reading your calendar events, and managing one calendar that Monarch creates in your Google account, called “Monarch”. Monarch shows your Google events in your study calendar, visible only to you, and adds your study sessions and exam dates to the “Monarch” calendar. It never changes your other calendars. We keep each event’s title, start and end, whether it lasts all day, and time zone, from 30 days back to 12 months ahead (at most 2,000 events), and which of your study sessions matches which Google event. Monarch refreshes them every 15 minutes and when you open your calendar, and sends a change you make in Monarch to Google straight after it is saved. We use this only to give you that calendar feature: not for advertising, not to train any AI model, never sold, and not shared with anyone except Google itself. The access Google gives us is stored encrypted, is never shown in your browser, is never written to our logs and is never put in your data export. You can disconnect at any time: Monarch then revokes its access at Google and deletes that access, the imported events and the matches. Deleting your account does the same. The “Monarch” calendar stays in your Google account for you to keep or delete. Monarch’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
• Voice input: if you use the microphone in Harko AI, your browser turns your voice into text. In Chrome that uses Google’s speech service. We do not receive, record or store any audio; only the text you choose to send reaches us, and it is kept like a typed message.

Your profile and other students

• Profile: your display name, username, profile photo (only if you upload one) and profile banner (a pattern you pick from our set). Your photo is stored in Cloudflare R2. Instead of a photo you can pick an animal picture: we store which of our animals you chose and its colour, so we can show it as your picture. Picking one deletes any photo you uploaded. It is included in your data export and deleted with your account.
• Friends, follows and blocks: friend requests, your friends (friendship is mutual: someone becomes your friend only when you accept), the people you follow and who follow you, and the people you have blocked. These are saved on your account so they work on every device.
• Messages and study groups: direct messages you send and receive, the study groups you join (name, members, goals and invite code) and group chat. Messages are stored so the people in the conversation can read them. If you delete a direct message, we erase its text.
• Invite links: if you share your invite link, anyone who opens it can see your display name and send you a friend request. When someone joins through your link, we record that, so we can connect you.
• Notifications: your in-app notification feed (for example friend requests, group activity, badges and study reminders) and your notification settings. If you turn on push notifications, we store the delivery address your browser gives us. Push messages are delivered by your browser’s own push service (for example Google, Mozilla or Apple).
• Reports: if you report a person or a message, we store your report and a copy of what you reported, so we can deal with it. If you report a problem with our content (a question, a mark scheme or how a page shows), we keep what you wrote and any text or answer you chose to include, so we can check and fix it.

What other students can see

Other Monarch users can see your username, display name, profile photo and banner when they meet you on Monarch, for example in a friend request, a study group or a message. If you picked an animal picture, it is shown in the same places, to the same people, as a photo would be. Your subjects, whether you have studied today and the rest of your profile are shown to your friends only unless you change it. You choose who sees them (everyone, friends, or only you) in Settings → Privacy. Following someone does not make you friends and does not unlock anything that is friends-only. Your username and scores appear on subject leaderboards unless you switch leaderboards off in Settings → Privacy. We never show your email address to other students.

Payments, analytics and errors

• Launch month: if you were on our early list, the record of your free month of Pro: the email it was promised to, when you claimed it and when it ends.
• Payment information: if you buy a paid plan, you enter your card details on Stripe’s payment page. They go straight to Stripe and never pass through or stay on our servers. We keep your Stripe customer ID, your plan, its renewal date and whether payment succeeded.
• Redeem codes: when you redeem a code, we record which reward you received and when. If a code is wrong, we record only the time of the failed attempt, never the code you typed; after five wrong tries we pause redeeming for 15 minutes, and we delete these records after 24 hours.
• Usage analytics: pseudonymous usage data (pages visited, features used), collected only after you accept analytics in the cookie banner. Used to improve the platform.
• Error reports: technical details for debugging when something breaks. We do not auto-send IP addresses or request bodies, and emails, tokens and Stripe keys are removed from error reports before they are sent.
• Videos: some lessons include YouTube videos in YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com). Nothing is loaded from YouTube until you press play on a video. When you do, your browser connects to YouTube (Google), which receives your IP address and browser details, and YouTube’s own privacy policy applies to the player.
• Emails you send us: our mailboxes are hosted by Google Workspace, so anything you email us is stored there.

4. Legal basis for processing (GDPR Article 6)

Where we rely on legitimate interest you can object at any time by emailing contact@studymonarch.com.

5. Third-party services (sub-processors)

We use the following services to run Monarch. Each one processes personal data for us under a data processing agreement. Where a provider is outside the European Economic Area, or can access data from outside it, the transfer is covered by the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses in that agreement, or by the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified. You can ask for a copy of these safeguards at contact@studymonarch.com.

Some services decide for themselves how to use the data they receive, so they are not our processors: Google when you sign in with Google, connect Google Calendar or watch a YouTube video, and your browser’s push service when it delivers a notification. Their own privacy policies apply.

6. How we use your data

• To provide and personalise your study experience;
• To track your progress, calculate streaks, and use your study history to decide what you should review next;
• To power Harko, AI marking, and reading a timetable photo when you ask us to;
• To let you add friends, follow people, message, and study in groups, and to send you notifications about them;
• To keep those features safe: blocking, handling reports, and acting on abuse;
• To process payments if you buy a paid plan;
• To send password reset and verification emails;
• To improve the platform based on aggregated usage patterns, and to find unclear or wrongly marked questions;
• To stop automated sign-ups and scraping, and to detect, prevent and respond to fraud, abuse, security incidents and harm to users;
• To comply with legal obligations.

7. What we do not do

• We do not sell your personal data to anyone, ever;
• We do not show third-party advertising;
• We do not share your email address or contact details with other students;
• We do not use your personal data, study content, study history, Harko chats or timetable photos to train AI models, ours or anyone else’s. Settings → Privacy has a “Help improve Harko AI” switch. It is off unless you turn it on. Turning it on tells us you are happy for that to happen in future; we will not do it until we have told you exactly what we would use, how it is protected and how to withdraw, and until we can make sure it never includes anyone under 18. You can turn it off at any time in Settings → Privacy, and that takes effect immediately. We record each change with its time and the policy version you saw;
• We do not track you across other websites;
• We do not use cross-site advertising pixels (Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, etc.) on logged-in pages.

8. Data retention

9. Your rights

If you are in the EU, UK, or another jurisdiction with equivalent data protection law, you (or your parent/guardian if you are under 16) have the right to:

• Access: See what data we hold about you. Your progress and account info are visible in Settings; for a full export see below.
• Export (portability): Download a JSON copy of your account, your notes, progress, study history, Harko chats, timetable, friends and follows, imported calendars (without their links), your Google Calendar connection (its status and last sync, never Google’s access) and the events imported from it, messages and study-group messages, notifications, AI usage counters, the files you attached to Harko (as links that work for 24 hours), and subscription state. Available to logged-in users in Settings → Export My Data.
• Delete (erasure): Settings → Delete Account triggers an immediate hard delete. You may also email contact@studymonarch.com if you cannot access your account.
• Correct (rectification): Update your name, username, email, password, profile photo, banner and privacy settings in Settings.
• Object or restrict processing: Email contact@studymonarch.com with your request. We will action it within 30 days.
• Withdraw consent: Where we rely on your consent (e.g. analytics cookies, marketing email), you may withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of past processing.
• Lodge a complaint: With your national data protection authority. For EU users, find yours at edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/about-edpb/members. For UK users, the ICO at ico.org.uk.

We respond to data subject requests within 30 days, or 60 days for complex requests (with notice to you).

10. Security

We protect your data with:

• HTTPS encryption (TLS 1.2+) for all data in transit;
• Passwords hashed with bcrypt before storage;
• HTTP-only, secure, SameSite=Lax cookies for session authentication;
• Content Security Policy headers to mitigate XSS;
• Row-level security on our database (Supabase);
• Rate limiting and bot defence (Cloudflare Turnstile);
• Sub-processors selected for security posture (PCI DSS Level 1 for payments, SOC 2 Type II where available).

If we discover a personal data breach that is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify the relevant supervisory authority within 72 hours and, where required by GDPR Article 34, notify affected users without undue delay.

11. International data transfers

Some of the services we use are based in the United States, or can access data from there. Section 5 lists each one, where it is, and the safeguard that covers the transfer: the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses (with the UK International Data Transfer Addendum for UK users), or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified. These are supplemented by encryption in transit and at rest. You can ask for a copy of the safeguards at contact@studymonarch.com.

12. Changes to this policy

If we make significant changes to this Privacy Policy, we will update this page and the “Last updated” date, and tell you by email or an in-app notice before the change applies to you. New features that collect new data are described here before they go live.

Cookies Policy

Monarch uses cookies and similar technologies. This section explains what we use, why, and how you can control them.

1. What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small text file stored on your device when you visit a website. Cookies allow websites to recognise your device, remember your preferences, and provide certain features. We also use similar technologies including local storage and session storage, which we treat the same way for the purposes of this policy.

2. Cookies we use

Essential cookies

Required for Monarch to function. These do not require your consent under Article 5(3) of the EU ePrivacy Directive because they are strictly necessary to provide a service you have requested.

• Authentication session: A signed JWT stored as an httpOnly, secure, SameSite=Lax cookie. Allows you to stay logged in.
• “Are you human” check (Cloudflare Turnstile): runs when you create an account or continue with Google to sign in, and before we serve past-paper PDFs. Cloudflare may store a short-lived item in your browser for the check, and we set a short-lived cookie confirming you passed it before serving a PDF.
• Cookie consent state: Remembers your cookie preferences so we don't ask you again on every visit.

Disabling these prevents sign-in, past-paper access, or proper functioning of the consent banner.

Analytics cookies

Loaded only after you accept analytics in the cookie banner, which requires confirming you are 16 or older (GDPR Art. 8). Sentry session replay — which records how you navigate and interact with pages (text and form inputs are masked) — is a separate, optional opt-in; analytics works without it. Declining keeps everything off and you lose no features. We honour the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal as a binding opt-out: while GPC is present, analytics stays off and cannot be enabled here. Data is pseudonymous and tied to a random device ID, never to your name or email.

• Vercel Analytics: Page-views, visitor counts, top pages.
• Vercel Speed Insights: Page-load performance metrics.
• PostHog: Feature-usage events, funnel analysis. Autocapture enabled.
• Sentry session replay: Sample rate 10%, all text and inputs masked. Helps us reproduce bugs.

What we don't use

We do not use:

• Advertising cookies or tracking pixels (Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, etc.);
• Cross-site tracking or fingerprinting techniques;
• Third-party marketing networks;
• Affiliate-tracking cookies.

3. Managing cookies

You can:

• Use the cookie banner to accept or decline analytics on your first visit. You can change your choice at any time via Settings → Privacy & data → Analytics cookies, or “Manage cookies” in the footer of this page;
• Clear cookies in your browser settings at any time;
• Request deletion of all associated data by emailing contact@studymonarch.com.

We honour the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal — and the older "Do Not Track" signal — as a binding opt-out: while either is present, analytics cookies stay off and cannot be enabled on this site (turn the signal off in your browser to change that).

Copyright & DMCA

How to report copyright concerns or counter-notice a takedown.

Reporting copyright infringement

If you believe content on Monarch infringes your copyright, please send a notice to contact@studymonarch.com with the subject line "Copyright Notice." Your notice should include:

1. A description of the copyrighted work you claim has been infringed;
2. The exact URL(s) on Monarch where the allegedly infringing material appears;
3. Your contact information (name, address, telephone, email);
4. A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorised by the copyright owner;
5. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorised to act on their behalf;
6. Your physical or electronic signature.

Notices that comply with the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512) will be processed within 10 business days. Notices from examination boards regarding past-paper content are reviewed within 5 business days as a courtesy.

Counter-notification

If your content was removed in response to a copyright notice and you believe the removal was in error or based on a misidentification, you may submit a counter-notification to the same email address. We will forward valid counter-notifications to the original complainant; if no court action is filed within 10–14 business days, we may restore the content.

Repeat infringers

We will terminate the accounts of users who are repeat copyright infringers, in accordance with applicable law.

Contact

How to reach us, for any of the above.