Introduction
This Privacy Policy explains what personal data StudyWithSTEM ("we", "us") collects when you visit studywithstem.github.io (the "Site"), subscribe to our Newsletter, or contact us — why we collect it, who we share it with, and the rights you have over it. It forms part of our Terms and Conditions and should be read alongside them.
A promise up front, in plain terms: this is a small educational website. There are no accounts, no logins, no advertising, and no data-hungry tracking. We collect the minimum needed to keep the Site running and the Newsletter arriving — and we never sell what little we hold.
We've written this in (mostly) plain English. Where a legal term is unavoidable, we explain what it means.
Who we are
For data-protection purposes (including the EU and UK GDPR), the data controller for StudyWithSTEM is the individual who runs it, based in their place of residence. It is not a company, and there is no team — just one person making posters.
You can reach the operator about anything privacy-related at studywithstem@gmail.com, or via our Contact page. Both go to the same single inbox, and that's the fastest way to get something fixed, exported, or deleted.
What we collect
In short: very little. The Site has no user accounts, no comment system, and no logins, so there is no profile of you stored anywhere. All personal data that can exist falls into four small buckets:
- Newsletter data — the name and email address you provide when subscribing.
- Messages — emails you send us (questions, corrections, feedback, permission requests).
- Usage data — pseudonymous, aggregate analytics about how the Site is used (see Section 05).
- Theme preference — your light/dark choice, stored only in your own browser.
What we never collect: payment details (Buy Me a Coffee handles those directly), your precise location, your real-world identity, your browsing history on other sites, or advertising profiles of any kind. There is nothing to sell — and we wouldn't sell it if there were.
Data you give us
Newsletter. If you subscribe, we collect the name and email address you type into the form, plus a record that you opted in (and when). This is passed to our email provider, Brevo, which delivers the Newsletter on our behalf. Your name is used only to personalise the emails; your email only to send them. The opt-in record exists as proof of consent. Unsubscribing removes you from the list promptly — a minimal "do not contact" record may be kept so we don't accidentally re-add you.
Messages. If you email us, we receive whatever you put in that email — your address, your name, and the content of your message. Threads are kept only as long as needed to handle your query (see Section 11).
Supporter data. If you support us on Buy Me a Coffee, your payment and account details are processed entirely on that platform. We may see your supporter name and any message you leave, but we never see card or payment details.
Automatic data & cookies
Like nearly every website, a small amount of data is collected automatically when you visit:
- Google Analytics — sets the _ga family of cookies (which persist for up to two years unless you delete them) and records pseudonymous usage: pages viewed, device and browser type, referral source, and approximate country (your IP is processed only in shortened form to estimate geography; it isn't stored in our reports). We use it to see which posters and tools are actually used.
- Hosting logs — the Site is served by GitHub Pages; their systems may log requests, including IP addresses, for security and abuse prevention.
- Local storage — your light/dark theme choice is saved in your browser's localStorage under the key sws-theme. It is never transmitted to us or anyone else, and clearing your browser data removes it.
What we don't do: advertising cookies, cross-site trackers, browser fingerprinting, or session recording. If you block or delete cookies, the Site keeps working — you'll just get the default theme, and blocking analytics simply makes our usage stats a little less useful.
How we use it
We use personal data only for:
- Delivering the Newsletter you subscribed to.
- Answering the messages you send us.
- Understanding, in aggregate, which content is used — so we make more of what helps.
- Keeping the Site secure and available (abuse and error detection).
- Meeting legal obligations, where any apply.
We do not use your data for advertising, profiling, automated decision-making, or anything unrelated to the list above. There is no "we may share with hundreds of partners" paragraph here — there are no partners.
Legal bases
If you're in the EU/EEA or UK, the GDPR requires a legal basis for processing personal data. Ours are:
- Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) — for the Newsletter. You opt in with a checkbox, and you can withdraw at any time using the unsubscribe link in every email. Withdrawing consent doesn't affect sends made before it.
- Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) — for privacy-respecting, aggregate analytics, for site security and abuse prevention, and for replying to your emails. We've weighed these against your interests: the data is minimal, purely aggregate, and never used for ads.
- Legal obligation — on the rare occasion the law requires keeping or disclosing something.
Where processing is based on consent, you can withdraw it at any time (see Section 12).
Third-party services
We rely on a small number of third parties to run the Site and Newsletter. None of them receives more data than their job requires, and none of them is an advertising network:
- Brevo (Newsletter) — receives subscribers' names, email addresses, and opt-in records to send and manage the list. Based in the EU (France). See Brevo's privacy policy.
- Google Analytics (usage statistics) — receives pseudonymous events about how the Site is used. Google LLC, USA. See Google's privacy policy.
- GitHub Pages (hosting) — serves the Site's files; their systems may log requests, including IP addresses, for security and abuse prevention. GitHub, Inc., USA. See GitHub's privacy statement.
- Buy Me a Coffee (voluntary payments) — processes payments and supporter accounts entirely on its platform; we only ever see supporter names and any messages left. See Buy Me a Coffee's privacy policy.
- Google Workspace (our email) — messages you send to studywithstem@gmail.com pass through and are stored in Google's mail infrastructure. See Google's privacy policy.
Where a provider acts on our instructions (Brevo, Google Analytics), it does so under its contract with us alongside its own privacy policy. Where you interact with them directly (Buy Me a Coffee, and any email you send), their rules apply together with ours.
International transfers
The Site and several of our providers (Google, GitHub, Buy Me a Coffee) are based in the United States. If you visit from the EU/EEA, the UK, or another region with transfer rules, your data may be transferred there.
Those transfers rely on the safeguards each provider maintains — for example, the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and, where applicable, the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. Brevo, our Newsletter provider, is based in the EU, so newsletter data stays close to home.
If a transfer ever lacked an adequate safeguard, we'd stop that processing rather than wing it.
Data retention
We keep personal data only as long as it's needed:
- Newsletter data — until you unsubscribe. After that, a minimal suppression record (your email, marked "do not contact") is kept so we don't accidentally re-add you; everything else is deleted.
- Contact emails — kept for as long as needed to resolve your query, then deleted or archived. Threads we're still acting on (like an ongoing permission request) stay until they're done.
- Analytics — event data is capped by Google Analytics' retention settings, at most 14 months; after that, only aggregate, non-personal statistics remain.
- Legal holds — if the law requires keeping something longer, we do; otherwise nothing is kept "just in case".
Backups and caches may extend practical deletion by a short window, but data isn't used during that time.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of these rights over your personal data:
- Access — get a copy of what we hold about you.
- Rectification — have anything that's wrong corrected.
- Erasure — have your data deleted (the "right to be forgotten").
- Restriction & objection — ask us to pause or stop a processing activity.
- Portability — receive your data in a machine-readable format.
- Withdraw consent — unsubscribe or revoke analytics consent at any time.
In the EU/EEA and UK, you can also complain to your local data-protection supervisory authority if you think we've got something wrong.
To use any of these rights, email studywithstem@gmail.com with enough detail to find your data (for example, "I subscribed as this name at this address"). We'll respond within 30 days — usually much sooner, since there's one inbox and one person reading it. We verify requests only as much as needed to locate your data; there's no runaround.
Children's privacy
The Site is written for a general audience and is safe to browse at any age. However:
- The Newsletter is not intended for children under 13 (or under 16 where local law sets a higher digital-consent age). If a subscription turns out to belong to a child below those ages, we'll delete it promptly.
- We don't knowingly collect data from children. If you're a parent or guardian and believe that has happened, email us and we'll remove it.
- Payments via Buy Me a Coffee are likewise not intended for children without a guardian's involvement.
Data security
The Site is served entirely over HTTPS as a static site — there's no database of users to breach, which is the security benefit of collecting almost nothing.
Newsletter and analytics data rest with their providers, who apply industry-standard protections, and our email account is protected by strong authentication.
No system is perfect, and we can't guarantee absolute security — but the blast radius here is intentionally tiny. If a breach ever affects your personal data and the law requires notification, we'll notify you and the relevant authorities.
Other websites
This policy covers only this Site and our Newsletter. Links on the Site point to third parties — Instagram, X, Buy Me a Coffee, and occasionally external resources we find useful. Once you leave, their privacy policies (or lack of one) govern, not ours. We encourage you to read them.
Interacting with those services — following, posting, or paying — happens between you and them; we have no access to it and no visibility into it.
Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy as the Site or our providers change — for example, if we ever switch analytics or email providers, we'll say so here.
- The "Last updated" date at the top of this page always reflects the current version.
- Material changes will be flagged on the Site and, where reasonable, announced via the Newsletter.
- If a change means processing data on a new basis or for a new purpose, we'll ask for fresh consent instead of assuming it.
Past versions are available on request by email.
Contact
Privacy questions, data requests, or deletions: studywithstem@gmail.com, or our Contact page. We read everything, and replies usually land within a few days.