AI Tutor Notice — physmat.org

This Notice explains the optional AI tutor: that you are talking to an AI and not a person, what is sent to the AI model, where it is processed, what happens to what you type, and what we do if you tell it you are not safe. It is written to be read alongside our Privacy Policy (see §5), our Children's Privacy Notice, our Safeguarding Statement, and our Terms of Service. AI Act Art. 50 / ICO Std 4.

This feature is offered in the United Kingdom. It is not offered in the United States at this time.

Part 1 — The short version (shown the first time a child opens the tutor)

You're talking to an AI helper, not a person. - It is a computer helper, not a real teacher or a real person. - It can be wrong. Always check its answers yourself — don't just trust them. - It can see the problem you're working on and how much help you asked for. It does not know your name, your email, or your school. - What you type is saved in your account, so you can read it again. Your parent and your teacher cannot see it. - If you tell it that something is wrong or that you don't feel safe, a grown-up on our team can be told, so we can help. We won't just ignore it. OK, I understand — open the tutor.

(The wording above is the intended just-in-time message. The exact on-screen text, the age-appropriate reading level, and how the acknowledgement is recorded are.)

Part 2 — The fuller explanation

1. What the AI tutor is

The AI tutor is an optional, paid, opt-in feature. A parent or grown-up has to turn it on and pay for it before a child can use it — it is off until then. A child can use the whole platform — the problem bank, practice and grading — without the tutor.

This is a learning helper, not a person and not a marketing product. We do not advertise inside the tutor and we never send marketing through it.

2. You're talking to an AI, not a person

When a child opens the tutor, they are told — in language they can understand — that:

• they are talking to an AI helper, not a person;
• its answers may be wrong, so they should always check them; and
• what happens to what they type (this Notice).

AI Act Art. 50: people must be told when they are interacting with an AI system. ICO Std 4: transparency for children. The exact on-screen presentation is.

3. What is sent to the AI model

To answer a question, the tutor sends the AI model only:

• the child's age band (for example "7–8 (Y3)");
• the difficulty level of the problem;
• the problem text; and
• the hint level the child asked for (1–3).

It does not send the child's name, email, parent's email, school, or account identifier. To the AI model the interaction is pseudonymous — it does not know who the child is.

We will not overstate this and we will not understate it: the four items above are what is sent, and the personal identifiers listed are not.

4. Where it is processed

The conversation is processed through our AI-inference provider — to be confirmed, depending on which model-inference path is configured. Either way, the provider receives only the pseudonymous payload described in §3. We intend this inference to run within the UK/EU region (eu-west-2). The full list of sub-processors, including both inference paths, is in the Privacy Policy §7.

5. What happens to what you type

• Each tutor conversation is saved as a record in the child's own account, so the child can read it back.
• It is visible to the child and not shown to the child's parent or teacher — there is no feature that lets a parent or teacher read a child's tutor conversations.
• How long it is kept: we intend to keep tutor conversations for 6 months and then delete them on a rolling basis. We are implementing the automated deletion that enforces this.

6. If a child is not safe — safeguarding

If a child types something that suggests they may be at risk or not safe, we do not silently ignore it. We act under our Safeguarding Statement, which describes how concerns are handled and escalated to the people responsible for safeguarding.

We are building a system to detect such disclosures in the tutor and escalate them to a responsible person who can act.

7. Where to read more, and how to ask a question

• The fuller picture of how we handle a child's data is in the Privacy Policy (the tutor is §5), with a child-readable version in the Children's Privacy Notice.
• A child can always see their own tutor conversations in their account. Under data protection law you (and, where appropriate, your child) can access, rectify, erase, restrict or object to the processing of this data, ask for portability, and withdraw consent where we rely on it — and you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk. See Privacy Policy §10.
• The data controller is to be confirmed. Questions: mail@physmat.org. Data Protection Officer: to be confirmed.