The short version
StudentConnect is built so that you decide what other students see. We never show your email address, exact location or date of birth on your profile, and we never sell your data.
What we collect
- Your Google account identity (name, email, profile photo) when you sign in. Your email is used for sign-in, verification and the notifications you opt into, and is never shown publicly.
- Profile details you add: university, department, degree, academic year, interests, skills, favourites, bio and images.
- Private details you add: date of birth and gender. These are visible only to you. If you allow it, others see your birthday as month and day only.
- Content you create: posts, comments, messages, attachments, reactions, saves and reports.
- Approximate location, but only if you turn on location consent. It is rounded to about 1 km, shown to others only as a rounded distance, and deleted when you turn consent off.
- When you were last active, shown only to your connections and only if you both allow active status.
Who can see what
- Your name, username, university, department and photos are visible to signed-in students, unless you have blocked them or they have blocked you.
- Your About details, connection list and birthday follow the audience you choose in Settings.
- Each post has its own audience: Public, Connections or Only me. Media files follow the same rule.
- Messages are visible only to the people in that conversation. Direct messages are only open between accepted connections.
You are responsible for what you share
Think before posting. Never share private photos or videos, passwords, one-time codes (OTPs), bank or card details, identity documents, or anyone's private information. Once something is shared, other people can screenshot it, even with vanish mode on.
Deletion and retention
Deleted posts, comments and messages go to your Recycle Bin for 30 days so you can restore them. After that they are permanently deleted, along with their media. Unsent and vanished messages are cleared immediately.
Google Classroom (optional)
If you choose to connect Google Classroom, StudentConnect requests read-only access to your class list, class teachers' names and class announcements. We use this only to show you your class notices and upcoming deadlines inside StudentConnect and to send you exam and deadline reminders.
- Your Classroom data is visible only to you. It is never shown to other students, used for advertising, sold, or used to train AI models.
- Google access tokens are stored encrypted on our servers and never sent to your browser.
- You can disconnect at any time from the Classroom page. Disconnecting revokes our access at Google and deletes all synced Classroom data.
- StudentConnect's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
Audio and video calls
You can call your accepted connections. Calls use your microphone (and camera for video calls) only while a call is on screen. Calls are end-to-end encrypted in transit (WebRTC) and go directly between the two devices; when a direct connection isn't possible, encrypted call data is relayed through Cloudflare's TURN service, which cannot listen to it. We never record calls. We keep only a call log (who called whom, when, audio or video, and how long), shown as a line in your chat.
Ads in the Android app
The website shows ads from Google AdSense between posts in the feed, and the free StudentConnect Android app shows occasional full-screen ads from Google AdMob (at most one every 10 minutes, never inside Messages). Google may use your device's advertising ID and cookies to show and measure ads. Where the law requires it (for example in the EU/UK), you are asked for consent first. You can opt out of personalized ads at adssettings.google.com. You can reset your advertising ID or opt out of personalized ads in Android Settings → Google → Ads. Ads never receive your messages, your Classroom data or your private profile details. See how Google uses information from apps that use its services.
Safety tools
You can block any profile, report profiles, posts, comments and messages, and control every audience setting. Moderators review reports. Admin access is restricted on our servers and audited.