Privacy Policy

This explains exactly what PTE AI collects, why, and what we do not collect. Last updated 9 August 2026.

Who we are

PTE AI (https://mypteai.com) is operated by an independent operator based in Australia. For any privacy question or request, get in touch via the contact form.

PTE AI is an independent study tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Pearson, and PTE Academic is a trademark of Pearson.

Your voice recordings never reach us

This is the most important thing to understand, so we will be precise about it.

When you record a speaking answer, the audio is captured and held in your browser only. It is never uploaded to our servers, never stored by us, and we have no ability to play it back. Your recording is discarded when you leave the page.

What we do receive is the text transcript of what you said, which is what gets marked.

However, speech-to-text is performed by your browser, not by us. In Chrome and Edge this means the audio is sent to Google's speech recognition service to be turned into text. That transfer is between your browser and Google and is governed by their privacy policy, not ours. We think you should know that, even though it is not us doing it.

What we collect

Account details — your name, email address, and a password. Passwords are hashed with PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 and a unique per-account salt. We never store, log, or display your password in readable form, and nobody at our end can see it.

Your answers — the text you type for writing tasks, and the transcripts of speaking answers, so they can be marked and shown back to you.

Practice progress — your scores, attempt history, streak, best score per question, mock results, and the exam date and target score you set. If you are signed out, all of this stays in your own browser and never reaches us. If you are signed in, we store a copy against your account so your progress follows you to a new phone or laptop instead of vanishing — that is the only reason we keep it. Deleting your account deletes it with everything else.

Support messages — anything you send us through the contact form.

Basic visit data — a salted one-way hash of your IP address (never the raw IP), the referring page, and your browser's user-agent string. This is used to count visitors and tell real people apart from bots. The hash cannot be reversed into your address.

Email we send you

Account email is not optional. Password resets and payment receipts are sent whatever your other preferences, because you may need them to get back into your account or to claim a refund. There is nothing to unsubscribe from here, and we keep these messages free of marketing.

Study tips and product updates are optional and off by default. There is an unticked box at sign-up; we only send them if you tick it. We record when you gave that permission and where, because Australian law puts the burden of proving consent on us, not on you.

Every one of those messages carries a one-click unsubscribe that works without logging in. You can also switch it off any time under Account → Email preferences. Unsubscribing takes effect immediately, and it never affects your account email.

We do not sell, rent or share your email address with anyone, and we do not send email on behalf of third parties.

What we never collect

Your card details. Payments run through Stripe's own hosted checkout page. Card numbers are entered on Stripe's systems and never pass through, or get stored on, ours. We keep only Stripe's customer and subscription identifiers so we know your plan is active.

Your audio. As above — it stays on your device.

We do not sell your data, and we do not use it to train any AI model.

Who we share it with

Only the services needed to run the product:

• Anthropic — your written answers and speech transcripts are sent to Claude to produce your marking and tutor replies. Anthropic processes them to return a result.
• Stripe — payment processing.
• Railway — hosting and databases.
• Google — indirectly, via your browser's speech recognition, as explained above; and Google Analytics, but only if you allow it.
• Meta — only if you allow the advertising cookie described below, and then only that you visited and whether you signed up or paid. Never your answers, scores or email.

How long we keep it

Account data is kept while your account exists. Visit records are aggregate and retained for traffic analysis. Support messages are kept so we can follow up.

You can ask us to delete your account and everything attached to it at any time via the contact form. We will confirm once it is done.

Your rights

Under the Australian Privacy Act you can ask what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, and complain if you think we have mishandled it. Email us first and we will try to sort it out; if you are not satisfied you can escalate to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au).

Cookies, local storage, analytics and advertising

We use your browser's local storage to keep you signed in and to remember your progress, theme and tutor name. Clearing your browser storage will sign you out and clear locally-held progress. That part is necessary for the site to work.

Beyond that there are two optional things, and we ask about them separately, because they are not the same and you may well want one and not the other. Until you choose, neither is loaded: no script, no cookie, and no request to Google or Meta at all.

1. Google Analytics — measurement. Records which pages you visit and which steps you reach (for example: opened a question, received a score, opened the pricing screen). Your IP address is anonymised, and Google's advertising and personalisation features are switched off and stay off — even if you allow the advertising cookie below. We use it to count and improve, not to advertise to you.

2. The Meta (Facebook) pixel — advertising. This one is a genuine advertising tracker and we would rather say so plainly than bury it. If you allow it, Meta is told that you visited this site and whether you went on to sign up or pay, which is how we find out whether an ad we paid for actually worked. Meta may use that to build a profile of you and to target ads at you, here and elsewhere, under their own privacy policy rather than ours. We do not send them your name, your email address, your answers or your scores.

Refuse either one, or both, and the site behaves exactly the same — nothing is withheld, degraded or nagged about.

The banner offers three answers. Allow all turns both on and remembers it. Allow once turns them on for this visit only — we forget your answer when you close the tab and ask again next time. Never turns both off and remembers that. If you want one but not the other, Choose what's on lets you set them separately.

One honest limit on "Allow once". It controls whether we load Google's or Meta's code again on your next visit. It cannot reach into a cookie those companies have already set on your device and delete it — only your browser can do that, by clearing site data. We would rather tell you that than let the word "once" imply more than it delivers.

You can change your mind at any time using the Cookie choices link in the footer of any page, which brings the question back.

Separately, and regardless of any of the above, we count visits using our own cookieless beacons. These record a salted hash of your network address and which stage you reached, never your identity, and they are what tells us real people apart from bots.

PTE AI is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Pearson. PTE Academic is a trademark of Pearson.