Privacy Policy

Last updated: April 26, 2026

1. Introduction

ThinkAbroad.ai ("we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what limited information we collect when you use our website at www.thinkabroad.ai and how we use it.

Data Controller: ThinkAbroad.ai. For all privacy enquiries, contact us at thinkabroad@zohomail.eu.

We keep things simple: we only collect the minimum information necessary to run your account.

2. What We Collect

We collect the following categories of data:

  • Email address — used to identify your account and allow you to sign in.
  • Name (optional) — used to personalise the experience if you choose to provide it during sign-up.
  • Google account identifier — only if you sign in with Google. We receive your name, email, and a unique Google ID from Google. We do not receive your Google password or any other Google data.
  • Usage and analytics data — we use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to understand how visitors use the site. GA4 collects anonymised data including pages visited, session duration, and approximate country-level location. This data is associated with a randomly generated analytics ID, not your account. See Google's Privacy Policy for details.

We do not collect device fingerprints or sell personal data.

Signed-in users: Conversation history (the messages you send to Compass and other AI tools) is stored on our servers to power the chat history feature. You can view and delete all your conversations at any time from your account.

Guest users: Messages are sent to our AI providers to generate a response and are not stored on our servers. See Section 5 for details on AI providers.

Inferred profile attributes (signed-in users only): To power the personalised For You recommendations feature, we automatically analyse patterns in your conversation history to infer attributes you may not have explicitly provided. These inferred attributes may include:

  • Country of origin or nationality (e.g. inferred from phrases like "I am from India" or credential systems you mention)
  • Academic background (e.g. GPA, degree level, university tier — inferred from descriptions in your messages)
  • Budget and funding preference (e.g. amounts or phrases like "scholarship only" mentioned in chat)
  • Language proficiency (e.g. IELTS or TOEFL scores you mention)
  • Target intake timeline (e.g. "Winter 2026" or deadline urgency inferred from your queries)

These inferences are derived solely from messages you voluntarily send to our AI tools. They are used only to personalise recommendations shown to you and are never shared with third parties. Deleting your conversation history (available at any time from your account) removes the basis for all such inferences.

3. How We Use Your Information

  • To create and authenticate your account. (Legal basis: performance of a contract.)
  • To keep you signed in between sessions via a secure, encrypted session cookie. (Legal basis: performance of a contract.)
  • To understand how the Service is used in aggregate so we can improve it (via Google Analytics). (Legal basis: legitimate interests.)
  • To address your support requests if you contact us. (Legal basis: legitimate interests.)
  • To generate personalised suggested questions on the home screen based on topics from your conversation history (signed-in users only). (Legal basis: legitimate interests.)
  • To generate personalised study-abroad recommendations on the For You page — including recommended countries, universities, programmes, and scholarships — by combining your form inputs with attributes inferred from your conversation history (signed-in users only). (Legal basis: legitimate interests.)
  • To surface anonymised, aggregated trending signals from users with a similar profile (e.g. same country of origin, same field of study) as part of the For You recommendations. No individual user's data is shared with other users — only anonymised aggregate counts (e.g. "most-explored destinations among CS students from India") are used. (Legal basis: legitimate interests.)

AI-Driven Personalisation

The For You feature uses AI (Mistral) to generate personalised recommendations. The AI receives a prompt that includes your form preferences and inferred profile attributes (origin, academic background, budget, language scores, timeline, and destinations you have already explored). The AI's output is informational only — it does not constitute academic or immigration advice, and no automated processing on the Platform produces legally significant effects on you.

You can opt out of personalised recommendations at any time by using the For You page as a guest (without signing in), in which case only your form inputs are used and no conversation data is processed.

We do not use your information for advertising or any purpose beyond operating and improving the Service.

California residents: We do not sell your personal information as defined under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

4. Cookies

  • Session cookie (ta_session) — keeps you signed in. This cookie is httpOnly (cannot be read by JavaScript), is only sent over HTTPS, and is strictly necessary for the Service to function.
  • Google Analytics cookies (_ga, _ga_*) — set by Google Analytics 4 to distinguish users and sessions for aggregate statistics. These are analytics cookies and do not identify you personally.

We do not use advertising cookies or third-party tracking cookies beyond those listed above. EU/EEA users will be asked for consent before analytics cookies are set.

5. Data Sharing & Third-Party Processors

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with any third party, except the following service providers who process data on our behalf:

  • Render (USA) — our hosting provider. Your account data is stored on their infrastructure. See render.com/privacy.
  • Google (USA) — (a) if you choose Google Sign-In, Google processes your authentication; (b) Google Analytics 4 collects anonymised usage data. See Google's Privacy Policy.
  • OpenAI (USA) — powers our ChatGPT-based AI features. Text you enter into AI tools is transmitted to OpenAI to generate responses. OpenAI's API does not use your inputs to train models by default. See OpenAI's Privacy Policy.
  • Mistral AI (France/EU) — powers some of our AI features. Text you enter is transmitted to Mistral to generate responses and is not retained beyond the immediate request. See Mistral's Privacy Policy.
  • Brave Search (USA) — when you enable the web search feature, your query is forwarded to Brave Search to retrieve live results. Brave does not associate these queries with your ThinkAbroad account. See Brave's Privacy Policy.
  • Legal requirements — if required by law or court order.

International transfers: Some of the providers above are based outside your country (e.g., Render and OpenAI in the USA, Mistral in the EU). Where required by law, data transfers are governed by appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses.

6. Data Security

Your password is hashed using PBKDF2-SHA256 with a unique salt — we never store it in plain text. Sessions are protected by signed JWT tokens stored in httpOnly cookies. All communication with our servers is encrypted via HTTPS.

7. Data Retention

We retain your account information (email and name) for as long as you have an account. Conversation history stored for signed-in users is retained for as long as you have an account and is permanently deleted when you delete your account or delete individual conversations from within the app. If you delete your account, all personal data including conversation history is permanently removed from our database immediately. You can delete your account at any time from the account menu in the navigation bar.

8. Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data. To exercise any of them, email us at thinkabroad@zohomail.eu — we will respond within 30 days.

  • a.Access — request a copy of the data we hold about you (your email and name).
  • b.Correction — request that we correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
  • c.Deletion / Erasure — permanently delete your account and all associated personal data, directly from the app or by emailing us.
  • d.Restrict Processing — request that we limit how we use your data in certain circumstances.
  • e.Data Portability — receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
  • f.Object to Processing — object to processing based on our legitimate interests (e.g. analytics).
  • g.Lodge a Complaint — EU/EEA users may contact their national supervisory authority (e.g. CNIL in France, BfDI in Germany). UK users may contact the ICO. Indian users may contact the Data Protection Board under the DPDP Act 2023.

9. Children's Privacy

ThinkAbroad.ai is not directed at individuals under 16. We do not knowingly collect data from children. If you believe a child has created an account, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

10. Changes to This Policy

If we ever start collecting additional data, we will update this policy and notify users clearly before doing so. The "Last updated" date above reflects the most recent revision.

11. Contact

For questions, data access requests, or complaints about this Privacy Policy, contact the data controller:

ThinkAbroad.ai

thinkabroad@zohomail.eu

Independent platform. Not affiliated with or endorsed by universities or housing platforms. For legal, visa, and price details, verify with official sources.