Last updated: October 2026
Who we are
Whiteboard Chemistry is operated by Joe White, based in Calgary, Canada. Joe provides the Learn and Practice web application and separate online tuition for students in the UK and internationally. This policy covers the public website and Learn and Practice. You can contact Joe at joe@whiteboardchemistry.com.
What information we collect on the website
When you send an enquiry through the contact form, we receive your name, email address, any phone number you add, and what you tell us about your tuition needs. If you book a call through our Google Calendar link, Google’s own privacy policy covers that booking. The comment box at the end of the revision notes sends us your message, the page you were on and any email address you choose to give.
How we use that information
We use enquiry information to reply to you, arrange a free conversation and, if you become a tuition student, deliver and administer tuition. We do not sell or rent your information. Enquiries and notes comments are delivered to Joe through Formspree. The contact form also includes the first page visited in this browser session and the referring page, where available, to help Joe understand how people find the site. The legal basis for using your enquiry is our legitimate interests in answering it and arranging the tuition you ask about.
The form sends enquiry_route, a short label from a fixed list identifying the enquiry control used (such as navigation, a notes ending or the tuition page), and enquiry_origin_path, the site path recorded for that route. The origin path excludes query strings and fragments. These values are remembered in this browser tab and sent with your enquiry through Formspree to help Joe understand which routes bring enquiries. Direct visits have a default label and contact-page path; unavailable or unrecognised values use a fallback.
Learn and Practice
The Learn and Practice application at whiteboardchemistry.app uses an account to save your work and progress. This section explains what we hold, why, where and for how long. You can try the five-question Practice taster without an account, and it stores nothing about you.
What is stored
Your account. Your email address. A name: if you do not give one, we use the part of your email address before the @ until you change it. Your plan, and when your seven days of Plus end. When you last opened your dashboard. Any topic sets you save.
Practice. Every question you are given, your answers and any working you type, the marks you were given, the level recorded for each skill (this and the questions you missed decide what comes back for review), sessions you have saved, including unfinished answers, how many free questions you have used today, and when you started each session. For each answer we also keep how long you took, the question’s command word (such as Explain or Calculate) and, when an answer that does not score matches a common mistake the question checks for, which mistake it was. Where you mark your own answer, we keep the marks you expected before you saw the mark scheme and the marks you gave yourself after it, so the platform can show you how close your expectations are to your marks.
Learn. The lessons you start, your place in each lesson, your answers and drafts, the feedback and checks on those answers, any help you used, and your lesson progress and history. Where a lesson asks how confident you are, that rating is stored too, and it is used: if you say you are sure of your first answer to any of a lesson’s checks and it does not score, that lesson’s second “Check what I remember” comes back after 3 days instead of 7.
Your grades and exams. A target grade and a working grade, if you choose to set them (your first check asks once), and any school tests or mocks you add: a name, a date and, once you have sat one, your mark and what it was out of, and any grade your school gave. Only you can see them.
Paper mark recorder. For each past paper you tick off: the date you sat it and, if you give them, your mark and a note, with a record of each save. A record made before October 2026 may also hold the conditions, who marked it, whether you had seen the paper before and, for Paper 3, the section marks.
Topic tests. For each topic test you finish: when you finished it, how long you had and whether the time ran out, your marks for each question and each topic (including any you marked yourself), the first words of each question, and your answers and any working you typed, so you can look back at it on My Results.
Reports and feedback. A problem you report about a question or a lesson, with what you typed; for a Learn lesson we also keep the lesson version and step so we can find the issue. Feedback you send with Send feedback: its type, your message, the page you were on, the lesson or question if there was one, and a reply email if you give it. Reports and feedback are also emailed to Joe so he can answer them.
Subscriptions. Whether a Paddle subscription currently gives you Plus, Paddle’s reference for that subscription, and when its status changed. We do not store card details or payment amounts.
Your year. The first time you sign in, Home asks whether you are in Year 12 or Year 13 and then which topics you have covered, so it can give you questions on what you have been taught and, for Year 13, show the dates of your A-level papers. Answering is optional: you can choose a topic instead, and change your answer on Practice at any time. Your answer is saved with your account, with the topics you tick as studied. If you join a tutor with a join code, the code may also record your year group for that tutor.
If you are linked to a tutor
If you enter a join code from a tutor, your account is linked to that tutor, who may also put you on a free beta plan. A linked tutor can see your name, your year and the topics you have ticked as studied (if you have given them), any topic sets you have saved, your plan and when you last opened your dashboard, and your Practice record: the questions you answered, your answers and working, your marks, your skill levels and your saved sessions. That includes everything kept with each answer, such as how long you took and any common mistake it matched. A tutor cannot see your email address, your Learn lessons, your paper mark recorder, your topic tests, your school tests and mocks, your grades or your feedback. Tutor accounts are set up by Joe. You can stop sharing with a tutor at any time from your account page.
Where it is held, and who handles it
Your account, Practice record and Learn lesson record are held in a database run by Supabase, in London (their eu-west-2 region). Netlify serves the site and its application functions. Resend sends sign-in codes, and the reports and feedback emailed to Joe. These services handle information needed to provide the platform. If you buy Plus, Paddle.com is the seller of record and handles the purchase and payment: your email address is passed to Paddle for checkout, your card details go to Paddle and never reach us, and Paddle’s own privacy policy covers the information it collects at checkout and the receipts it sends.
Joe runs the platform from Canada, so he may see your information there. Netlify, which hosts the site, and Resend, which sends sign-in emails, may handle it in the United States. Email Joe to ask how it is protected.
Why
To sign you in, check your work, save your place and progress in Learn and Practice, decide what to show you next, answer a problem or message you send, keep the platform secure, improve the marking, and, in totals only, see how the platform is used. Nothing about you is sold, shared for marketing or used for advertising, and we send no marketing email.
The legal basis for each use
UK data protection law asks us to say which legal reason covers each use of your information. Here they are.
- Your account, your work and your progress. We use your information to sign you in, save and mark your work, keep your skill levels, choose what comes next, and keep track of your plan and the free questions you have used today. We need it to give you the service you signed up for (the law calls this “contract”). The same goes for anything you choose to add, such as your grades, your school tests and mocks, your year and your topics. None of these is required, and you can change them at any time.
- Sharing with a tutor. This happens only if you enter a tutor’s join code and choose to link your account. That is your consent, and you can take it back at any time by stopping sharing on your account page. Stopping does not change your plan.
- Answering you, improving the marking and keeping the platform safe. We read the reports, feedback and comments you send, act on them and reply where we can. When you say a typed answer deserved the marks, Joe may read it alongside other students’ answers to the same question, to improve the marking for everyone. We also limit repeat messages and misuse. We do this because it is in our legitimate interests, and yours, that marking is right, problems get fixed and the platform stays safe.
- Counting how the platform is used. In totals only, we count how many people sign up, practise and come back each week. We do this because it is in our legitimate interest to know whether the platform works. These counts name nobody.
You need an email address to have an account, because that is how you sign in. Your name, grades, year, topics and school tests are optional.
For how long, and deleting your account
We keep your account and your records for as long as your account exists, so your work is there when you come back. We do not yet delete accounts that have stopped being used. So when you have finished with the platform, for example after your exams, please delete your account: Delete my account on your account page removes it straight away. Copies may stay in our database backups for a few days before they are overwritten. If you cannot sign in, email Joe and he will delete it for you; he may ask you to show that the account is yours.
Delete my account on your account page deletes your sign-in account and everything listed above that belongs to it: your profile, Practice and Learn records, paper mark recorder entries, topic test results, school tests and mocks, saved topic sets, reports, feedback sent while signed in, and our record of your subscription status. It also clears your account’s saved copies from this browser.
Three things are not removed by that button. Feedback sent while signed out is not linked to an account; to stop repeat messages, we keep a one-way coded form of the internet address it was sent from, which cannot be turned back into the address. Copies of reports and feedback already emailed to Joe stay in his inbox until you ask him to delete them. Paddle keeps its own records of any purchase. Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription: if you pay for Plus, cancel it first through Manage subscription. You can also email Joe for help with access, correction or deletion.
On your device
The platform uses your browser’s own storage to remember that you are signed in, which theme you chose, which topics you last chose, which topic sets you saved, and whether it has already asked for your grades or told you that your seven days of Plus have ended. It also keeps local copies of your progress, saved sessions and Learn lesson drafts so you can resume or recover your work. The platform sets no cookies and loads no analytics or advertising tracker. Payment pages load Paddle’s checkout script, which is covered by Paddle’s policy.
Age
The platform is for students aged thirteen and over. If you are under thirteen, please do not create an account. If we learn that one has been created by someone under thirteen, we delete it.
Where we are, and who to contact
Whiteboard Chemistry is run from Canada and has no representative in the United Kingdom or the European Union at present. For any request about your information (to see it, correct it or delete it) write to the address below and it is dealt with by the person who runs the platform. If a representative is appointed later, their details are published here.
Data retention
Enquiry data submitted via the contact form is retained for as long as necessary to respond to your enquiry. Student records are kept for a reasonable period following the end of the tutoring relationship for reference and administrative purposes.
Cookies
On the public tuition and revision website, Google Analytics loads only if you choose “Accept analytics”. It uses cookies to measure visits, pages viewed and interactions such as completed enquiries. If you decline, Google Analytics does not load. Your consent choice is saved in this browser’s local storage. The practice platform sets no cookies of its own; see On your device above. The legal basis for analytics is your consent, which you can change below.
You can change the analytics choice for this browser here. Declining stops analytics and removes its cookies from this site; the page will reload to apply the choice.
The free revision tools also use local storage to remember answers and progress on this device. This progress stays in your browser.
Your rights
You can ask to see the information we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, to have a copy you can take elsewhere, or to have its use limited while a question about it is sorted out.
Where we rely on our legitimate interests, you can object, and we will stop unless we have a strong reason to carry on.
Where you have agreed to share your work with a tutor, you can stop at any time from your account page.
To make a request, email joe@whiteboardchemistry.com, if you can from the address you sign in with. Joe will deal with it within one month. If a request is complicated and needs longer, he will tell you why within that month. He may ask you to show that the account is yours.
If you are unhappy
If you are unhappy with how we have used your information, please tell Joe first at joe@whiteboardchemistry.com. He will reply within 30 days to say he has your complaint, look into it, and tell you what he has found and done. If you would like help with this, you can ask a parent, carer or teacher.
You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data protection regulator, at any time: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, or call 0303 123 1113.
Contact
For any privacy-related questions, contact Joe White at joe@whiteboardchemistry.com.