Privacy policy

Who we are

Portico is a preparation platform for the LNAT (Law National Aptitude Test) and Oxbridge law admissions. The data controller for this service isPhilipp Nicholas Jensch(referred to below as "we", "us", or "Portico"). You can reach us for privacy matters at support@porticolearning.co.uk.

Lawful basis

We process the personal data described below on the lawful basis of performance of a contract (UK GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)) — you have asked us to provide a preparation service, and we cannot provide it without processing your account, your essays and your practice attempts. For users under 16 we additionally rely on parental or guardian consent (UK GDPR Art. 8) confirmed at signup.

What we collect

• Account data: email address, chosen password (stored only as a salted hash by our authentication provider), age band, and whether parental consent was confirmed at signup.
• Practice content: the essays you write, the MCQ answers you submit, and the scores and feedback generated for them.
• Operational data: timestamps of your submissions and login activity, retained to detect abuse and to support you if something goes wrong.
• We do not collect analytics identifiers, advertising identifiers or third-party tracking cookies.

Automated grading and third parties

When you submit an essay for grading, its text and the associated prompt are transmitted to Groq, an LLM service accessed over an OpenAI-compatible API, so that a large language model can produce feedback. Your email address, real name and any other account information are not sent to Groq. The result is stored back in your Portico account and shown to you on your dashboard.

The database itself is hosted by Supabase. The application is hosted by Vercel. Both are used only to run the service you have signed up for; neither party has separate rights to your data.

Retention

We keep your account and practice content for12 Monthsafter your most recent sign-in, after which the account is deleted automatically. You can delete your data at any time from the Account page — deletion is immediate and irreversible.

Your rights

Under the UK GDPR you have the right to access your personal data (Art. 15) and to have it erased (Art. 17). Both rights are implemented directly in the app:

• Access: the Accountpage offers a "Download my data" button that returns a JSON export of your profile, essays and MCQ attempts.
• Erasure:the same page has a "Delete my account" option that removes your account and every associated row, and cascades to any server-side copies.
• You also have rights to rectification, restriction, portability and to lodge a complaint with the ICO (ico.org.uk). We will help you exercise any of these — contact us at the address above.

Children

Portico is not available to users under 13. Users aged 13 to 15 must confirm that a parent or guardian has read this policy and agrees to their use of Portico. This declaration is stored alongside the account and is required by the UK Children's Code.

Contact

Data-protection queries should go to support@porticolearning.co.uk. We aim to respond within one calendar month.