Privacy policy

Effective date: 9 Oct 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how Journey Sync (“Journey Sync”, “we”, “us” or “our”) collects, uses, shares and protects personal information when you use the Journey Sync application (the “Service”), which helps students find courses abroad and apply for them with a counsellor. It also explains the choices and rights you have.

By creating an account or using the Service, you acknowledge that your information will be handled as described in this policy. If you do not agree with it, please do not use the Service.

Demonstration notice

The site at this address is a demonstration of the Service. It sends no text messages, so nobody can sign in with a phone number here. Each visitor is given a demo of their own instead: a student account and that student's counsellor, which no other visitor is shown, and which are deleted with everything entered or uploaded in them one day after they are made. The admin's screens can be looked at but not changed, and do not show visitors' demos. The other people shown are invented. Documents uploaded here are read by a third-party model on a free plan that may use them, so do not upload real documents.

Summary

What we collect: Your account and profile details, the documents you upload, your applications and your messages.
How we use it: To match you with courses, to support your applications through a counsellor and to keep your account secure.
Who receives it: Your counsellor, our staff and the providers that host the Service. We do not sell it or use it for advertising.
Automated checks: Passports, transcripts and English test reports are read by an AI service to help a counsellor check them. A person makes every decision.
Your choices: You can view, correct and delete your information, and ask us to delete your account.

This summary is provided for convenience. The full policy below is what applies.

1. Information we collect

We collect personal information in the following ways.

1.1 Information you provide

Account information. Your mobile number, name and email address, the picture you choose for your account from the set we offer, and the student ID we assign to you.
Profile information. Where and what you want to study, your budget and whether you need a loan, your education history and test scores, your date of birth, the city and state you live in and, if you choose to provide it, your passport number.
Shortlist and applications. The courses you save and the courses you apply to.
Documents. The files you upload in support of an application, such as a passport, academic transcripts, English test reports, a CV or a statement of purpose.
Communications. The messages you exchange with your counsellor and other members of our staff.

1.2 Information created when you use the Service

Application records. The status of each application, its history and the notes your counsellor adds to it.
Document check records. The details read from certain documents, any differences found, and every decision a counsellor takes on a document, with who took it and when (see section 4).
Message records. When each message was sent and when it was read.
Sign-in codes. A one-time code for each sign-in, which is valid for ten minutes.
Session records. A record of each time you sign in, with when that session began and when it runs out, so that it can be ended before then.
Technical logs. Our hosting provider records standard information about requests to the Service, which may include your device's IP address, the date and time, the page requested and the type of browser.

1.3 Information stored on your device

The Service stores a small amount of information in your browser, which is described in section 9.

We do not collect your precise location, your contacts or payment card details, and the Service contains no advertising or analytics trackers.

2. How we use your information

We use personal information to:

create and secure your account, and keep you signed in;
show you the universities and courses that match your profile;
assign you a counsellor and enable them to guide your applications;
receive, check and review the documents you upload;
deliver messages between you and our staff;
keep a record of the decisions taken on your documents; and
protect the Service against misuse, and find and fix faults.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.

3. Legal bases for processing

Where the law that applies to you requires a legal basis for handling personal information, we rely on:

Your consent, which you give when you create an account, provide optional details or upload a document. You can withdraw it at any time (see section 10).
Our agreement with you, to provide the Service you have asked for.
Our legitimate interests in keeping the Service secure, preventing misuse and resolving faults.
Legal obligations, where we are required to keep or disclose information.

4. Automated document checks

Passports, transcripts and English test reports that you upload are sent to Google's Gemini service, an artificial intelligence service, which reads the details printed on them: names, numbers, dates and scores. The upload screen tells you this before you upload. No other document is sent to it.

We store those details with the document and compare them with your profile and with the course you applied to, so that your counsellor can see at once when something does not match.

The service does not make decisions about you. A counsellor reviews every document and makes every decision, and each decision is recorded with who made it and when.

This demonstration uses the free tier of the Gemini service. Under Google's terms for that tier, Google may use the content it is sent to improve its products, and human reviewers may read it. For that reason, upload only sample documents here.

6. Where your information is stored

Your account, documents and messages are stored in India (Mumbai), and the Service's server code runs there.

Some of our providers process information in other countries: Google processes the documents described in section 4 on its own servers, and Vercel and Unsplash deliver pages and photographs from servers around the world. Where information leaves India, it is handled under those providers' terms and safeguards.

7. How long we keep your information

We keep personal information for as long as it is needed for the purposes set out in section 2.

Account, profile, applications, documents and messages: For as long as you have an account, or until you delete them.
Document check records: Deleted together with the document they relate to.
Sign-in codes: Ten minutes, after which they are removed.
Sign-in sessions: A record of each session is deleted when you log out of it or of every device. Otherwise it expires after seven days and is deleted at the next sign-in to the Service.
Links to your documents: One hour.
Technical logs: A short period set by our hosting provider.
Backups: Copies of the database are made before maintenance. Information deleted from the Service can remain in such a copy until the copy is itself deleted.

When you ask us to delete your account, we delete the account and the information associated with it.

8. How we protect your information

We protect personal information with technical measures that include:

encryption of information in transit (HTTPS) and at rest;
access checks on every request, so that a student can reach only their own records and a counsellor only those of the students assigned to them;
private storage for documents, which open only through links that expire after one hour;
a sign-in session held in a cookie that scripts on the page cannot read, which you can end on every device at once;
single-use sign-in codes that expire after ten minutes and allow a limited number of attempts; and
a record of document decisions that cannot be altered afterwards.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If we become aware of a breach that affects your personal information, we will notify you and the relevant authority as the law requires.

9. Cookies and local storage

The Service uses one cookie and your browser's local storage. Both are needed for the Service to work. We use no advertising or analytics cookies and no third-party trackers.

Session cookie: Keeps you signed in. It lasts up to seven days, cannot be read by scripts on the page, is removed when you log out and stops working when its session is ended from another device.
Cached content: A copy of your profile and any set-up answers you have not finished, so that screens open quickly. Cleared when you log out.
Preferences: Display choices, such as a prompt you have closed or a control you have folded away, so that you are not shown them again.
Offline copy: The screen that says there is no connection is kept, with the files it is drawn with, so that it can be shown without one. It holds nothing about you.

You can remove all of these at any time by clearing this site's data in your browser's settings.

10. Your rights and choices

Depending on the law that applies to you, you may have the right to access the personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to receive a copy of it, to withdraw your consent, to object to or restrict how we use it, and to complain to a data protection authority.

You can exercise several of these rights in the Service itself:

View and correct your details in Profile, using the edit button.
Delete a document from Documents. The details read from it and the record of decisions on it are deleted with it.
Delete a conversation from the menu of the conversation itself.
End your sessions on every device where you are signed in, with “Log out of every device” on your account screen.

To delete your account, or to make any other request, contact us using the details in section 14. We may need to confirm your identity before we act on a request.

11. Children

The Service is intended for people who are applying to study at a university. It is not directed at children. If you are under 18, use the Service only with the consent of a parent or guardian.

If you believe that a child has given us personal information without that consent, contact us and we will delete it.

12. Links to other services

The Service contains links to university websites and, where it is offered, to WhatsApp so that you can write to us. These services are operated by others, and their own privacy policies apply to the information they collect.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will change the effective date at the top of this page, and we encourage you to review the policy periodically. Your continued use of the Service after a change means that the updated policy applies to you.

14. Contact us

If you have a question about this policy, wish to exercise your rights or want to raise a concern about how your information is handled, you can reach us:

through your counsellor, in Messages.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may have the right to complain to the data protection authority where you live.