Privacy Policy
Your privacy is important to us
Last Updated: September 17, 2026
1. Introduction
This Privacy Policy describes how ASU Student Committee ("we", "our", or "us") collects, uses, and shares your personal information when you use our platform.
2. Information We Collect
Account Information:
- ASU email address (required for registration)
- Name and profile information
- Faculty, program, and year
- Profile photo and avatar
Activity Data:
- Posts and comments you create
- Reactions and interactions
- Course reviews and ratings
3. How We Use Your Information
- To provide and maintain our services
- To improve and personalize your experience
- To communicate with you about updates and announcements
- To protect the security and integrity of our platform
4. Information Sharing
We do not sell your personal information. We may share information in the following cases:
- With your consent or at your direction
- To comply with legal obligations
- Aggregated or de-identified data that cannot identify you
5. Your Rights
- Access and review your personal information
- Correct or update your information
- Request deletion of your account
- Export your data
6. AI Features and MindDock
The AI Study Companion, the MindDock listener, and the self-assessments, mood check-ins and micro-practices on MindDock handle more sensitive data than the rest of the community. This section explains how, separately.
You are talking to an AI
Both the Study Companion and the MindDock listener are AI, not people. Every conversation page says so at the top, for the whole conversation. AI answers can be wrong; the listener is not counseling, does not diagnose, and gives no medication advice.
The model provider
Messages you send to the AI are passed to Alibaba Cloud Model Studio (Qwen) to generate a reply, without your name, email or account details. We use the paid API, under which the provider may not train on the content. We do not train any model on your conversations either.
No account needed
The Study Companion, the listener, the assessments, mood check-ins and micro-practices all work without signing in. Used anonymously, we do not know who you are: a conversation is tied to your current browser session by a random token and deleted after 24 hours; anonymous assessment results are not stored; mood check-ins and practices live only in your own browser and are never uploaded.
What signing in adds
Signed in, your conversations, assessment results, check-ins and practices are linked to your account so you can see your own trends. That data is yours: MindDock has a “delete all my records” button that clears everything at once, irreversibly.
Learning memory
The Study Companion extracts study-related facts from your conversations (courses you are taking, directions you care about) to make later answers fit you better. You can review and delete each one on its page. Listener conversations are never written to learning memory — that is enforced in code, not a setting.
Self-assessments
PHQ-9, GAD-7 and the other instruments are public, standardized tools. The band interpretations on the result page were written by our psychology collaborator, not generated by AI. A result is not a diagnosis; that takes a professional.
What we do — and do not do — in a crisis
When a conversation or an assessment answer shows a self-harm signal, the system interrupts the AI and shows resources where a real person can be reached 24/7 (ASU counseling, 12356 and others). We only show resources. We do not contact you, and we do not notify the university, your family or any third party — having promised anonymity, we cannot also locate you. That means the step of reaching out is yours to take; the list always includes at least one line that answers around the clock.
Content safety screening
Posts, comments, course reviews, group information, profile text and messages you send to the AI are screened automatically before they are stored or sent to a model: first against the committee-maintained word list, then by an AI classifier (the same model provider). Screening produces a record (decision, category, matched terms); for public content such as posts an excerpt of up to 160 characters is kept for committee review, while nothing is excerpted from AI conversations. Reported content goes to the committee together with the reason; the author is not told who reported.
Who can see this data
Nobody browses conversation or assessment data as a matter of course. Only the platform maintainers may encounter de-identified records while diagnosing a fault. We use no third-party analytics or advertising services.
How long it is kept
Anonymous conversations: 24 hours. A signed-in user's conversations, assessments, check-ins and practices: until you delete them, or with the account when it is closed. Request logs on the provider's side follow its own retention policy, typically no more than 30 days.
7. Security
We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information. However, no method of transmission over the Internet is 100% secure.
8. Contact Us
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at: coh@asu.edu