Privacy Policy

Effective date: May 2026

1. Who we are

PassTheCivics is an independent study tool that helps people prepare for the US naturalization civics interview. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) or any government agency.

2. What we collect

PassTheCivics is designed to collect as little data as possible. Here is what we store and why:

  • Guest profile cookie — a randomly generated ID stored in a signed browser cookie. This is how the app remembers your progress across sessions without requiring an account. No name, email, or personal identifying information is collected.
  • Study progress — which questions you have reviewed, flashcard scores, mock test results, and bookmarks. This is tied to your guest profile ID, not to you personally.
  • Tutor messages — questions you send to the AI tutor and its replies. These are stored so your conversation history is available when you return. They are sent to our AI provider (OpenRouter) to generate responses and are not used to train models.
  • Interview date and state — if you choose to enter these in Settings, they are stored as part of your profile to personalize the experience (e.g., countdown timer, state-specific civics answers).

We do not collect your name, email address, IP address (beyond rate-limiting), immigration status, or any sensitive personal information.

3. How we use your data

Your data is used solely to:

  • Show you your own study progress and test history.
  • Generate AI tutor responses to your questions.
  • Provide time-sensitive or state-specific answers for eligible civics questions.

We do not sell, rent, or share your data with third parties for advertising or any commercial purpose.

4. Third-party services

PassTheCivics uses OpenRouter to route AI requests to language models (such as Llama and Perplexity Sonar). When you use the tutor or request a live answer, your message is sent to OpenRouter. Please review OpenRouter's privacy policy for details on how they handle data.

5. Data retention and deletion

Your study data is retained as long as your guest profile cookie is active. If you clear your browser cookies, your profile ID is lost and a new one will be created — effectively resetting your progress.

You can permanently delete all data associated with your profile at any time by going to Settings → Delete my data. This sends a DELETE /api/profile request that removes all your records from our database.

6. Cookies

We use a single first-party cookie (citizenready_pid) to identify your guest session. This cookie is signed with a secret key, set as HttpOnly and Secure (on HTTPS), and does not contain any personal information — only a random identifier.

We do not use tracking cookies, advertising cookies, or third-party analytics cookies.

7. Children's privacy

PassTheCivics is intended for adults preparing for the naturalization process. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under the age of 13.

8. Changes to this policy

If we make material changes to this policy, we will update the effective date at the top of this page. Continued use of PassTheCivics after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

9. Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy or your data, please open an issue on our GitHub repository.