Last updated: August 1, 2026
Effective date: July 10, 2026
ClaimYourCollege (the "Service"), the free college funding guide at claimyourcollege.com, is operated by Silk Creative Labs LLC ("Silk Creative Labs," "we," "us," or "our"). This Privacy Statement explains what information the Service does and does not handle, and it should be read together with our Terms of Use.
The short version: the plan you create in the app, your scholarships, essays, financial figures, and notes, everything in Section 3, stays in your own web browser on your own device, and we never receive it. You can also choose to turn on cross-device sync, which saves an encrypted copy to your own Google Drive that we still cannot read; it is off unless you enable it. The app has no accounts and no logins. Apart from sync, there are two limited, privacy-conscious things we do handle, both described plainly below: if you choose to join our waitlist or Founding Beta, we store the contact details you give us (this is adult contact information, not a student's plan data), and we keep anonymous, aggregate counts of how the Service is used so we can improve it. We do not run advertising, we do not track you across other websites, and we have nothing about your plan to sell. The sections below explain all of this in detail.
The Service is designed around a single principle: we do not take custody of the information you enter. There is no sign-up, no account, and no password. Everything you create in the Service (see Section 3) is written to your browser's local storage on the device you are using and stays there, unless you choose to turn on cross-device sync, which saves an encrypted copy to your own Google Drive (Section 6a). Either way it is not transmitted to us, and we do not store it on any server we control.
Because we never receive this information, we cannot read it, share it, sell it, or lose it in a breach of our systems. You remain in control of it, and you can delete it at any time (see Section 10).
This no-custody principle is about the plan information you create in the app (Section 3), which is the sensitive material: a student's scholarships, essays, financial figures, and notes. Two separate and limited things do reach us, and only these: the contact details you give us if you choose to join our waitlist or Founding Beta (Section 4), and anonymous, aggregate usage analytics (Section 6). Neither includes a student's plan data, and both are described plainly below.
To be explicit, in the ordinary use of the Service we do not collect, request, or store:
When you use the Service, the following are saved in your browser's local storage on your device, under your control, and are not transmitted to us:
You can export this information to a file you control (a backup) and restore it yourself. You can delete all of it at any time (see Section 10). By default this information does not sync between your devices, because it stays on the device it was entered on. If you choose to turn on cross-device sync (off unless you enable it), the app saves an encrypted copy to your own Google Drive so another of your devices can load it. We never receive that copy and cannot read it. See Section 6a.
Counselors and the caseload board. The optional Counselor Plan and the free counselor caseload board work the same way: the roster you build, any files students choose to share with you, and your own tags and notes are stored in your browser on your own device and are never transmitted to us. If you turn on cross-device sync, an encrypted copy is saved to your own Google Drive, which we cannot read (Section 6a). We never receive, store, or have access to any student's information through the board. As between you and us, the counselor (and the school or district, as applicable) is the custodian of that on-device caseload; we are not a custodian of student records and hold no student data on any server. The same on-device responsibilities described above (backups, device security, shared devices) apply.
There are limited situations where you may deliberately give information to us:
We keep contact-us messages in our email inbox, and waitlist and feedback records in our database. We do not sell them, and we do not add you to unrelated marketing. Any commercial email we send will identify us, include our postal address, and offer a one-click way to opt out. We keep this information as described in Section 12, and you can ask us to delete it and remove your address at any time by emailing hello@claimyourcollege.com.
The Service is delivered by our hosting and content delivery provider, Vercel Inc., which serves the website's files to your browser. Like essentially all web hosts, when your browser requests a page, the host automatically processes standard technical connection information needed to deliver the page and to keep the Service secure and reliable, which can include your IP address, browser type and user agent, referring page, and the date and time of the request. This is standard server log information, it is handled by Vercel as our service provider under its own terms and privacy commitments, and we do not use it to build advertising profiles or to identify you as an individual. Vercel's privacy commitments are described in its privacy policy at https://vercel.com/legal/privacy-policy, and these standard server logs are retained by Vercel in accordance with its own policies.
Unless you turn on optional cross-device sync, the Service does not send your plan information anywhere, and your browser does not call third-party servers during normal use. If you enable sync, your browser connects to Google to save an encrypted copy of your plan to your own Google Drive; that copy is encrypted on your device before it leaves, so neither Google nor we can read it (see Section 6a).
To understand how the Service is used and where people get stuck, we keep simple, anonymous usage counts. When you use the Service, it records the name of an event (for example, that a tool was opened or a results page was viewed), along with the page, a coarse role if you provided one, and a random session identifier that resets and is not tied to your identity. That is all. These records never include anything you type, no scholarships, essays, financial figures, GPA, names, or other plan content, and they cannot be used to identify you as an individual.
This analytics is first-party and self-hosted: the counts go only to our own database, not to any third-party analytics or advertising company. We do not use cookies, pixels, or web beacons to track you across other websites or over time. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we do not engage in "targeted advertising" as those terms are used in United States privacy laws. Your browser's local storage is still used only to save the plan information described in Section 3 on your own device.
So you can pick up your plan on another device, you may turn on cross-device sync. It is off unless you switch it on, and your plan stays on your device as the primary copy. When it is on, the app signs you in to your own Google account (using Google's `drive.file` permission, which reaches only the single file the app creates in your Drive and nothing else) and saves an encrypted copy of your plan there. The copy is encrypted on your device with a passphrase you choose. That passphrase is never sent to us or to Google, so we never receive a readable copy and hold no key, and Google stores only scrambled data it cannot read. Because no one but you holds the passphrase, there is no way for us to reset it or recover the copy if you lose it. This is your data in your own Google account, not information in our custody. Google handles the encrypted file under its own terms (https://policies.google.com/privacy). You can turn sync off and delete the file from your Drive whenever you want.
To keep the promise that your information stays on your device, the Service is built to avoid calling third-party servers from your browser during normal use. For example, the fonts the Service uses are hosted by the Service itself rather than loaded from a third-party font network, so using the Service does not, by itself, cause your browser to contact outside companies. The one exception is optional cross-device sync: if you turn it on, your browser contacts Google to read and write an encrypted copy of your plan in your own Google Drive. Sync is off unless you enable it, and the file is encrypted on your device so Google cannot read it (see Section 6a). If you click a link to an external site (such as a scholarship's official application page), you leave the Service and are subject to that site's own privacy practices, which we do not control.
Purchases of paid plans are processed by our payment processor, Stripe, Inc.; we sell the plans directly rather than through a third-party merchant of record. Stripe collects and processes your payment information (such as your card details and billing information) under its own terms and privacy policy and processes the charge. We do not receive or store your full payment card number. From Stripe we receive only the limited information needed to issue and support your license, such as confirmation that a purchase completed, your email address, and the family name and school year to place on the license. Stripe's privacy policy is available at https://stripe.com/privacy.
The Service is intended to help students plan for college, but it is built so that it does not collect personal information, does not use accounts, and stores plan information only on the user's own device. The Service is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Purchases may be made only by adults. If a child under 13 sends us personal information (for example, by emailing us), we will delete it; if you believe this has happened, contact us at hello@claimyourcollege.com. This approach is designed to be consistent with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
Because your plan information is stored on your device, you control it directly:
For the limited information you may have sent us by email (Section 4), you can ask us to provide a copy of it or delete it by emailing hello@claimyourcollege.com. Because we hold so little, we may ask you to identify the message so we can locate it.
Depending on where you live, you may have rights over personal information, such as the rights to know or access, to correct, to delete, to obtain a portable copy, and to opt out of sale or of certain sharing or targeted advertising. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we do not use it for targeted advertising or profiling.
For information stored on your device, you can exercise these rights yourself directly, as described in Section 10, without contacting us. For any information you have sent us by email, you may exercise your rights by contacting hello@claimyourcollege.com, and we will respond as required by applicable law. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.
We do not retain your plan information, because we never receive it; it remains on your device until you delete it. If you turned on cross-device sync, an encrypted copy also stays in your own Google Drive until you delete it there or disconnect sync; because it never reaches us, we have nothing to retain or delete on our side. For information you send us by email, we retain it only as long as needed for the purpose you contacted us about and as described in Section 4 (up to 24 months), and then delete it, unless a longer period is required by law. Waitlist and Founding Beta records are kept while the beta and launch are active and for up to 24 months after, or until you unsubscribe and ask us to delete them, whichever is sooner. Anonymous usage event records (Section 6) contain no identifying information and are kept in aggregate to understand trends. Standard server logs held by Vercel are retained by Vercel in accordance with its policies.
We take reasonable measures to operate the Service securely, including serving it over an encrypted connection and using a hosting provider that maintains its own security practices. Paid license verification is performed on your device using cryptographic signatures, and license keys cannot be forged by altering data on your device.
However, no method of storage or transmission is completely secure. Because your plan information is stored in your browser on your device, its security also depends on you: keep your device and browser secure, and remember that on a shared device, anyone who can use that device and browser can see information saved in it, since the Service has no password protection. If you use a public or shared computer, consider using the Service's export feature and then clearing the site's data when you finish.
We operate the Service from the United States. If you access the Service from outside the United States, you understand that any information you choose to send us (such as an email) will be handled in the United States, where privacy laws may differ from those in your location. The Service is directed to users in the United States and is not targeted to individuals in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom.
Because the Service does not track users across websites or over time, it does not need to respond to browser "Do Not Track" signals in a special way. We treat all users the same: we do not track any of them across sites.
We may update this Privacy Statement from time to time. When we do, we will change the "Last updated" date and, for material changes, take reasonable steps to notify users, such as posting a notice in the Service. Changes are effective when posted unless stated otherwise.
If you have questions about this Privacy Statement or your privacy when using the Service, contact:
Silk Creative Labs LLC
2108 N St #14571, Sacramento, CA 95816, USA
ClaimYourCollege by Silk Creative Labs LLC. The free guide stays free, always.