Bean Study Hub privacy policy

Bean Study Hub is a private study and placement planner with a Windows companion. The owner signs in to the Hub through Cloudflare Access and authorises the desktop app separately with a revocable device token. The public information pages are served by Cloudflare and use no app cookies, forms or analytics.

On your device

Bean saves your focus schedule, quiet hours, pause, optional description of planned work and pending activity totals under %LOCALAPPDATA%\BeanStudyHub. Windows Data Protection encrypts the service address and device token for your Windows account.

While Bean runs, it estimates foreground activity from the active process name, window title and time since the last input. It classifies activity on your device. The private Study Hub receives bounded duration totals for study, placement work, distraction and neutral activity. Window titles, browser addresses, screenshots and keystrokes stay outside those reports. The figures are estimates of foreground time.

Pause or exit Bean to stop foreground checks. Quiet hours and a confirmed timed commitment in a current calendar snapshot also pause checks. The automatic focus setting controls when focus blocks begin.

In the private Study Hub

The companion connects over HTTPS. Cloudflare hosts the private service, including study progress and materials, device records, conversation history and daily activity totals. The server stores a hash of the desktop token and records when the device last fetched a summary. Bean retrieves your tasks, dates, progress and recent saved messages. When you send a chat message, the service can save the message and reply alongside your Study Hub conversation.

For hosted AI replies, the service can send your message, a limited recent conversation and relevant study context to Cloudflare and the configured model provider. Context can include excerpts from course and placement materials, study notes, practice progress, activity estimates and dates from separately imported course material. The current hosted chat uses OpenAI through Cloudflare and can use a Cloudflare-hosted fallback model. The Hub also answers some questions directly from saved data. If you choose live employer research in the Hub, it sends a search query based on the saved employer and role to the configured search provider.

Optional Google connection

In the Hub settings, you can approve read-only access to Google Calendar and Gmail. The Hub uses your Google email address to check that the connection is for the owner’s account. The sync saves a calendar snapshot for the next 14 days to show your timetable and pause focus prompts during confirmed timed commitments. The personal calendar uses event timing and availability. A separate university calendar, if included, can also supply timetable titles and original links.

The Gmail permission is read-only mailbox access. The Hub searches for recent course and placement messages and saves their subjects, sender information, received dates and excerpts for up to six matches per category. This lets you check relevant updates in Bean and open the original message for the full details. The Google connection does not send email or change events.

Cloudflare hosts this private processing and storage. The Hub records which account is connected and its sync status. It stores the refresh token, calendar snapshot and selected excerpts encrypted. Successful refreshes replace the saved snapshots. If a refresh fails, the Hub can show the last successful copy with its date.

A relevant Gmail excerpt can appear in a direct Bean reply. The service saves a neutral confirmation in conversation history. The Hub keeps synced Google Calendar data, selected Gmail excerpts and the direct replies that contain them out of hosted model requests. Text you paste into chat yourself follows the ordinary chat handling above.

Bean Study Hub uses information received from Google APIs for the calendar and mail features described here and does not use it to train general-purpose AI models. Its use adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Optional local controls

Desktop tools use local window titles and process details to act on a window you select. Bean asks before closing a window. A few exact chat commands also run locally when the target is clear. These actions run under your Windows account.

The optional Chrome extension requires separate setup and an explicit connection. Bean can list regular tabs, show titles and HTTPS paths with query and fragment removed, and perform actions you request. The extension handles tab information locally and excludes incognito tabs. Closing a tab requires confirmation. Chrome keeps the last closed address in temporary extension storage for up to 15 minutes for Undo.

Access and deletion

Revoke a desktop token in Study Hub’s desktop settings to stop that device from reconnecting. To remove the device’s local settings and saved connection, exit Bean and remove its local data folder. Disconnect the Chrome extension to end the local browser connection, or remove the extension and its per-user registration.

Disconnect Google in Study Hub to remove its saved connection and synced snapshots from the Hub. Use your Google account settings to remove the app’s Google grant as well. The service gives no fixed automatic deletion period for hosted study data, saved chat or daily activity totals. Contact the operator to ask about accessing or deleting that data.

Privacy contact

Use Jamie Parr’s contact page for questions about your data or to request access or deletion.