Your information, explained.
Privacy notice · Updated October 21, 2026
Seoulside connects Korean learners with university students in Seoul for conversation and cultural exchange. We use this website to manage accounts, lesson requests, learning records, tutor applications, service updates, and messages. Online checkout is available only when enabled. Creating an account and signing up for updates are free.
What you share with us
When you join the interest list, we save your name, email address, time zone, campaign labels from the link you used (when present), and the time you agreed to this notice. Older interest records may also include study goals and interview preferences. You can browse the public website without joining the list or creating a profile.
If you sign in and create a learner or tutor profile, we save your account identifier, email, display name, role, country, time zone, Korean level, chosen interests, learning goal, interview preference, consent time, campaign labels, and any university details you provide. Tutor profiles also include an enrollment verification status. Enrollment documents are not published on the website; do not send identification documents through the general chat. Older profiles may retain an age band previously supplied; we no longer ask for it when you create or update a profile.
Scheduling records include requested times, time zones, lesson topics, assigned participants, request status, any assigned Google Meet link, lesson preferences, prepared lesson plans, and lesson notes. Chat records include your name, email address, message, replies, and conversation status.
Our operator may start a conversation about one of your bookings. We link that conversation to the booking and your signed-in account, using the account details already saved with your profile. You can read and reply in Messages after signing in on another device. These conversations are available to you and the operator; they are not shared with tutors or other learners. Starting or replying to a chat does not change your booking or payment.
Our support team can receive conversation notifications and reply through a private Slack channel. When this connection is enabled, Slack processes the conversation reference, your display name, the topic, and the messages needed to handle your enquiry. We do not send your account email, learning profile, private reflections, or payment credentials as part of these notifications. Support messages may be retained in Slack as well as on Seoulside. Access is limited to our authorised support staff and the service providers that operate this connection. We record which support staff member sent each Slack reply for accountability.
Your private learning journal keeps completed lesson topics and goals, the tutor’s account of what you practiced, saved expressions and corrections, your self-reflection, tutor observations, and any practice mission you mark as done. We use these records to show your lesson history, learning XP, participation levels, and earned achievements. Confidence and goal ratings describe a particular lesson; they are not a certified language assessment.
You may also leave an optional tutor rating and service comment after a completed lesson. These are visible only to you and our operator, not to tutors or other learners. The assigned tutor can write learning feedback for you, but cannot read your private reflection or tutor review. Your learning journal and achievements are not published or placed on a public leaderboard.
If you buy a lesson pack, we save the offer, USD amount, payment and refund status, PayPal order and capture references, and the credits used or restored for your bookings. PayPal handles your payment credentials; we do not receive your card number or PayPal password.
Why we use it
We use this information to provide lessons, send service updates you requested, arrange a research interview you opted into, assess tutor applications, coordinate lesson requests, provide lesson notes and a personal learning history, review service feedback, reconcile payments and lesson credits, handle cancellations or payment disputes, and answer your messages. Joining the list does not subscribe you to unrelated marketing. We do not sell your information.
When you request a lesson, your learning level, interests, goal, and lesson answers are used by our operator’s Codex assistant to prepare a personalized lesson plan. This involves processing that learning context with OpenAI. We send only the learning context needed for the plan, not your email, private chat history, or contact details. Relevant notes from earlier completed lessons, tutor observations, and practice missions can also help the assistant plan what to revisit and practice next. Your private self-reflections and tutor ratings are excluded. The assigned tutor can read your lesson brief and prepared plan and should review and adapt it before teaching. Please keep sensitive personal information out of your lesson answers.
To keep lessons connected when tutors change, we prepare a teaching handover for the tutor assigned to each lesson. It includes your learning profile, that lesson’s request and prepared plan, and relevant learning notes from up to five earlier completed lessons, including tutor observations and practice progress. Upcoming lessons use your current learning profile; completed lessons use the learning profile saved with that request. Tutors cannot use an earlier lesson to look at your later learning history. Cancelling a lesson, changing its tutor, or withdrawing the tutor’s verification removes their access to its handover.
Handovers appear in the assigned tutor’s signed-in workspace. We save which version the tutor confirms reviewing, so new or updated material can be marked for attention. This confirmation does not mark a lesson completed. Account contact details, private chats, self-reflections, tutor service ratings, and payment records are not included in the teaching handover.
Storage and sign-in
This website runs on Sites and Cloudflare infrastructure. Account sessions, profiles, interest registrations, conversations, scheduling records, learning reflections and assessments, practice completions, tutor handover review confirmations, and payment references are stored in Cloudflare D1. When you sign in with Google, we receive your Google account identifier, name, and email address; we do not receive your Google password or request access to Gmail, Drive, or your contacts. Website access and account sign-in are separate access checks. PayPal processes checkout information under its own privacy notice. These providers process technical information needed to run and secure the website, and data may be processed outside your country.
Sign-in uses essential session cookies. A language preference cookie remembers your choice of English or Korean on the homepage for up to one year. Campaign labels are kept in this browser’s session storage so that we can understand which of our links brought you here; we do not save the full referring URL. Checkout keeps temporary purchase references and an idempotency key in session storage so you can resume approval or safely retry without starting a duplicate purchase. Guest chat uses a conversation reference and access token saved in your browser’s local storage so you can return to your messages on that browser. Clearing browser storage may remove that access. The server stores a hash of the access token. Request limits use a hashed network identifier to help reduce form abuse.
Operator-started booking conversations require account sign-in and do not use a guest access token. Replies from our support team appear in your website messages. We do not currently send email, text messages, or push notifications to learners. Open your account to check for updates. Slack notifications are for our support team.
An assigned tutor can see the participant and lesson information needed for a scheduled session. When a lesson is arranged, Google Meet processes the information needed to join that call under its own terms and privacy notice. Calls are not recorded by default.
Your choices
You can ask us to correct your details, leave the interest list, or delete your information through the chat on our homepage. Include the email address used for the request; we may ask you to verify it before changing a record. We keep information for service delivery, requested follow-up, and account support, and review what is still needed as you use the service. Where payment or dispute records must be retained under applicable law, we retain the necessary records for that purpose even if you close your account.
Please do not send payment details, passwords, passport numbers, or other sensitive information through the interest form or chat.
Questions or updates
Support is by chat and may be asynchronous. Use the homepage chat for privacy questions. We will update this notice when the way the service handles information changes; review it before submitting new information.