Privacy Policy

Last updated: [2026-09-17]

Groundhog Learning (“we”, “us”) is built to respect your privacy. We don’t track you across the web, we don’t sell your data, and we keep what we collect to a minimum. This policy explains what we collect and why.

Who we are#

Groundhog Learning is operated by Tomaz Saraiva, based in Portugal. For any privacy question or request, contact us at [email protected].

Website visitors#

Analytics#

We use Umami (external link), a privacy-friendly analytics tool hosted in the EU. It collects anonymous, aggregated statistics, such as page views, referring sites, and general country-level location, without cookies and without storing your IP address or anything that identifies you personally. This data is not shared with third parties or used for advertising.

Embedded videos (YouTube)#

Some pages include YouTube videos. They load only when you click to play, nothing is requested from YouTube or Google until you actively choose to watch. Once you play a video, YouTube may set cookies and collect data under Google’s privacy policy (external link). Until then, no contact is made with YouTube’s servers.

Course sign-ups, waiting lists, and voting forms#

When you sign up for a course, join a course waiting list, or vote for a course you’d like us to build, we collect:

  • Your name and email address, so we can create your course account and/or let you know when a course is ready.
  • Which course you signed up for, joined the list for, or voted on, so we know what to build next.
  • Any optional answers you choose to give (such as your experience level or which topics interest you).

We use Tally (external link) to run these forms; it processes this data on our behalf and may not use it for its own purposes (see Tally’s privacy policy (external link)). We process your data on the basis of your consent, given when you submit a form and agree to be contacted or enrolled. We use it only for the purpose you signed up for: creating your course account, notifying you about a course, or prioritising what to build. We never sell it and you can withdraw consent at any time. Every email we send includes an unsubscribe link.

Enrolled learners#

Your student account and learning platform (Moodle)#

When you enrol in a course, we create an account for you on our learning platform, which runs on Moodle (external link). To provide the course, we hold and process:

  • Your account details — your name and email address, used to sign you in, let you resume where you left off, and contact you about your enrolment.
  • Your learning data — your progress through the course, which activities and lessons you’ve completed, exercise results, and any grades or completion records. This is stored in Moodle and linked to your account so you can track your own progress and we can issue completion records.
  • Technical data — Moodle keeps standard access logs (such as your IP address and the times you sign in and view pages) to keep the platform secure and working correctly.

We process this data on the basis of our contract with you: it is necessary to deliver the course you signed up for. We keep it for as long as your account is active. If you ask us to delete your account, we remove your personal data and learning records promptly, subject to anything we’re legally required to keep.

Our Moodle platform is self-hosted on a server we run with DigitalOcean (external link), located in their Frankfurt (FRA1) data centre in the European Union. We do not sell your data or use it for advertising.

Course activity (learning analytics)#

Alongside the identified progress held in Moodle, a pseudonymous copy of your in-course activity (for example, whether an exercise was answered correctly) is also sent to our learning analytics service to help us understand how well the material works and improve it.

For this we currently use SCORM Cloud (operated by Rustici Software, based in the United States). The data sent is a randomly generated identifier and your activity within the course, it is not linked to your name or email.

See Rustici’s privacy policy (external link). Because this involves a transfer outside the EU, we keep what is sent to the minimum needed to improve the courses.

Community (Discord)#

If you join our Discord community (the Groundhoggers’ Den), your use of Discord is governed by Discord’s privacy policy (external link). We only see the information Discord makes available to server members.

Cookies (Moodle)#

  • When you sign in to the learning platform, Moodle sets a strictly necessary session cookie (MoodleSession) to keep you logged in as you move between pages.

Everyone#

Cookies#

We aim to use as few cookies as possible.

  • Our analytics (Umami) sets none.
  • A strictly necessary security cookie (_cf_bm, from Cloudflare) may be set to protect the site from automated abuse; it is exempt from consent under the ePrivacy rules.
  • YouTube may set cookies only if you choose to play a video, as described above.

You can control cookies through your browser settings.

How long we keep your data#

We keep your email for as long as you want to hear from us. If you unsubscribe or ask us to delete your data, we remove it promptly. We keep your student account and learning records for as long as your account is active, and delete them promptly when you close your account or ask us to.

Your rights#

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

  • Access the personal data we hold about you.
  • Correct it if it’s wrong.
  • Delete it (“right to be forgotten”).
  • Withdraw consent and unsubscribe at any time.
  • Object to or restrict how we use it.
  • Lodge a complaint with Portugal’s data protection authority, the Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados (CNPD), at www.cnpd.pt (external link).

To exercise any of these, email us at [email protected] and we’ll respond promptly. To protect your data, we may ask you to confirm the request from the email address associated with it.

Changes to this policy#

We may update this policy as Groundhog Learning grows. The “last updated” date at the top shows when it last changed.