Privacy policy

Band 9 is an IELTS preparation service. If you want to ask about anything on this page, or you want your data deleted, email hello@band9.uk.

• Your email address. Whichever way you sign in, we end up with this. It is how your results find their way back to you.
• Your name and profile picture — if you sign in with Google, because Google hands them over with the sign-in. You can also add or change your name yourself in Account settings.
• The country you live in — only if you add it in Account settings. It is optional.
• What you tell the planner. Why you are taking IELTS, your profession, where you are going, Academic or General, your target band, when your exam is, and which package you looked at. All of it optional, all of it things you typed on purpose.
• Your test answers and results. For the diagnostic and every practice test: what you answered, what was right, and the band that came out.
• Your Writing. The essays you write, and the feedback and band they were given. When you ask for an AI rewrite, we also note the time, so a plan’s rewrite limit can be counted. Examiner-marked writing is marked by a reviewer working with Band 9, who sees your essays but not your name or email. When your results are ready, we note when you first open them. We keep that time, and when the marking was sent to you, even if you later delete the essay, as the record that the marking was delivered.
• Your Speaking recordings. When you sit a Speaking test we record your answers, because the recording is what gets marked. We keep the audio, a written transcript of it, your Part 2 notes, and the report.
• What you buy. When you pay for something, we receive from our payment provider the email you paid with, what you bought, the amount and currency, and whether the payment went through, was refunded or was disputed. That is how what you bought reaches your account. If no account has that email yet, we create one for it, so you can sign in with the same address and find your purchase there.
• The devices you use for AI marking. An account can use AI marking on up to two devices. To count them, your browser makes a random code the first time you sign in, and we keep the codes of your two most recently used devices with the time each was last used, and the browser and system it reported (such as “Chrome on Windows”) so you can tell your devices apart on your account page. The code says nothing about you; it only tells one device apart from another.
• Things you choose to send us. Your email if you join the newsletter; your name and comment if you comment on a blog post; and your name, photo and words if you share your experience with us, which appear on the site only after you have ticked the box agreeing to it.
• Basic usage measurement. Which pages get opened and roughly where in the world from, through an analytics service. This is about the site, not about you. It uses cookies that identify your device.

• No card details. Payments are taken by our payment provider on its own secure checkout. It handles your card or other payment method, and we never see or store the number.
• No identity documents, no passport, no date of birth.
• We never sell your data, and we never hand it to anyone for advertising.

When you ask for a six-digit code, we do not keep the code. We keep a one-way scramble of it — enough to check the number you type, not enough to work out what the number was. We also count recent requests per address so nobody can use the form to spam your inbox.

Your diagnostic answers are saved on your own device while you sit the test, so a refresh does not cost you the whole thing. Clearing your browser data removes them, and if you were not signed in, that is the end of them — we never had a copy.

Signing in also keeps a session in your browser so you are not asked again on every page. Ticking “this is a shared or public computer” at sign-in makes that session end when you close the browser.

If you arrive through a link from one of our affiliate partners, the link carries the partner’s name, and we pass it to our payment provider when you buy, so the partner is credited with the sale. If you said yes in the cookie banner, your browser keeps it for 30 days; otherwise it lasts only until you leave or reload the page. We also count how often each partner’s link is opened (a number only, nothing about you), and if you create an account within that visit we note the partner on your account, so purchases you make later are credited to them too. Partners see none of this; it is not used for anything else.

Writing and Speaking are marked by AI unless you have bought marking by an IELTS examiner. That means your essay, or your Speaking recording, is sent to specialist AI services to be read and scored, and the result comes back to us:

Writing

Your essay goes to one of today’s leading AI models, which marks it against the four official Writing criteria, the same ones IELTS examiners use. Before it marked anyone’s work, we tested it against more than 150 essays already scored by IELTS examiners.

Speaking

Your recording goes to a speech-to-text service, which turns it into a transcript, and to a pronunciation assessment service, which scores how you sound. The transcript then goes to the same leading AI model, which marks it against the four official Speaking criteria.

Band 9 runs on enterprise-grade infrastructure from some of the largest technology companies in the world. They handle data on our behalf, in these roles:

• Hosting and storage — runs the site, keeps your Speaking recordings in private storage that only your account can reach, issues sign-in codes, and handles our domain and email.
• Accounts and database — sign-in, the database your results and essays sit in, and usage measurement.
• AI marking — a leading AI model, a speech-to-text service and a pronunciation assessment service, used only for marking as described above, and to translate into English a testimonial you choose to send us.
• Email delivery — sends the sign-in email and the newsletter, from servers in the European Union.
• Payments — takes your payment on its own checkout, handles refunds and disputes, and tells us what was bought so we can add it to your account. It holds your payment details under its own privacy terms, which it shows you at checkout.

We keep the names of these partners confidential, because how we build our marking is part of what sets Band 9 apart. We disclose them to regulators and other authorities entitled to ask.

Some of these partners are based in, or operate from, outside the UK, so your data may be processed abroad. Each handles it under its own data protection terms, and we send each one only what it needs to do its part.

Your account, results, essays and Speaking recordings stay until you delete them. You can delete any single test from your History, or your whole account from Account settings, whenever you like. Deleting a test erases its answers, essay, recording and score; we keep only a note that a test was taken, so a free mark it used stays used. Deleting your account removes everything, those notes included, except the payment records described below. Sign-in codes last ten minutes. Analytics is kept for the analytics service’s default period, which is measured in months, not years.

Only your three most recently used devices are kept; signing in on a fourth drops the oldest. Records of payments are the one exception to deleting everything: the law requires us to keep them for tax and accounting, so a record of what was bought, when, for how much and by which email stays after your account is deleted, for as long as that law requires and for nothing else.

Under UK data protection law you can ask us to show you what we hold, correct it, delete it, hand it to you in a portable form, or stop using it in a particular way. Ask at hello@band9.uk. We will not charge you and we will answer within one month.

If you think we have handled your data badly and we have not put it right, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk. We would rather you told us first, but it is your right either way.

• See it
• Correct it
• Delete it
• Take it with you
• Limit its use

This site is built for people preparing for IELTS, which is an adult exam. It is not aimed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly hold their data. If you think we have some, tell us and it goes.

The date at the top is the honest one — it moves when the words change, not when the site is redeployed. If we ever start collecting something new, this page changes in the same breath, not afterwards.

See also our terms and conditions