Bell app: privacy notice for students and parents
Last updated: 6 October 2026
Who provides the app
Bell is published on the App Store by its developer, shown there as the seller. Write to hello@bell4schools.com with any question about this notice.
Two ways the app works
- ASIMS Companion. For schools that use the ASIMS portal (today Akademeia High School). You sign in on the portal's own page inside the app, with a one-time code, a password or your school's Microsoft 365 account, as your school set up your account; Microsoft's sign-in page opens inside the app too. What you type there goes to the portal or to Microsoft, not to Bell. The portal gives the app a session key, and the app uses it to read your records, the same way the portal website does in a browser. Bell's servers are not involved.
- Bell School. For schools that run Bell's own platform. You sign in with your email address and a code, and the app talks to your school's Bell server.
There is also a demo with a made-up school. It sends nothing about you anywhere.
What the app reads
- In the ASIMS Companion: your name, email address and profile photo from the portal, your timetable, homework and deadlines, grades and teachers' feedback, reports, lesson records and attendance, announcements, class discussions and files your teachers share.
- In Bell School: your timetable, homework, the work you hand in, grades and feedback, attendance, school updates and class conversations, as your school allows.
What stays on your phone
- A saved copy of your school data, so the app opens quickly and works without a connection. You can turn this off in Settings, Keep school data offline.
- Your study notes, tutor chats and the photos you attached to them, your practice quizzes and flashcards, and your settings (for example, homework you ticked off in Bell).
- Your session key and any AI key you add, in the iPhone's Keychain. They stay on this device only: they are not copied to iCloud Keychain or to another phone.
- Your notes, chats and saved school data are stored for your account only, locked while the phone is locked, and left out of iCloud and computer backups.
- Your next lesson and deadlines can appear on the Lock Screen, in widgets, on your Apple Watch and in iPhone search. The widget and the Watch can also show a grade average. Anyone who can see your screen can see these.
- If you turn on calendar sync, your timetable, exams and homework deadlines are copied into Apple Calendar and Reminders. They then live in your calendar account (for example iCloud) and follow its settings.
What leaves your phone, and where it goes
| Where it goes | What | When |
|---|---|---|
| Your school's ASIMS portal (asims.akademeia.edu.pl) | Your session key and requests for your records. If your school has turned on hand-in through Bell, the answer and files you choose to hand in. | ASIMS Companion, whenever the app refreshes or you hand work in. |
| Your school's Bell server (app.bell4schools.com, hosted for Bell on Fly.io in Frankfurt) | Requests for your records, work you hand in, requests about your data, and a notification token if your school has notifications on. | Bell School only. |
| Supabase, the sign-in service Bell schools use today | Your email address, to send you a sign-in code. | Bell School, when you sign in. |
| Bell's school finder (app.bell4schools.com) | The school name you type. | Only if you tap "Sign in to a Bell school" and search. Bell's log keeps the request without the words you typed. |
| Apple | App download information (from the App Store, or from TestFlight for testers) under Apple's own terms; notifications, when your Bell school has them on. Apple's on-device AI model runs on your phone and sends nothing to Apple. | See the tutor section below. |
| The AI provider you choose: Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (ChatGPT) or Google (Gemini) | Your message, any photo or file you attach, and a summary of your schoolwork (listed below). | Only where your school allows students' own keys, or where your school has not decided; after you add your key, choose that provider and allow Bell to send to it; and only when you use an AI feature. |
| Your school's Bell server, and from it the AI provider your school chose (school-hosted AI) | Your message and the summary of your schoolwork (listed below), as text: school-hosted AI takes no photos or files. | Only at a Bell school that has chosen school-hosted AI, only after you allow Bell to send to it, and only when you use an AI feature. |
| The AI service your school runs, named in its device management (school-hosted AI at a school without a Bell server) | Your message and the summary of your schoolwork (listed below), as text. | Only where your school's device management names such a service, only after you allow Bell to send to it, and only when you use an AI feature. Bell's servers are not involved. |
Apart from the school finder above, the ASIMS Companion sends nothing to Bell. There are no adverts, no analytics and no tracking in the app. "Email a teacher" opens your own mail app, and you decide whether to send.
The study tutor and other AI features
The AI features are the tutor and its web search, the daily brief on Today, "Ask tutor" on homework and on teachers' files, "Catch up" for lessons, quizzes and flashcards, summaries of your notes, language practice, and drafting an email to a teacher.
- Who can use it. In the ASIMS Companion the tutor is on, starting with Apple's on-device model, unless your school decides otherwise through its device management; where it has not decided, you may also add your own key for Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini (see Age below). In Bell School it stays off until your school turns it on.
- How a school decides. A school that manages its iPads or iPhones sets
aiPolicytooff(no AI at all),device(Apple's on-device model only, nothing leaves the phone),byok(students may also use their own key with Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini; setting nothing allows the same, with Apple's on-device model first) orschool(the tutor uses an AI service the school runs, named in the same settings). A Bell school sets its AI policy on its Bell server, where it can also choose school-hosted AI (school): the tutor then runs through the school's own AI account, and you need no key of your own. Withschool, Apple's on-device model stays available and your own key does not. The school's choice wins, and the app refuses to send anything the school has not allowed. - Which model. The app uses Apple's on-device model, which keeps everything on the phone. It works on iPhone 15 Pro or newer, on iPads with an M1 chip or newer and iPad mini (A17 Pro), and on Macs with Apple silicon, with Apple Intelligence turned on in Settings and the device and Siri set to a language Apple Intelligence supports. Polish is not one of those languages yet (Apple's own pages, checked 24 September 2026). Where the model cannot run, the Tutor screen says why and what you can do. Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini are offered where your school allows students' own keys and where your school has not decided, and work only with your own key. Apple's larger model on Apple's servers (Private Cloud Compute) appears only in a build Apple has given permission for; the app's current settings show no such permission.
- What is sent, and your permission. Apple's on-device model sends nothing anywhere. Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and your school's AI service receive something only after you allow it, and only what the permission sheet lists: what you ask, and a summary of your schoolwork so the answer fits your course. The details are in the next section, "What an AI service outside your device receives".
- School-hosted AI. Written for Bell's server and the app on 25 September 2026 and not switched on yet; no school uses it. When your Bell school chooses it and you allow it, the app sends your message and the summary (see the next section) to your school's Bell server, which passes them to the AI provider your school chose (for example OpenAI, Mistral, Google Gemini, Anthropic, or a service your school runs itself) with your school's key, and passes the answer back to you. Bell does not keep your messages or the answers, in its database or in its logs. It counts how many requests and tokens (pieces of text) you use each school day, so your school's daily allowance works, and keeps those counts for 100 days; they are in the copy of your data you can download. Your school chooses the provider, the model and how many requests each student has a day, and the app shows which model answers. The provider's terms with your school apply, including how long the provider keeps messages. A school without a Bell server can instead name an AI service it runs in its device management; the app then sends your message and the summary to that service directly, Bell counts nothing, and the school's own arrangements with that service apply.
- With your own key, Bell holds no AI key and never sees these messages. They are between you and the provider, under your own account with them and their terms, including how long they keep your messages.
- Age. Each provider sets its own minimum age. For example, Google's terms for the Gemini API say you must be 18 or older (terms updated 28 April 2026), and Anthropic's consumer terms say the same. The app does not ask your age and does not check it. If you are younger than a provider allows, do not create a key there; use Apple's on-device model or leave the AI features alone. Everything else in Bell works without them.
- Turning it off yourself. Simply do not use the AI features. To stop Bell sending anything to a service you allowed, choose Withdraw permission for it in Settings, AI Tutor, Tutor settings. If you added a key, remove it there too, with Remove key; signing out also removes every key and every permission from the device. Turning Apple Intelligence off in your device's Settings also stops Apple's on-device model, for every app.
What an AI service outside your device receives
Before Bell sends anything to Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (ChatGPT), Google (Gemini) or your school's AI service, it shows a permission sheet: who receives it, what is sent, what is not, and "Allow" or "Don't allow". Nothing is sent until you choose Allow. This table is the sheet's list, row by row. A service you allowed receives these things only when you use an AI feature; the daily brief sends the summary when you open it.
| On the permission sheet | What is sent |
|---|---|
| What you ask | Your questions and messages, and any photos or files you attach. Your school's AI service reads text only, so photos and files are named but not sent to it. |
| About you | Your first name, year group and school. Your full name and your teacher's name only when you ask for an email draft. |
| Timetable | Your lessons and exams for the coming week, with rooms, teachers' names and planned topics. |
| Homework | Titles, subjects and deadlines, the tasks you starred, teacher feedback, and the instructions and files of homework you ask the tutor to open. |
| Results | Grades and marks with teachers' comments, grade goals you set, and your quiz and flashcard scores in Bell. |
| Study | Your study plan in Bell, lesson topics from the last month, the lesson you ask to catch up on (its date and time, course, room, teacher, status and recorded topic), topics you find hard in practice, notes you ask about, and parts of earlier tutor chats while Use previous chats is on. |
| Not sent | Your password or sign-in code, your email address, your attendance and report cards. |
- Asked for each service. Bell keeps your answer on this device, for each service separately: Anthropic, OpenAI and Google each have their own, and your school's AI service is kept by its address, so a new address asks again. If the list above changes, Bell asks you again.
- Without it, nothing is sent. Every request is checked as it leaves the app. A service you have not allowed receives nothing, and the screen offers the permission sheet instead.
- Withdrawing it. In Settings, AI Tutor, Tutor settings, each service you allowed has Withdraw permission. Bell then sends nothing more to that service unless you allow it again. Signing out withdraws every permission.
- Apple's on-device model needs no permission, because nothing leaves your device.
- A second choice, for each kind of your schoolwork. Separately from the service, the tutor asks before it uses each kind of your schoolwork, with every model, Apple's on-device model included: your grades and teachers' feedback, your homework and teachers' files, your timetable and lessons, your study progress, earlier tutor chats, and web search. Every kind starts on Ask each time, and while it is, the tutor asks every time a request would use it: in the chat, or over the screen you are on for the daily brief, quizzes and flashcards. Web search is asked about when the tutor wants to search. You choose Allow once (for that request only), Always allow, or Don't allow (that request goes without it); Choose for each also offers Don't allow and don't ask again. Only Always allow and Don't allow and don't ask again are remembered. A kind you leave out is not in the request (it is not sent, and the on-device model is not given it), and the answer says what was left out. In Tutor settings, What the tutor may use lists each kind with what it covers and lets you set it to Ask each time, Always allow or Never, including taking back Always allow; Recent use lists the last 20 requests with what each one used. These choices and that list are kept on this device only, for your account, and signing out removes them.
Children, parents and who is responsible
- Your school is responsible for the school records it keeps, in ASIMS or on its Bell server, and decides whether the tutor may be used on the devices it manages.
- With school-hosted AI, your school chooses the provider, holds the account with it and decides whether students may use it; Bell passes the messages on for the school.
- If you add your own key for an AI provider, you choose to send your information to that provider, and its terms apply between you and it. Parents may want to talk this through with their child.
- How responsibility for the ASIMS Companion is shared between the school, the app's provider and the student is an open question for a lawyer; no lawyer has answered it yet. This notice will say the answer once it is known.
Deleting data from your phone
- Sign out removes your session key, the saved school data, files you opened, downloaded or exported in Bell, the AI keys you added, your starred work and target grades, and the Bell entries in Calendar (the revision plan too) and Reminders. Your notes and chats stay locked on the phone for your account, so they come back if the same account signs in again.
- Settings, Remove local data and sign out also deletes this account's notes, chats, attached photos and practice.
- Settings, Clear tutor chat history and Clear cached chat photos remove only those.
- Settings, AI Tutor, Tutor settings, Remove key deletes your AI key without signing out. Do this (or sign out) before deleting the app, because iOS can keep Keychain items after an app is removed.
- Turning off calendar sync removes the Bell calendar and reminders list from your devices.
- Deleting the app removes its files from the phone.
- Records held by your school are the school's: ask the school. In Bell School, Settings, Account, Your data gives you a copy of your data and lets you ask the school to erase your account. Messages you sent to an AI provider are deleted in your account with that provider; with school-hosted AI, ask your school, which holds that account.
Your rights and complaints
Ask your school about your school records and about school-hosted AI, the AI provider about messages you sent it with your own key, and Bell at hello@bell4schools.com about the app. You can complain to the data-protection authority; in Poland that is the President of the Personal Data Protection Office (UODO), uodo.gov.pl.
Changes
The date at the top of this page shows when this notice last changed.