Cookie & Local Storage Policy
PathFinder is built to be light on tracking. We use no advertising cookies and we do not sell or share your data with advertisers. We do use your browser's local storage to remember your planning data and preferences, a small number of strictly necessary cookies set by the services we rely on (such as sign-in), and — only if you agree to it — Google Analytics, so we can see which parts of PathFinder are used and which confuse people. You are asked before any analytics cookie is set, declining changes nothing about how the site works, and you can change your mind at any time further down this page.
01 What these technologies are
Cookies are small text files a website can store in your browser. Local storage (and similar web-storage APIs) lets a site save larger amounts of data in your browser that persists between visits. PathFinder relies mainly on local storage rather than cookies, because it lets the app work fast and offline while keeping your planning data on your own device.
02 How PathFinder uses them
- Remember your work — your master's/PhD track choice, assessment answers, roadmap, saved courses and scholarships, application tracker, visa checklist, settlement scenarios, and drafts are cached locally so they load instantly and survive a page refresh.
- Keep you signed in — if you sign in, our authentication provider stores a session so you don't have to log in on every visit.
- Preferences — small settings such as currency and display choices.
- Understand what gets used (only with your consent) — anonymous, aggregated measurement of which pages and features are opened, so we can fix what is not working. See section 04.
We do not use cookies or storage for advertising, cross-site tracking, or selling your data.
03 What we store
| Type | Purpose & lifetime |
|---|---|
| Strictly necessary | Your planning data and preferences in local storage, and the sign-in session set by our auth provider. Needed for the Service to function. Persists until you clear it or sign out. |
| Functional | Remembering UI choices (e.g. weekly/monthly toggle, currency). Persists until cleared. |
| Analytics | Off until you accept. If you accept, Google Analytics 4 sets _ga and _ga_<id> in your browser to tell one visit from the next. We set them to expire after 13 months, and we ask again at least every 6 months. Declining, or ignoring the banner, means they are never set. |
| Advertising | None. |
04 Analytics & your choice
We use Google Analytics 4 to count page views and to see which parts of PathFinder get used — which screens people open, how far through the assessment they get, where a checkout is abandoned. It exists so we can fix what is confusing, and for nothing else.
Nothing is loaded or stored until you press Accept. Until then no Google script is downloaded and no analytics cookie exists. If your browser sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal we treat that as a decline and never ask.
What is sent
- Pages and in-app screens you open, and the order you open them in.
- Anonymous events describing what kind of thing happened: an assessment finished (with a high/medium/low band), a search term typed into the course catalogue, a template downloaded, a plan purchased and its price.
- Standard technical data Google collects: approximate location from a truncated IP address, device type, browser, and how you arrived at the site.
- If you are signed in, the random account identifier Firebase gave you — so a visit on your phone and a purchase on a laptop count as one person rather than two.
What is never sent
- Your name, email address, or phone number.
- Anything you type into a form: your notes to a mentor, your proposal drafts, your application tracker.
- Your financial position — the figures in the funds planner and cost calculator stay on your device. We record only whether the result cleared the published totals, never the amounts.
- Anything at all to advertisers. Google's advertising and personalisation signals are switched off in our configuration and stay off even after you accept.
Changing your mind
Your answer is stored on the device that gave it and stands for six months, after which we ask again. To change it now:
Declining stops future collection. To remove data already collected, or to ask what is held about you, contact us — see the Privacy Policy for your rights under the Privacy Act 2020 and, where it applies to you, the GDPR.
Data is processed by Google LLC, which may involve a transfer outside New Zealand and Sri Lanka. Google's own terms are in the Google Privacy Policy; Google's opt-out browser add-on is at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
05 Third-party cookies
Some essential third parties we use may set their own cookies when their features load:
- Google Firebase — authentication and security may set session/token cookies or storage entries when you sign in.
- PayHere — sets cookies during checkout if you make a payment; governed by PayHere's own policy.
- PayPal — sets cookies on its hosted checkout if you pay via PayPal; governed by PayPal's own policy.
- Google Analytics — sets its own cookies, but only after you accept. See section 04.
- Fonts & CDNs — serving fonts or libraries may involve standard request data, but we do not embed advertising trackers.
These are controlled by those providers under their own cookie and privacy policies.
06 Managing & clearing your data
You are in control:
- In the app — much of your planning data can be edited, exported, or removed from within PathFinder.
- Clear browser storage — use your browser's settings to clear site data/cookies for PathFinder. This removes local-only planning data on that device, so export anything you want to keep first.
- Block cookies — your browser can block or limit cookies, though blocking strictly necessary ones may stop sign-in or some features from working.
- Analytics — accept or decline from the banner, or change your answer any time from section 04 above.
- Private/incognito mode — storage is cleared when you close the window.
07 Changes to this policy
If we introduce new cookies or storage uses (for example, optional analytics), we will update this page and, where the law requires consent, ask for it before such cookies are set.
08 Contact
Questions about cookies or storage? Email privacy@pathfinder.app, or message 071 270 7074 on WhatsApp. See also our Privacy Policy.