Policies & agreements

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy explains how INSTAINSTRU LLC, a New York limited liability company doing business as iNSTAiNSTRU, collects, uses, discloses, retains, and deletes Personal Information when you use the web Platform.

The Platform is designed for adult account holders. Adult account holders may book lessons for minors for whom they are responsible, as described in the Terms.

2. General Terms

In this Privacy Policy:

• INSTAINSTRU LLC (doing business as iNSTAiNSTRU) is referred to as "iNSTAiNSTRU," "we," "our," or "us."
• Students and Instructors are referred to as "Users" or "you."
• The "Platform" means iNSTAiNSTRU's websites and related web services.
• "Personal Information" means information that identifies, relates to, describes, or can reasonably be linked to an individual, to the extent regulated under applicable privacy laws.

3. Collection of Personal Information

We collect the following categories of Personal Information, depending on how you use the Platform:

• Contact and account information: name, email address, phone number, ZIP code, timezone, role, profile photo, login credentials, and account settings.
• Instructor profile and service information: bio, services, rates within platform rules, skills, teaching formats, service areas, availability, credentials or certifications you choose to provide, and background-check status.
• Booking and lesson information: lesson type, date, time, location or remote format, price, student and instructor identities, booking status, cancellation status, credits, and payment status.
• Payment information: Stripe collects card details directly through Stripe-hosted payment elements. We store payment tokens, brand, last four digits, customer ids, payment intent ids, authorization/capture/refund status, and related ledger information. During payout onboarding, Stripe collects taxpayer information (such as a Social Security or employer identification number) directly from Instructors for identity-verification and tax-reporting purposes; iNSTAiNSTRU receives onboarding and reporting status, not the underlying numbers.
• Identity and background-check information: for Instructors, Stripe Identity may verify identity and provide verified name and date of birth to us; Stripe retains government ID images and document details. Checkr processes background-check information and may return report status, adjudication, dates, and related notices. Identity verification for Instructors may include a photo of a government ID and a selfie, which our verification provider compares to confirm identity. The provider processes and retains these images under its own terms. We do not receive or store these images.
• Communications and content: in-platform messages, support requests, reviews, review responses, profile text, and profile photos.
• Device, log, and usage information: IP address, user agent, browser, operating system, device type, language or regional settings, cookie status, connection information when available, page views, searches, clicks on Platform controls, and session timing.
• Location information: ZIP code you provide, approximate location inferred from IP address, and GPS/browser location only if you grant permission for a map or location feature.
• Notification preferences and consent states: email, SMS, and push preference categories, phone-verification state, marketing consent boolean, and related delivery status where available.

For details on cookies and similar technologies, see our Cookie Policy.

4. Children's Information

The Platform does not offer accounts to children, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information directly from children under 13. When an adult books a lesson for a minor, the adult provides the information needed to arrange the lesson (such as the student's first name, age, and lesson-relevant details), and that information is collected from and controlled by the responsible adult through their account. Instructors may record lesson-related notes about a student, which are retained as part of the lesson record and subject to this Policy. We use a minor's information only to arrange, deliver, and support the lesson. We do not use a minor's information for marketing, and we do not send communications to minors. We do not record lessons involving students under 18. Adults may review, update, or request deletion of a minor's information through account settings or by contacting support@instainstru.com, subject to the retention limits described in the Retention section, including records we must keep for legal, safety, or dispute-resolution reasons. If we learn that Personal Information was collected directly from a child under 13, we will delete it.

5. Use of Personal Information

We use Personal Information to:

• operate, secure, maintain, and improve the Platform;
• create accounts, authenticate Users, and prevent fraud or abuse;
• connect Students and Instructors and support bookings, scheduling, messaging, reviews, and payments;
• process payments, refunds, credits, instructor payouts, tax/reporting support, disputes, and chargebacks;
• perform identity verification, background checks, fraud checks, sanctions checks, and trust-and-safety reviews;
• send transactional communications, phone-verification codes, security alerts, booking updates, reminders, message notifications, payment-failure notices, and support messages;
• send optional product updates or promotional email only where permitted and subject to preferences;
• analyze Platform performance, search quality, reliability, error reports, and product usage; and
• comply with law, enforce our terms, and respond to legal requests.

We may use aggregated or deidentified information for analytics, research, and Platform improvement, and we will not attempt to reidentify it.

6. Automated Systems

We use automated systems to help detect fraud, policy violations, and attempts to move transactions off the Platform. These systems may automatically restrict certain content or features and may flag accounts for review by our team. Significant enforcement actions are reviewed by a person. To contest an enforcement action, contact support@instainstru.com.

7. Disclosure of Personal Information

We disclose Personal Information to the following categories of recipients as needed for the Platform:

• Other Users: Students and Instructors receive information needed to evaluate, book, schedule, perform, review, or resolve a lesson. Where reasonably necessary to investigate or resolve a dispute, complaint, or incident arising from a lesson, we may share relevant booking, contact, or communication information with the other user involved or that user's legal or other authorized representative. We may also share information with our insurers and our own advisors in connection with a claim.
• Payment, identity, and background-check providers: Stripe, Stripe Identity, Stripe Connect, and Checkr.
• Communications providers: Twilio for SMS, Resend for email, Slack for internal support relay where used, and 100ms for live video rooms.
• Hosting, storage, analytics, and reliability providers: Vercel, Render, Supabase, Cloudflare R2, PostHog, Sentry, Axiom, and related infrastructure providers.
• Location, search, and mapping providers: ipapi.co, ip-api.com, Google Maps, and OpenAI-powered search or parsing services where enabled.
• Professional, legal, safety, and compliance recipients: advisors, insurers, auditors, law enforcement, courts, regulators, or counterparties where reasonably necessary. We may also disclose Personal Information where we believe disclosure is reasonably necessary to prevent or address fraud, security issues, or risk of harm to any person.
• Business-transfer recipients: parties involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, restructuring, or sale of assets.

SMS opt-in data and consent will not be shared with any third parties. This information is excluded from the disclosures described above. We do not share or sell phone numbers to third parties or affiliates for their marketing or promotional purposes. Disclosures of phone numbers are limited to the recipient categories and purposes described above.

We do not sell Personal Information, and we do not disclose Personal Information to third parties for their own marketing or advertising purposes. We do not use Personal Information to serve targeted advertising.

8. Security

We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect Personal Information, consistent with the New York SHIELD Act and other applicable law, including encryption in transit, access controls, and monitoring. We limit access to Personal Information to those who need it to operate the Platform, and we require our service providers to maintain appropriate safeguards. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a security incident requires notice under applicable law, we will provide it.

9. Retention of Personal Information

We retain Personal Information for as long as needed to operate the Platform, comply with legal and financial obligations, resolve disputes, maintain security, and enforce agreements. When information is no longer needed, we delete or deidentify it according to our retention processes and legal obligations.

We retain Personal Information based on account status, legal and tax obligations, and dispute and fraud-prevention windows. We also retain records where necessary to investigate or respond to a safety concern.

Public content such as reviews may remain on the Platform after account deletion, disassociated from the deleted account where feasible.

10. Your Rights and Choices

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, export, or restrict certain Personal Information.

You can update many account details in settings. Account deletion is available in settings where shown. To request a copy of your data, contact support@instainstru.com.

You may manage account notification preferences in settings where available. Promotional email may also be stopped by managing preferences in account settings or contacting support@instainstru.com. Transactional communications may still be sent when necessary for account, security, booking, payment, or legal reasons.

• Access / portability: request information about Personal Information we hold about you.
• Correction: update inaccurate account information or ask us to correct it.
• Deletion: request deletion, subject to legal, safety, payment, dispute, and fraud-prevention retention needs.
• Non-discrimination: we will not discriminate against you for exercising privacy rights required by law.

11. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy for legal, operational, or product reasons. If a change is material, we will provide notice by email, Platform announcement, or another reasonable method. The "Last updated" date shows the current version. Your continued use of the Platform after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Policy.

12. Contacting Us

If you have questions about this policy or our privacy practices, contact privacy@instainstru.com.

For privacy and data rights requests, email privacy@instainstru.com.

13. Jurisdiction-Specific Provisions

California or other eligible residents may contact support@instainstru.com for privacy-rights requests. We may verify your identity and residency before processing a request.

If our practices require additional rights, notices, or controls, we will update this Policy and provide them as required by law.