Last updated: 10 September 2026. We take the privacy of young people seriously. Here's exactly what we collect and why, in plain terms.
Cadet AI is run by MONKEYZOO LTD, which is the “data controller” for the information described below — we decide how and why it is used, and we are who you contact about it. You can reach us at support@cadetai.co.uk.
Cadet AI (“the app”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is a study aid for UK Army Cadet Force (ACF) and Combined Cadet Force (CCF) cadets. This app is not an official MOD, ACF, CCF or Cadet Forces product.
Operator / data controller: MONKEYZOO LTD (Cadet AI) · Privacy contact: support@cadetai.co.uk
Cadet AI is for cadets aged 13 and over. Under-13s cannot create an account. When you sign up we ask your date of birth, and if you are under 13 we do not create an account for you. There is no way around this — an account cannot be created or used until your 13th birthday, even with permission from a parent or guardian. If a date of birth was entered by mistake, you can try again with the correct date after 24 hours. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13; if we learn we have, we will delete it. Parents and guardians can contact us at any time to see, correct, or delete their cadet’s data.
Adults using the app. Cadet AI can also be used by adults aged 18 and over — both adult volunteers (Cadet Force Adult Volunteers, or CFAVs) and adults who are not connected to the cadet forces at all. There are two ways an account can be an adult one, and they are not equally strict, so we describe both rather than the stronger one only.
When you first sign up, you choose which describes you and give your date of birth. Our server decides the age band from that date and will not let a 13–17 year old take an adult account type whatever the app asks for. Within the adult band the choice between “adult volunteer” and “adult learner” is self-declared: we do not verify at sign-up that someone who says they help run a cadet unit really does. What that choice affects is which adults-only leaderboard you appear on and how the app words safeguarding guidance for you — it grants no access to any other user, and no adult account of any kind can see, contact or be ranked alongside an under-18.
Converting an existing cadet account to an adult volunteer account is stricter, because it moves someone who was on a children’s board across the line. That change happens only after we approve it — you ask us, we check, and we record that approval first. A date of birth entered on your own is never enough by itself, and the change is one-way.
In both cases we do not store your date of birth and we do not keep a copy of anything you show us — only the result of the check. The cadet/adult split matters because it is what keeps under-18s and adults apart everywhere in the app: under-18s and adults never interact through the app — see “No contact between users” below.
People who are not cadets. You do not have to be a cadet or a volunteer to use Cadet AI. If you choose the non-cadet option when you sign up, you get the same study material without being asked which cadet organisation you are in or which star level you are working towards, because neither applies to you.
How your account type is decided, and what happens to your date of birth. You tell us your date of birth once, during sign-up. Our server — not the app on your phone — works out which age band you fall into and records only that result: under 13 cannot create an account at all; 13–17 becomes a cadet or an under-18 learner; 18 and over becomes an adult volunteer or an adult learner. We then discard the date of birth; we do not keep it. The account type is set once, and entering a different date of birth later cannot move you across the under-18/adult line. This matters because the account type is what keeps under-18s and adults on separate leaderboards, so it must not be something a phone can talk us out of.
Only what the app needs to work:
We do not collect your location, contacts, or photos. There are no advertising SDKs and no third-party analytics trackers, and we do not sell your data.
If you use TANGO’s optional voice feature, the app uses your device microphone to turn your speech into text. Depending on your device, this speech-to-text may be handled by your device’s operating system or its built-in (for example, Google) speech service rather than by us. You are asked for permission first and can decline or revoke it; the rest of the app still works.
If the app has a fault, it sends us a short report so we can fix it. Every report is built from a fixed list of things and nothing else: a fault code chosen from a list we maintain (or “unhandled exception” for a fault we have not listed), the platform, the app version, whether the app had to stop, and a trimmed list of code locations rebuilt from their parts — function name, code file and line number.
The app does not send the error message text. Because the report is assembled from that fixed list rather than copied out of the fault, anything you typed, any quiz answer, any file name on your device and any web address cannot travel with it. Reports are access-controlled, length-limited, de-duplicated, capped per app session, and deleted after 90 days. Reports are skipped altogether if you are signed out, offline, or using a test build, and you can object to this processing by emailing support@cadetai.co.uk.
To create and secure your account; to save and show your training progress, badges, awards and rank; to answer your questions in TANGO; to show leaderboards only if you opt in; and to send optional reminders if you turn them on.
Reminders. Parade reminders and the daily streak nudge start switched off and only ever run if you turn them on yourself; your device will also ask your permission to show notifications. You can turn any of them off at any time in Settings or in your device’s notification settings, and signing out stops reminders on that device.
Legal basis (UK GDPR): our legitimate interests in providing the study service you chose to use, weighed against your interests as a young person (Article 6(1)(f)); and your consent for optional features such as leaderboards and reminders (Article 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time in Settings. In the UK, 13 is the minimum age at which a young person can agree to use an online service like this without a parent.
We use a few trusted providers who process data on our behalf: Supabase (secure hosting, database, sign-in, and TANGO chat history); Google (only if you choose “Continue with Google”, to sign you in); Apple (only if you choose “Continue with Apple” — if you use Hide My Email, Apple gives us a relay address instead of your real one and we never see your real address); and OpenAI (your TANGO messages are sent to OpenAI’s API to generate a reply and saved as your chat history; messages sent through the API are not used to train OpenAI’s models, so please don’t type sensitive personal information into TANGO). When you use matched character voice playback, TANGO sends its reply text to our voice synthesis provider to generate the spoken audio. When you use voice input to dictate a question, your speech is transcribed by your device’s built-in speech service, which (depending on your device) may send the audio to Google to convert it to text; we do not store the audio. If you buy Cadet AI Plus or Pro, Google Play (Android) or Apple (iPhone and iPad) processes the payment and confirms to us only whether your subscription is active. They handle your card details, and we never see or store them. We never share your data with anyone else, and we never sell it.
YouTube API Services. Cadet AI may use YouTube API Services only for operator-controlled uploads and scheduling of Cadet AI-owned videos to the official Cadet AI YouTube channel. This does not collect cadet YouTube account data, does not manage cadet YouTube accounts, and does not sell or share YouTube API data. You can read Google’s Privacy Policy at policies.google.com/privacy. YouTube upload credentials are stored only for the Cadet AI operator account and can be revoked in Google Account security settings.
International transfers. Some providers process data outside the UK (for example, OpenAI in the US). Where data leaves the UK we rely on the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (or an equivalent safeguard, or transfer to a country the UK recognises as adequate) so your information keeps an equivalent level of protection.
Leaderboards are off by default. If you turn on “Appear on leaderboards” in Settings, the nickname you choose (not your real name), your unit or school, and your XP can be shown to other cadets. Your real name is never shown on a leaderboard. Boards are separated by account type, and there are four: cadets, adult volunteers (CFAVs), under-18 learners, and adult learners. You are only ever ranked against people of your own type, so an under-18 and an adult never appear on the same board — whether or not either of them is a cadet. You can turn this off at any time and we will stop including you.
Cadet AI has no social or messaging features between users. Cadets and adult volunteers (CFAVs) cannot message, contact, follow, add, see, or interact with one another through the app — there are no user-to-user chats, direct messages, comments, friend lists, photo sharing, or shared spaces. Every TANGO conversation is private, between one person and the AI assistant. The only shared feature, the optional leaderboard, shows a self-chosen nickname (never a real name) and is separated by account type, so adults and under-18 cadets never appear on the same board. In short, adults using the app do not come into contact with under-18 users.
We keep your account and progress data while your account exists. Everything with a fixed period below is cleared automatically by a job that runs once a day, so nothing older than its period is kept:
You can also clear your chat history or delete your account at any time, which removes the data sooner. If you ask us to delete your account, we delete your personal data (we may keep minimal records where the law requires).
Under UK GDPR you can ask us to access, correct, delete your account and all its data, restrict, object to, or export your data. You do not have to ask us to do the two big ones: in the app, Settings → Delete my account deletes your account and its data, and Settings → Download my data gives you a copy of it to keep. You can also make any of these requests by emailing us; see how to delete your account for both routes. We will respond within one month. A parent or guardian can make a request on a cadet’s behalf. You can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.
Your data is sent over encrypted connections (HTTPS) and stored by our hosting provider (Supabase), which encrypts data at rest, with access controls limiting who can see it. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect your information and will act promptly if we become aware of a personal-data breach.
If we change this policy we will update the date above and, for significant changes, notify you in the app.
Questions, requests, or concerns: support@cadetai.co.uk. The data controller is MONKEYZOO LTD.
