The short version
- You can sit any paper without signing in, and then nothing about you is kept.
- If a grown-up signs in, we keep their email address, the first names they add for their children, and the papers those children finish, so the work is there next time.
- No adverts, no tracking cookies, and we never sell your information or use it for anything else.
- To see what we keep, or have it deleted, .
If you are a child
You do not need to tell us anything to use SATs Mate. If you would like your scores saved, ask a grown-up to sign in. If you send us a message about a question, please do not put your full name, your school or where you live in it.
Who looks after your information
SATs Mate is a free service, run by one person in the UK, who is responsible for the information described here. There is no company behind it and nobody else sees it, apart from the services listed further down that keep the site running.
To ask anything about your data, use the Spotted a mistake? Tell us form at the bottom of any page and choose About my data or privacy, or .
What we keep, and why
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| A grown-up’s email address | To send the link that signs a device in, and to know which household is yours. |
| The first names you add for your children | To keep each child’s papers apart. A nickname works just as well. |
| Papers a child finishes: which paper, when, the answers given and the marks | So the child, and you, can see how they are getting on, on any of your devices. |
| The devices signed in to your household, and what kind of browser each is | So the parent report can tell one device from another. |
| Sign-in links you ask for: the address, and when it was asked for and used | So a link works once, stops after an hour, and cannot be used to send lots of email to somebody. |
| Messages you send with the Tell us form: what you wrote, the question and answer it was about, the page, your browser type, and an email address if you give one | To fix mistakes, and to reply if you asked us to. We also keep a scrambled code made from your internet address (never the address itself), only to stop one sender flooding the form. A message about your data, sent while you are signed in, also records which household sent it, so we know the request really is yours. |
| Visit counts: which page, the site you came from, your country and the kind of device | To see whether the site is being used. This uses Vercel Web Analytics, which sets no cookie and cannot identify you; the code it uses to tell visits apart is thrown away after 24 hours. |
We use this information because we have a legitimate interest in running the service you have chosen to use, and only in the ways described here.
What is kept on your device
There is no cookie banner because nothing here is for advertising or tracking. Each item below is either needed for something you asked the site to do, or remembers a choice you made. You can clear them at any time in your browser’s settings.
| Name | What it is for |
|---|---|
sats_session (a cookie) |
Keeps a household signed in on this device, for up to 180 days or until you sign out. |
Named after a paper, such as ks2-2024-paper-2 |
The answers to a paper you are part-way through, so reloading the page loses nothing. |
sats-outbox |
A finished paper waiting to be sent when there is no internet connection. It goes once it is sent. |
sats-current-child |
Which child is working, so their papers are saved to the right name. |
sats-waiting |
A sign-in link this device is waiting for. Cleared when you sign in, and ignored after an hour. |
sats-theme |
Whether you chose light or dark. |
sats-home-open, sats-home-stages |
Which years and key stages you last had open on the home page. |
Who else handles it
These services keep the site running. They handle information only to provide that service to us, under their own data protection terms.
- Vercel hosts the website and runs its code, in London, and provides the visit counts. Like any web host, it handles your internet address to deliver pages to you.
- Neon stores the household information, in London.
- Resend sends the sign-in emails, from Ireland.
- Cloudflare stores our copies of the printed papers. If you open one, your browser fetches it from Cloudflare.
Links to GOV.UK and the National Archives take you to their sites, which have their own privacy notices. We never sell your information, and never share it with anybody else unless the law requires it.
How long we keep it
Household information, including children’s names and finished papers, is kept until you ask us to delete it. That is deliberate: removing a child on the site hides them but keeps their papers, so a child’s work is never lost by accident. Messages sent with the form are kept while they are useful for fixing the site. Visit counts are kept only as totals.
Your rights
You can ask to see the information we keep about your household, to have it corrected, to have a copy of it, or to have it deleted, and you can object to how we use it. . For anything to do with your household, please send it from a device that is signed in, so we know it really is yours. We will act on it within one month. Deleting a household removes the email address, the children’s names, every finished paper and every sign-in record for good.
If you are unhappy with how your information has been handled, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.
Last updated 15 September 2026.