Effective: 3 November 2026. This policy covers the OlaChina mobile app and the account you use in it. The account system is shared with olachina.org; the website publishes its own privacy policy.
Who we are
OlaChina (“we”) publishes practical guides for traveling, studying and doing business in China, on olachina.org and in the OlaChina app. The OlaChina app and olachina.org are operated by Ningbo NM E-commerce Co., Ltd., China, which is responsible for your personal data under this policy. Questions and requests: collabs@olachina.org.
What we collect
Account. If you create an account: your email address, user name, name, and optional avatar. When you sign up we email you a one-time code to confirm the address. Passwords are stored only as secure hashes by our sign-in system.
Your China plan. The answers you choose in the app’s short questionnaire (focus, stage, needs), used to personalize what we show you.
Requests you send us. Lesson bookings, service requests and job applications, including the contact details and notes you type into them.
Reading history. When you are signed in, the guides you open are saved to your account (capped at the most recent 200 per product) so your history follows you across devices. Signed-out reading is not recorded.
Newsletter. Your email address and subscription status, double opt-in confirmed.
AI chat. Messages you send to the assistant are forwarded to our AI provider to generate the answer. We store your questions and the assistant’s answers, together with technical details of each reply (which AI model answered, its usage and cost, and the time it took), and use these records to analyze and improve the assistant and our guides. Chat is available without an account: questions asked without signing in are stored under an anonymous identifier derived from your connection — we do not store your IP address with them. If you are signed in, your questions also appear in Me ▸ Assistant History (the most recent 200), where you can delete them. To have your AI conversations deleted, contact us at collabs@olachina.org. We do not use chat content to build a profile of you. Please do not share sensitive personal information with the assistant.
Surveys. Survey answers, linked to your account only if you were signed in when answering.
On your device. The app keeps your sign-in session in the device’s secure storage (the app’s own storage only if the device refuses it), and your preferences — such as the questionnaire answers before you sign in — and a cache of recently loaded guides in the app’s own storage. Signing out removes the session; uninstalling the app removes both.
Website analytics. Google Analytics with Consent Mode — analytics cookies stay off unless you accept them in the cookie banner. The app itself contains no advertising or third-party analytics SDKs.
What we use it for
To deliver the services you ask for (bookings, applications, lessons, newsletter, the AI assistant), to personalize the guides we surface, to respond to you, and to understand — in aggregate — how the app and site are used. We do not sell personal data, and we do not show third-party advertising.
The legal grounds: delivering what you ask for (your account, requests, the assistant) is needed to provide the service; the newsletter, marketing and analytics cookies rest on your consent, which you can withdraw at any time; keeping AI chat records to improve the assistant and our guides, and keeping our services secure, are our legitimate interests.
Sharing
Requests you explicitly send toward a school, university, employer or service provider are shared with that party — that is their purpose. This can involve a transfer to the country where that institution or supplier operates. Once your request is with them, they handle your data under their own rules; contact them directly with questions about it.
AI chat messages are processed by our AI provider to produce the answer. We send the provider the conversation, not your name or email address. Our AI provider routes messages to AI model providers that may be located outside your country.
Service providers that work for us — hosting, email delivery, payment processing and banks where a purchase is involved, and identity-verification services where a program or supplier requires one — process data on our behalf and on a confidential basis; they may not use it for their own purposes. Our business, legal, tax and financial advisers may see personal data in the same confidential way.
Where a check of your identity is required for an application or purchase, we tell you first and carry it out in confidence.
We do not sell personal data, and we release it to authorities only where a legal requirement to do so is demonstrated.
Marketing
If you subscribe to our newsletter, we may include information about products and services we think will interest you — including offers from carefully selected partners (accommodation, tickets, travel, banking, professional associations), sent by us. Your details are not handed to those partners. You can withdraw this consent at any time from the unsubscribe link in any mailing or by emailing collabs@olachina.org.
Where your data lives and how long
Account and service records are stored on our own servers. They are kept while your account exists. Newsletter records are kept until you unsubscribe. AI chat records are kept until they are deleted — by you in Assistant History, with your account, or by us on request.
Deleting your account
You can delete your account yourself at any time — the deletion is immediate and permanent, and removes your account together with your plan, bookings, applications, reading history, assistant history, subscriptions and linked survey responses:
- In the app: Me → Account → Delete account
- On the web: olachina.org/account → Delete my account
- By email (if you can no longer sign in): collabs@olachina.org — actioned within 30 days. Full instructions: olachina.org/delete-account.
An audit log retains a minimal technical trace that a deletion happened (an internal identifier and timestamp, no profile data).
Your rights
You can ask us at any time what we hold about you, ask for corrections, or object to a use — email collabs@olachina.org. If you are in the EU/EEA or UK you additionally have the GDPR rights to access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and complaint to a supervisory authority.
Children
Our services are not directed at children under 14 (or the higher minimum age of your country), and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child under 14 has given us personal information, email collabs@olachina.org and we will delete it.
Changes
We will update this page when our practices change; the effective date above always reflects the current version.