Who can use ScholarThread? Age and eligibility
ScholarThread is intended for users aged 16 and over. Here's why — consent law, contracts, sign-in providers and AI features — and what to do if you're a parent or teacher.
ScholarThread is intended for users aged 16 and over. If you're younger than 16, please don't create an account. This isn't an arbitrary line — several parts of how the product works make it unsuitable for younger users, and each reason stands on its own.
Why 16+
Consent and data-protection law. ScholarThread uses analytics that rely on user consent under GDPR. Under GDPR Article 8, children below the digital-consent age — 16 in most EU jurisdictions, though it ranges from 13 to 16 depending on the member state — cannot give valid consent without parental authorisation, and we don't currently have a mechanism to collect that authorisation. If advertising is shown on any tier, the same consent constraints apply, and Google's advertising policies add their own restrictions for under-16s.
Subscriptions are contracts. Paying for the Pro tier is a legal contract, and a minor generally cannot validly enter into one without a parent or guardian.
Sign-in providers set their own limits. ScholarThread authenticates through Clerk and single-sign-on providers (Google, Microsoft, Apple). Each of those imposes its own minimum-age requirements, independent of ours.
AI features send text to third parties. Planned AI-assisted features — grounded Q&A, viva coaching — transmit your notes and passages to third-party language-model providers. That's not a data flow we consider appropriate for children's material.
Any one of these would justify the age floor; together they make 16+ the clear line.
Parents and teachers
If you're a parent or a teacher and you'd like a version of ScholarThread designed for younger researchers, we'd genuinely like to hear from you. A school-safe variant isn't on the current roadmap, but understanding what one would need to look like helps us think about it — drop us a line via support.
The full legal text
This article is the plain-language summary. The binding treatment lives in our Privacy Policy (§9) and Terms of Service (§4) — if you need the precise wording, that's the source of truth.