Privacy policy

These tools are run by me, Mario, the person behind Kind of Lost (kindoflost.com). Contact: mario@kindoflost.com.

The short version: your class or team list is used to compute the groups and then discarded. Nothing is stored, nothing is shared with anyone, and no AI or machine-learning model is trained on it or involved in making the groups.

Google Sheets add-on

What it can access. The add-on asks Google for three permissions: to see and edit only the spreadsheet it is opened in (not your other files, not your Drive), to show its menu and sidebar, and to connect to my server at group-maker.kindoflost.com.

What it reads and when. Nothing happens until you press a button. When you press Run, the add-on reads the one tab that holds your people (the active tab, or the tab called students or people) and sends it over HTTPS to my server. The groups come back and are written into the tabs groups and balance of your spreadsheet. When you press Insert sample class, it writes sample data into new tabs and sends nothing.

Data held only during the request. The tab is held in the server's memory while the groups are computed, for the length of that one request, and is then discarded. It is not written to a database or to permanent disk, not used to train any model, not sold, and not shared with any third party.

Google user data. The add-on's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Data obtained through the add-on is not used to develop, improve or train generalized or non-personalized AI or machine-learning models.

Removing it. Uninstall the add-on from Extensions → Add-ons → Manage add-ons, or revoke its access at myaccount.google.com/permissions. Since I keep nothing from your spreadsheet, there is nothing to delete on my side.

The web tool (group-maker.kindoflost.com)

The workbook you upload is read to compute the groups and is not kept. The workbook you can download afterwards (your file plus the two result tabs) is built during the same request and sent in the page you receive; I do not keep a copy. The pages use Google Analytics to count visits.

MCP server for AI assistants (group-maker.kindoflost.com/mcp)

When you connect an AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT or another MCP client), the assistant sends the people and rules it built from your conversation. I never see the conversation itself, only what the assistant chooses to send to the tool. That input is used only to compute the groups, is held in memory while the solve runs and for at most 15 minutes after so the assistant can collect the result, and is then discarded. What the assistant does with the result is governed by that assistant's own privacy policy.

What I log

For each run I record one anonymous row: the date and time, where the run came from (web page, Sheets add-on or AI assistant), the country the request came from, the number of people and groups, how long the solve took and whether it succeeded. No names, no spreadsheet content, no email address and no IP address are stored. To keep any one user from overloading the server, the calling address (web, MCP) or Google's temporary per-user key (add-on, an anonymous rotating identifier, not your email) is held in memory for a few minutes for rate limiting only.

How your data is protected

• Encryption in transit. Everything travels over HTTPS (TLS).
• No storage of your content. Names and traits are never written to a database, permanent disk, logs or backups.
• Isolation. Each solve runs in its own short-lived process, discarded when the solve ends, so one user's data is never in the same process as another's.
• Minimal access. The add-on requests only the permission to read and edit the spreadsheet it is opened in. Only I, the developer, can access the server and its configuration.
• No third parties, no AI/ML. Your data is not shared with anyone and no AI or machine-learning model is used. The groups are computed by a mathematical optimization solver.
• Hosting. The server runs on Render (render.com) in the United States. Render provides the infrastructure only.

A note on student data. You do not need real names: first names, initials or ID numbers work just as well, and you can swap them back afterwards. Check your school's rules before uploading student information to any online tool.

If you believe your data was exposed, email mario@kindoflost.com and I will respond promptly.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted on this page with a new date.