BIA Course Helper — Privacy Policy

BIA Course Helper is a browser extension built by the Bridging Internationals Association (BIA) at USC. It has one purpose: help USC students plan their schedules by showing RateMyProfessors (RMP) ratings, counting open seats, highlighting schedule conflicts, and recommending courses on USC registration pages.

Everything described below is in service of that single purpose. We do not use the extension to do anything else.

When you open a USC registration page — specifically webreg.usc.edu or classes.usc.edu — the extension reads visible course information that is already displayed on that page. This includes:

• Course codes, titles, and descriptions.
• Instructor names.
• Section numbers, meeting times, days, and locations.
• Seat counts and enrollment status.

The extension does not read content from any other website. It does not access your email, your browsing history, or tabs outside the two USC domains listed above.

The extension uses Chrome's storage permission to save two kinds of information locally in your browser:

• Your settings— for example, which features you've enabled and which semester you're planning for.
• Caches— copies of professor ratings and course details we've already fetched, so the extension loads faster and avoids repeat network requests.

This data stays on your device. Uninstalling the extension removes it.

Some features require looking up information that is not on the USC page itself. For those, the extension sends small, specific requests to our server at bia-roommate.vercel.app:

• Professor names are sent to our RMP endpoints (/api/rmp/search, /api/rmp/batch) so we can return ratings for display.
• Course codes and semester identifiers (for example, CSCI-201, 20263) are sent to our course endpoints (/api/courses/{DEPT}/{NUMBER}, /api/courses/ge) so we can return course details and GE category listings.
• Interest text that you type into the recommendation feature is sent to /api/courses/recommend so we can return suggested courses.

We send only what is needed for the feature you are using. We do not send your USC ID, name, password, or any account credentials.

• We do not sell your data.
• We do not share your data with third parties for advertising or marketing.
• We do not build advertising profiles or track you across websites.
• We do not transfer your data outside of what the extension's stated purpose requires.

Our use of any information we receive matches the extension's single purpose stated above.

Our server is hosted on Vercel. Like most web hosts, Vercel records standard request metadata when the extension talks to our API. That metadata can include your IP address, the timestamp of the request, the endpoint called, and your browser's user-agent string.

We use these logs only to keep the service running and to protect against abuse (for example, rate-limiting). We do not use them for advertising, profiling, or resale.

• Local caches expire on a short TTL and are cleared when you uninstall the extension.
• Server logsare retained per Vercel's standard retention window for operational and security purposes.
• We do not maintain a separate user database for the extension.

• Uninstall — remove the extension to stop all data access and clear locally stored settings and caches.
• Disable features — turn off individual features in the extension's popup to stop the network requests they make.
• Contact us— if you'd like us to review or delete server-side logs associated with your IP, email us at the address below.

The extension is intended for USC students and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13.

If we change how the extension handles data, we will update this page and change the “Last updated” date at the top. Continued use of the extension after an update means you accept the revised policy.