Your study data is never shared with your employer, licensing board, hospital, or any third party. What you score on CertifyRN stays on CertifyRN. Period.
CertifyRN is a free nursing certification preparation platform. We provide adaptive, scenario-based practice questions to help registered nurses prepare for certifications including CPHQ, PCCN, CCRN, and others.
CertifyRN is operated independently and is not affiliated with NAHQ, AACN, ANCC, or any other certification body. We do not issue, endorse, or guarantee certification outcomes.
When you sign in with Google and use CertifyRN, we collect the following information:
| Data Type | What It Is | Why We Need It |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Your Google display name | To personalize your welcome message |
| Email address | Your Google account email | To identify your account and send important updates |
| Profile photo | Your Google profile picture | To display in the app topbar |
| Study progress | Rounds completed, accuracy scores, wrong answer counts, pinned questions, domain performance | To power the adaptive learning engine and sync your progress across devices |
| Answer events | Which questions you answered, whether you were correct, timestamp | To calculate your performance analytics and improve question quality |
| IP-based location | Approximate state or country derived from your IP address | To understand geographic distribution of our users for platform improvement |
| Device and browser info | Browser type, operating system, device type | Collected passively by Firebase Analytics to improve platform compatibility |
| Login timestamps | When you first joined and when you last signed in | To maintain your streak and session continuity |
| Active sessions | A short-lived record of the devices signed in to your account | To enforce our device limit and protect against account sharing |
Information you send us directly. If you use our contact form or apply to our creator/partner program, we also collect what you submit — your name, email, message, and (for creator applications) your social handles, self-reported audience figures, and any screenshot you upload. We use this only to respond to you or evaluate your application.
We collect data for two purposes only:
- To run the platform — your progress data powers the adaptive quiz engine, Focus Mode, and performance dashboard. Without it, the app cannot personalize your study experience.
- To improve the platform — aggregate answer data (not tied to your identity) helps us identify questions that are too easy, too hard, or poorly written so we can improve them.
We want to be explicit about what CertifyRN does not collect or do:
- We do not receive or store your full card number — subscription payments are handled by our processor, Stripe (see “Payment processing” under Third-Party Services)
- We do not collect your nursing license number, employee ID, or any professional credentials
- We do not collect Social Security numbers, date of birth, or government-issued ID information
- We do not collect any patient data, clinical records, or Protected Health Information (PHI)
- We do not track your precise GPS location — only an approximate region derived from your IP address
- We do not sell your personal data to any third party — ever
- We do not share your individual study scores or performance data with your employer, hospital, licensing board, or certification body
- We do not send unsolicited marketing emails beyond platform updates
If you score 40% on a Practice Improvement domain — only you can see that. Your hospital cannot see it. Your manager cannot see it. Your licensing board cannot see it. Your performance data belongs to you alone.
CertifyRN does not run advertising and does not use advertising cookies or ad-tracking networks. We do not sell or share your data with advertisers. The only cookies and identifiers we rely on are the ones needed to run and improve the platform:
- Sign-in & session — Firebase Authentication uses cookies/local storage to keep you securely signed in across visits and devices.
- Usage analytics — Firebase Analytics (by Google) uses cookies and device identifiers to track aggregate, anonymous usage patterns such as which screens are visited and how long sessions last. This helps us improve the app; it is not tied to advertising.
You can use your browser's privacy settings to block or manage cookies. Blocking essential cookies may affect sign-in and your ability to save progress.
CertifyRN is built on Google Firebase, which means Google infrastructure handles our backend. The third-party services we use are:
| Service | Provider | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Firebase Authentication | Handles your Google login securely | |
| Cloud Firestore | Stores your study progress data | |
| Firebase Analytics | Tracks anonymous usage patterns | |
| Firebase Hosting | Serves the CertifyRN website | |
| Google AI (Gemini) | Powers the optional “Explain it differently” feature — see note below | |
| Stripe | Stripe, Inc. | Processes subscription payments — see “Payment processing” below |
If you subscribe, payments are handled by our processor, Stripe, Inc. Stripe collects and processes your payment details (such as card information) under its own privacy policy; CertifyRN does not receive or store your full card number. We do store limited billing-related records needed to run your subscription — your subscription status, plan, billing period, and a Stripe customer/subscription identifier — associated with your account. We use this only to provide and manage your subscription, and we never sell it. See Stripe's privacy policy at stripe.com/privacy.
CertifyRN includes optional AI-assisted features powered by Google's Gemini models. When you tap “Explain it differently” on a practice question, the text of that question and its rationale is sent to Google's AI to generate an alternative explanation. If you apply to our creator/partner program, the screenshot and details you submit may be analyzed by the same AI to help us review your application. In both cases we send only the content needed for the feature — never your name, email, login, or study history — and Google does not use this data to train its models on our behalf. AI-generated text may contain errors; always verify it against authoritative sources.
Each of these providers has their own privacy policy. We encourage you to review Google's Privacy Policy for full details on how they handle data.
We take reasonable steps to protect your information:
- All data is stored in Google Firebase, which uses industry-standard encryption at rest and in transit
- Authentication is handled entirely by Google — we never see or store your Google password
- Firebase Security Rules restrict database access so users can only read and write their own data
- Admin access to the platform database is restricted and password protected
- We do not store sensitive personal or financial information on our servers
No system is 100% secure. While we use commercially reasonable measures to protect your data, we cannot guarantee absolute security. If you believe your account has been compromised, please contact us immediately.
You have the following rights regarding your data:
- Access — You can request a copy of the data we hold about you
- Correction — You can request that inaccurate data be corrected
- Deletion — You can request that your account and all associated data be permanently deleted. We will process deletion requests within 30 days.
- Portability — You can export your study progress data at any time using the Export feature in the app dashboard
- Opt-out of ads — You can opt out of personalized advertising through Google's ad settings
- GDPR rights — If you are located in the European Economic Area, you have additional rights under GDPR including the right to object to processing and the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at the email address in Section 12.
We retain your data for as long as your account is active. Specifically:
- Your account and study progress data is retained indefinitely while you use the platform — this is necessary for the adaptive learning engine to function across sessions
- Aggregate question analytics (not tied to your identity) may be retained indefinitely to improve question quality
- If you request account deletion, we will remove all personally identifiable data within 30 days
- Anonymous, aggregate usage statistics may be retained after account deletion
CertifyRN is designed exclusively for licensed registered nurses and nursing professionals — all of whom are adults. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18 years of age.
If we become aware that a user under 18 has created an account, we will delete that account and all associated data immediately. If you believe a minor has registered on CertifyRN, please contact us.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time as the platform grows and evolves. When we make significant changes, we will update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page.
Continued use of CertifyRN after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy. We encourage you to review this page periodically.
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, want to request data deletion, or have a privacy concern, please reach out:
We respond to all privacy inquiries within 5 business days.
Open our contact form →Choose “Data or privacy request” so it routes to the right place. · CertifyRN · Built for Nurses