Terms of Use & Privacy

Effective date: September 29, 2026 · Last updated: September 29, 2026

Compass (compass.centercc.com) is operated by Center for Cognition and Compassion ("we", "us"). These terms and the privacy policy below are one agreement between you and us. By creating an account or using Compass you agree to them, together with the Terms & Informed Consent you accept at sign-up. Contact for anything on this page: Ramezani@centercc.com.

1. What Compass is, and isn't

Compass is an educational training tool for psychology trainees and mental-health professionals. Its simulated patients, AI examiners, grading, and study materials exist to help you rehearse.

• Compass is not a medical device and does not give medical, legal, or psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Using it does not create a clinician-patient, therapist-client, or advisor relationship with anyone.
• It is not a substitute for supervised clinical training, licensure requirements, or an actual examination.
• The patients, examiners, proctor, and coach you talk to are AI, not people. Their words, grades, and feedback are generated by AI, can be wrong, and must be checked against primary sources and with a qualified supervisor before you rely on them.
• If you or someone else is in danger, call 911. For a mental-health crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline). Compass cannot help in a crisis.

2. Exam preparation

Compass is independent. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (EPPP), the American Board of Professional Psychology, any state licensing board, or any university, internship, or training program whose examinations it helps you practise for. Names of exams are used only to describe what Compass prepares you for. We do not guarantee that you will pass any examination or reach any particular result. Our cases, questions, and materials are original, or quote published sources briefly for teaching and comment (with citations on the References page), or use public government material.

3. Your account

You must be 18 or older to use Compass; it is not directed to anyone younger. You can sign in with a Microsoft account, a Google account, or an email address and password. However you sign in, your email address identifies the account. You are responsible for activity under your account. One account per person; access codes, passes, and subscriptions attach to the individual account and may not be shared or resold.

4. Our content

The cases, rubrics, model answers, quiz banks, study materials, and AI-generated experiences in Compass belong to us or our licensors. You may not copy, scrape, extract, redistribute, or use them to build a competing product or train an AI system. You may use them for your own personal, non-commercial study.

5. Your content and uploads

"Your content" means anything you put into Compass: typed and spoken answers, notes, cases you write, and documents you upload (for example a PDF, Word, or text file describing a theoretical orientation on the Orientations page).

• You keep ownership. We claim no ownership of your content.
• You have the right to share it. By uploading or entering content you confirm that you wrote it, own it, or have permission to use it this way, and that it does not infringe anyone's copyright or other rights. Do not upload material you are not allowed to share, such as a paid textbook chapter or a colleague's unpublished work.
• A limited licence so the service can work. You grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, copy, and process your content only as needed to provide Compass to you. That includes sending it to the service providers named in section 11 (for example, the text of an uploaded document is sent to Anthropic to extract its framework). The licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies in routine backups, which expire on their normal schedule.
• No real patient information. Never enter real names, records, or protected health information about a real person anywhere in Compass. It is a training simulator, not a clinical record system.

6. Simulated people and images

All patients, case histories, and examiners are fictional; any resemblance to real persons is coincidental. The photographs of patients, examiners, and the proctor are AI-generated images of people who do not exist. They are stored on our own server. Some other avatars are illustrations drawn by the DiceBear avatar service, which your browser loads from DiceBear directly. Other images are our own or licensed.

7. Copyright complaints (DMCA)

We respect copyright and respond to notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 512). Our designated agent for notices is the Copyright Agent of Center for Cognition and Compassion, at Ramezani@centercc.com (subject line "DMCA notice").

A notice must include

• your physical or electronic signature;
• the copyrighted work you say is infringed;
• where the material is in Compass (a link or a clear description);
• your name, address, telephone number, and email;
• a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised by the owner, its agent, or the law; and
• a statement, under penalty of perjury, that your notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorised to act for the owner.

Counter-notice

If material you posted was removed and you believe that was a mistake, you may send a counter-notice to the same address with: your signature; the material removed and where it was; a statement under penalty of perjury that you believe in good faith it was removed by mistake or misidentification; and your name, address, telephone number, and consent to the jurisdiction of the federal court for your district (or, outside the United States, any district where we may be found) and to service from the person who sent the notice. Unless that person tells us within 10 business days that they have filed a court action, we will restore the material 10 to 14 business days after we receive your counter-notice.

Repeat infringers

We will close the accounts of users who repeatedly infringe copyright. Knowingly false notices or counter-notices can create liability under 17 U.S.C. 512(f).

8. Payments

Everything is billed in US dollars through Stripe; we never see your card number. There are three ways to pay. A subscription (Monthly or Program) renews every month until you cancel; see section 9. An exam pass is a single payment that unlocks full professional-tier access for a fixed window (30 or 90 days) and then simply ends, with nothing to cancel and no renewal. Individual session credits are prepaid one at a time and are spent only when your plan's own allowance is exhausted; unused credits stay on your account and do not expire. Usage limits (sessions, session length, daily AI calls) are part of each plan's definition, are shown on the Pricing page, and are enforced automatically. Beta access codes grant time-boxed access and expire on their own.

9. Subscriptions and automatic renewal

• Your subscription renews automatically every month until you cancel. The recurring charge is:
  • Monthly plan: $29 every month, plus any applicable tax. There is no minimum term.
  • Program plan: $15 per seat (at least 10 seats, so at least $150) every month, plus any applicable tax. There is no minimum term; the 10-seat minimum is a minimum quantity, not a minimum length of commitment.
  • Professional plan: $49 every month, plus any applicable tax. There is no minimum term. (Not currently offered on the Pricing page.)
• Your consent. Before you pay, the Pricing page shows these renewal terms next to the subscribe button and asks you to tick a separate box agreeing to automatic renewal. The subscribe button stays disabled until you do. The Stripe payment page and the confirmation page after payment repeat the terms.
• How to cancel. Cancel online at any time: open Pricing, choose "Manage billing", and cancel in the Stripe billing portal. Cancelling takes effect at the end of the month you have already paid for, and you will not be charged again. Cancelling online is always available and takes no more steps than subscribing did. You can also email Ramezani@centercc.com and we will cancel for you.
• Price changes. If we change the price of your plan, we will email you at least 7 days, and no more than 30 days, before the new price first applies, with the new price, the date, and how to cancel. The new price never applies to a period you have already paid for.
• Free trials. Compass does not currently offer a free trial that turns into a paid subscription. If we ever do, we will tell you before the trial ends, and you will not be charged unless you agreed to the paid renewal when you started.
• Changes to the renewal terms themselves (other than price) will be emailed to you before they take effect. Renewal terms version 2026-09-29.

10. Refund policy

• Monthly and Program subscriptions: cancel any time. You keep access until the end of the month you have paid for, and the plan does not renew. We do not give partial refunds for the unused part of a month.
• Exam passes (30 or 90 days): a full refund if you ask within 7 days of purchase and, during that time, you have not completed a mock exam day and have finished no more than 2 graded sessions (practice cases or panel exams). After that the pass is non-refundable.
• Session credits: unused credits are refundable within 7 days of purchase. A credit that has been spent is not refundable.
• How to ask: email Ramezani@centercc.com from the address on your account with the subject "Refund" and the date of the charge. Approved refunds go back to the original card through Stripe, usually within 5 to 10 business days, and the pass or credits are removed from your account.
• Nothing here limits any refund right you have under the law where you live, or a refund we choose to give for a problem on our side.

11. Privacy policy

This section explains what we collect, why, who processes it for us, how long we keep it, and your choices. We do not sell your personal information, we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we do not use it for advertising at all.

What we collect, where it comes from, and why

• Identifiers and account details (from you, or from Microsoft or Google when you sign in with them): your name, email address, the account identifier that provider returns, and, for an email sign-up, your password stored only as a one-way hash. Used to create and secure your account.
• Education and professional information (from you, as you practise): exam attempts, scores, competency areas, transcripts of your practice sessions, notes, cases and orientations you create, study plans, program memberships, and exam results you choose to record. Used to run the practice, grade it, and show you your progress.
• Audio (from your microphone, only while you record or hold a hands-free conversation): sent for transcription and not stored by Compass. We keep the transcript, not the recording.
• Commercial information (from you and Stripe): your plan, passes, credits, and purchase history. Card details go to Stripe, never to us.
• Internet activity (from your browser): sign-in and administrative events with their time and IP address, kept in a security log; usage counts needed to enforce plan limits; and feedback you send through the feedback button.
• Inferences: the scores, competency ratings, and readiness summaries Compass generates about your practice.
• Sensitive personal information: your account login (email and password) and the content of your voice recordings. We use these only to provide Compass to you and secure your account, never to infer anything about you beyond your practice performance. Compass has no camera features and collects no face images or face geometry.

Who processes your information for us

These service providers process information on our behalf, only to provide Compass. Under our agreements they may not use your content to train their models.

• Anthropic (Claude): generates the patients', examiners', and coach's replies, grading, feedback, and the framework extracted from documents you upload.
• Speech to text: when you record an answer, the audio goes to Microsoft Azure OpenAI first, then OpenAI, then ElevenLabs, each used only if the one before it fails. If none of those is reachable, your browser's built-in speech recognition may be used instead, which may send audio to your browser's maker (for example Google, Apple, or Microsoft). Hands-free voice conversations stream your audio directly to ElevenLabs, which transcribes it and speaks the replies. Audio is sent only while the microphone is recording. If you never turn voice on, no audio leaves your device.
• Text to speech: ElevenLabs or Microsoft Azure Speech turn the characters' words into the voices you hear.
• Stripe: payments and the billing portal.
• Microsoft: hosting (Azure, United States) for the site and its database, Microsoft sign-in, and Microsoft 365 for the emails Compass sends (for example, when you invite a colleague, their email address and your invitation).
• Google: Google sign-in, if you choose it.
• DiceBear: draws some illustrated avatars; your browser requests them directly, so DiceBear receives your IP address when an avatar loads.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect someone's safety, or as part of a transfer of the service to a new operator who keeps these commitments. We do not disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing (California "Shine the Light", Civil Code 1798.83).

How long we keep it

• Account details, training history, transcripts, and your content: while your account is open. When you delete an item it is deleted; when you ask us to delete your account we delete it within 30 days, and copies in database backups expire within 35 days after that.
• Voice recordings: not kept by Compass at all.
• Purchase records: as long as tax and accounting law requires (generally 7 years).
• Security log and feedback: as long as needed to secure the service and investigate misuse, and no longer than 24 months.
• Settings kept in your own browser (difficulty, orientation, colour vibe, story player preferences): on your device until you clear them.

Cookies, tracking, and Do Not Track

Compass sets only cookies that are strictly necessary for the site to work, so it does not ask for cookie consent (on the live site the sign-in cookie names carry a __Secure- or __Host- prefix):

• next-auth.session-token: keeps you signed in.
• next-auth.csrf-token and next-auth.callback-url: protect the sign-in form and return you to the page you came from. During a Microsoft or Google sign-in, short-lived next-auth.state, next-auth.pkce.code_verifier, and next-auth.nonce cookies are also set and removed.
• ARRAffinity and ARRAffinitySameSite: set by our host, Microsoft Azure, to route your requests to the same server.

There are no advertising or analytics cookies, no analytics or session-replay service, and no keystroke logging. Fonts are served from our own server, not from Google. We do not track you across other websites and we do not allow third parties to do so through Compass, apart from the DiceBear avatar requests described above. Because we do no cross-site tracking, we do not change our behaviour when your browser sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal; there is nothing further for it to switch off.

When your work is visible to someone else

By default your practice is private to you. There are exactly three ways it reaches another person, and each one is something you start.

• Joining a program: if you join a training program or cohort, its director can see your scores and competency areas only for work done while you are a member. They never see your transcripts, your recordings, or the written feedback the AI gives you. You are shown the exact terms when you join and they are stored with your membership, so a later change to this page cannot widen what a program can see about work you have already done. Leaving a program deletes nothing: the work from that period stays visible to both of you, and work done afterwards does not count towards it.
• Head-to-Head: if you take the same case as a colleague, both of you can watch the other's live coaching read while you work, and once an AI judge has scored the session you each see both scorecards and the reasoning. Your interview transcript is not shown to your opponent; it is read by the judge in order to score it.
• Sending a record: you can generate a link to your training record for a supervisor or registrar. Anyone holding the link can open it without an account, so treat it like a document you have emailed. It carries scores and competency areas only, never transcripts; you can set it to expire, and you can revoke it at any time.

A training record is a log of self-directed practice on a simulator. It is not a record of supervised clinical hours, and it does not certify competence.

12. Your privacy rights, including California residents

Compass may not meet the size thresholds of the California Consumer Privacy Act, but we honour these rights for California residents, and in practice for everyone:

• Know what personal information we have about you, where it came from, why we use it, and who we disclose it to, and get a copy of it.
• Delete your personal information (you can also delete your own content inside Compass).
• Correct inaccurate information.
• Opt out of sale or sharing. We do neither, so there is nothing to opt out of, but you may still ask.
• Limit the use of sensitive personal information. We already use it only to provide the service.
• No discrimination: we will not charge you more, give you less, or treat you differently for using any of these rights.

How to ask: email Ramezani@centercc.com with the subject "Privacy request" from the address on your account. We verify a request by confirming it with that email address (and, if needed, one or two details only the account holder would know), and we answer within 45 days. An authorised agent may ask on your behalf with your signed permission; we may ask you to confirm the request directly.

13. Acceptable use

Don't probe, overload, or attempt to bypass security or usage metering; don't attempt to extract other users' data; don't impersonate anyone; don't use Compass for any purpose other than professional education. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms.

14. Disclaimers and limits of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Compass is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages arising from your use of Compass, and our total liability to you is limited to the amounts you paid us in the three months before the claim arose. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for fraud, for wilful injury to a person or property, for violation of law (California Civil Code 1668), or for anything else that cannot be limited by law, and nothing here waives your rights under the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act or other consumer-protection laws. These terms do not contain an arbitration clause or a class-action waiver.

15. Governing law

California law governs these terms, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Disputes will be heard in the state or federal courts located in California, unless the law where you live gives you the right to bring a claim there.

16. Accessibility

We aim for Compass to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at level AA, and we test pages for contrast and keyboard use. If something in Compass is hard or impossible for you to use, write to Ramezani@centercc.com with the page and the problem, and we will fix it or give you another way to get the same thing done.

17. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as Compass changes. Every change is posted on this page with a new "Last updated" date. For a material change we will also email you at least 7 days before it takes effect. Continuing to use Compass after a change takes effect means you accept it; if you don't, you can cancel and close your account. What a training program can see about work you have already done is the one thing a change here cannot widen, because those terms are recorded on your membership at the moment you join.

18. General

• Entire agreement: these terms, the Terms & Informed Consent, and the plan details shown when you buy are the whole agreement between you and us about Compass.
• Severability: if a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, that part is limited or removed as little as possible and the rest stays in effect.
• No waiver: not enforcing a term straight away does not mean we have given it up.
• Assignment: you may not transfer your account. We may transfer these terms to a successor operator who keeps them.

19. Contact

Center for Cognition and Compassion, operator of Compass. Questions about these terms, your data, a privacy request, a refund, a copyright notice, accessibility, or anything else: Ramezani@centercc.com. Automated emails from Compass come from a no-reply address; replies to it are not read, so please write to Ramezani@centercc.com instead.