Brainly

Is Brainly safe?

Brainly is safe enough for teenagers who treat it as a public forum. It is a question-and-answer site where students post homework questions and other users, AI tools and paid tutors answer them. That brings two risks. Strangers can reply to a child, and the free app is paid for by advertising: Apple's label lists location, identifiers and usage data as used to track users across other companies' apps. We found no breach and no regulator action. We score it 57/100, level with Gauth and below Quizlet (62) and Photomath (67), which have no peer answers at all.

Who runs Brainly and what it collects

Brainly sp. z o.o. is a Polish company registered in Kraków. Its app has more than 100 million installs on Google Play and runs local sites in Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Turkish and other languages.

Apple's privacy label is long for a homework app. Besides the three types used for tracking, it links purchases, contact details, user content, search history, browsing history, identifiers, usage data and diagnostics to you. Google Play adds that email addresses, device IDs, app interactions and even crash logs are shared with other companies for advertising or marketing.

The privacy policy, last updated on 26 February 2026, fills in the rest. Brainly shares data with "advertisers, advertising agencies and intermediaries" for targeted ads on its own site and on other sites and apps. It can locate a device by its IP address and country for location-based advertising, and it passes data to partners so they can serve such ads. Users can opt out of "sales" and targeted-ad sharing, but the opt-out has to be set on each device.

One point in Brainly's favour: the policy says it does not use personal data to train AI models. Audio for the Notes feature is transcribed on the device and, according to the policy, is not stored or processed by Brainly.

Strangers, tutors and moderation

Brainly's content is made by its users. A student posts a question and anyone can answer or comment. Paid Brainly Plus and Tutor plans add expert-verified answers and live text chat with tutors, whom the terms describe as "not under our direct supervision". Google Play lists in-app messages among the data collected.

What students cannot do is message each other privately. Brainly removed private messages between users in March 2018, its help centre explained, so the only private messages go to moderators and administrators. Students can send friend requests, but conversation with other students happens in public answers and comments, where moderators and other users can see it. It closes the private channel that strangers use to approach children on many other apps.

The Safety Center sets clear rules. It bans hate, sexual content, fake profiles, self-harm content, spam and any attempt to arrange a meeting in person. It warns students not to share their full name, address, phone number or social media profiles. Brainly says it uses community moderators and AI to check content, and every post can be reported.

The age rules are stricter than the Google Play rating suggests. The terms require users to be at least 13 with parental or guardian consent, US children under 13 need verified parental consent, and users in Brazil must be 16. The App Store rates Brainly 13+ and lists user-generated content, advertising and infrequent mature themes. Google Play rates it Everyone. Ads are another route for unsuitable content to reach a teenager.

Homework help or cheating?

Brainly sells itself as a personal tutor, and step-by-step explanations can help a student who is stuck. The same ready answers can be copied into homework, and some answers from other users are simply wrong. Brainly's own terms tell users to check the accuracy of AI-generated output. Treat an answer as a hint to work through, not a final answer, and check the school's rules on homework apps.

Security

We found no breach of Brainly accounts: it is not listed on Have I Been Pwned, and news searches showed no incident. Google Play says data is encrypted in transit. Brainly runs a responsible disclosure programme for security researchers but says it "does not offer a bounty". We found no two-step login option, so a unique password matters, or a Google or Apple sign-in that has two-step protection.

How to use Brainly more safely

1. For a child under 13, set up the account yourself and link a parent account where Brainly offers it.
2. Pick a username that does not contain a real name, school or email address.
3. Never move a conversation to Instagram, Snapchat, Discord or WhatsApp; report anyone who asks.
4. On iPhone, deny the tracking request and location access; then opt out of ad sharing through the privacy link on each device you use.
5. Delete the account through Edit Profile, Preferences and "I want to delete my account", and cancel any store subscription separately.

How we scored it

Regulatory record (86) is Brainly's strongest factor: no regulator has fined it or ordered it to change. Privacy (40) is the weakest, because Apple's label lists location used to track you and the policy shares data for targeted and location-based ads. Scams and harmful content (62) and security (58) sit in between: answers from strangers and ads for a teenage audience on one side, a clean breach record but no bounty or two-step login on the other.