Privacy Policy

1. Scope

This Privacy Policy applies to information collected through OpenBook Homeschooling, including our public website, parent accounts, student profiles, curriculum pages, lessons, activities, assessments, progress features, contact forms, and related services that link to this policy.

OpenBook is designed so that a parent or legal guardian creates and controls the family account and creates student profiles for children in that family.

2. Information We Collect

Parent or guardian information

When a parent creates or uses an account, we may collect information such as name, email address, password credentials in hashed form, account status, login information, communications with OpenBook, and information necessary to provide account and support services.

Student information

A parent may create a student profile. We intentionally seek to keep student profile information limited. Depending on the features in use, this may include the student's first name, optional last name, grade level, profile status, lesson progress, activities, assessment answers, scores, teacher or parent feedback, and other educational progress information generated through use of OpenBook.

Contact and support information

If you contact us, we may collect your name, email address, subject, message, and technical information reasonably needed to respond to or troubleshoot your request.

Technical information

Our servers and security systems may process technical information such as IP address, browser or device information, timestamps, session information, and security logs when necessary to operate, secure, troubleshoot, and protect the service.

3. Children's Privacy and Parental Control

OpenBook includes educational experiences intended for children, including children under 13. Our account model is designed around parental control: the parent or legal guardian creates the family account and creates and manages the child's student profile.

We do not intend to require a child to provide more personal information than is reasonably necessary to participate in an OpenBook educational activity. We also do not intend to provide public child profiles, public student directories, or public posting features that expose a child's personal information.

Where applicable law requires verifiable parental consent before collection, use, or disclosure of a child's personal information, OpenBook will use an appropriate parental notice and consent process before the affected collection occurs.

Parents should supervise their child's use of OpenBook and should not instruct a child to submit unnecessary personal information through lesson responses, written assignments, support forms, or other free-text fields.

4. How We Use Information

We may use information collected through OpenBook to:

• Create, authenticate, maintain, and secure parent accounts and student profiles.
• Deliver curriculum, lessons, activities, assessments, and other educational resources.
• Record lesson completion, assessment results, progress, and related learning history.
• Provide parents with dashboards and information about their students' progress.
• Respond to support requests and account communications.
• Detect abuse, fraud, unauthorized access, technical problems, and security threats.
• Maintain, troubleshoot, improve, and develop the OpenBook service.
• Comply with applicable legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Use.

We do not use a child's educational profile for behavioral advertising.

5. Sharing Information and Service Providers

We do not sell children's personal information. We may disclose information to service providers that perform functions necessary to operate OpenBook, such as hosting, infrastructure, email delivery, security, payment processing, or other technical services. Such providers should receive only information reasonably necessary for the service they perform and are expected to handle it appropriately.

We may also disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with law, respond to valid legal process, protect the rights or safety of users or others, investigate misuse, or protect the security and integrity of OpenBook.

If OpenBook adds a third-party service that independently collects personal information from children through the service, this policy and any required parental notices should be updated before that collection is enabled.

6. Cookies, Sessions, and Technical Data

OpenBook may use cookies or similar technologies that are necessary for functions such as keeping a user signed in, maintaining a secure session, remembering appropriate preferences, preventing abuse, and operating the service. Server logs may also contain IP addresses, browser information, request details, and timestamps.

If optional analytics, advertising, or other tracking technologies are introduced later, this policy should be updated to accurately describe those practices and any choices or consent required by law.

7. Data Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards intended to protect information against unauthorized access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include encrypted connections, password hashing, access controls, session protections, database protections, software updates, logging, and other security practices appropriate to the service.

No website or electronic storage system can guarantee absolute security. Parents should use a strong, unique password and protect access to their OpenBook account.

8. Data Retention and Deletion

We intend to retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary to provide the service, maintain legitimate educational and account records, meet legal or security requirements, resolve disputes, and enforce agreements. Information that is no longer reasonably necessary should be securely deleted or de-identified as appropriate.

Parents may request deletion of a child's personal information by contacting OpenBook. Before acting on a request involving a child's account information, we may take reasonable steps to verify that the requester is the parent or guardian associated with the account.

9. Parent and User Choices

Parents may review and update certain account and student information directly through their OpenBook account. Parents may also contact us to ask questions about information associated with their account or child, request correction or deletion, or request that further collection or use of a child's personal information stop where applicable.

Some information may need to be retained when reasonably necessary for legal compliance, fraud prevention, security, payment records, dispute resolution, or other lawful purposes.

10. Payments

If paid subscriptions or other purchases are offered, payment transactions may be processed by a third-party payment processor. OpenBook does not intend to store complete payment card numbers on its own servers. The payment processor's handling of payment information is governed by its own privacy and security practices.

11. External Links and Resources

OpenBook lessons or public pages may link to educational resources or websites operated by others. OpenBook does not control the privacy practices of third-party websites. Parents should review those services before allowing a child to provide information to them.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as OpenBook develops, as our practices change, or as legal requirements change. When we make material changes, we will update the effective date and provide additional notice or obtain consent when required.