At PayGrade, student privacy and security are our top priorities
Last Updated: September 14, 2020
1. What is COPPA ?
COPPA is the acronym for Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) – created and put into effect on April 21, 2000. This act applies to students under the age of 13 in the US (or the minority age in other jurisdictions) to protect their personal information. A website operator must include in a privacy policy (“Privacy policy”) when and how to seek parental consent and what responsibilities the website operator, such as PayGrade has to protect its students’ privacy and safety online.
2. How PayGrade Complies with COPPA
To comply with COPPA, PayGrade does the following:
3. Privacy Policy Overview
PayGrade takes student privacy seriously; that is why we collect only the minimal amount of information from a student to provide the Service – just a first name, username, and password. We do not ask for other information, such as gender, SSN, email, address, student ID, or age.
Below, we give an overview of the website, its educational function, and how we protect and secure student privacy.
“Personal information” is any information you provide to us that personally identifies you, such as your name or email address, or other information that could be linked to such identifying information by us. We will only collect, use, and share your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
This Privacy Policy applies whether you use PayGrade through https://paygrade.io, our mobile application, or any of our other products or services that link to this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Service”).
Moreover, this Privacy Policy covers PayGrade’s treatment of any personal information about our users that teachers or other services might share with us.
This Privacy Policy does not apply to websites or services or practices of companies that PayGrade doesn’t own or control, such as third party services you might access through links or other features (e.g., social media buttons, lesson plan resources, etc.) on our website. These other services have their own privacy policies, and we encourage you to review them before providing them with personal information.
Please take the time to get to know our privacy practices. If you have any questions, you can email us at support@paygrade.io, and we will respond as soon as reasonably possible.
By using the Service, you acknowledge that you accept and agree to this Privacy Policy. If you do not accept this Privacy Policy, you may not use the Service.
4. What is PayGrade?
PayGrade is an education software platform that allows teachers to manage their classroom while teaching essential finance skills to students. Students create a profile under a secure teacher’s account that they can log in to, set up a profile picture (the student’s teacher is prompted to approve the photo taken by the student before it can be shared with other students), and resume. Students then manage virtual (not real) checking, savings, and credit accounts. Students pay bills, purchase assets, and learn the advantages of saving. Teachers can use PayGrade to help incentivize behaviors they want to see in the classroom like completing work and showing the school’s norms through deposit and withdrawals, called Action Items. Teachers can also teach essential financial literacy skills through the use of PayGrade and its functions. Students have access to see, but not alter in any way, other students’ profile pictures, resumes, and personal account information. Students can see other students in their class, a news log of virtual deposits and withdrawals made each day, a leaderboard to see the virtual net worth and ranking of students, their virtual bills and virtual assets, the teacher approved profile pictures and student created resumes of that teacher’s class.
When students set up a PayGrade account, they input their first name and then create a unique username and password. We do not ask students to enter any other personal information when setting up an account. If a student’s school or teacher wants to use any of the data created by a student such as their resume or transaction history, the school will be responsible for obtaining any necessary parental consent under COPPA.
School administration or other decision-makers in the school may choose to purchase a school account in PayGrade. This allows the administration access to teacher and student accounts to add, edit, or delete student accounts transactions (deposits and withdrawals).
5. What Information does PayGrade Collect from students?
PayGrade collects the minimal amount of information from students necessary to create accounts on our Service: we ask students to provide a unique username, a first name, a password, and the unique code (similar to Google Classrooms) they have been given by their teacher to connect with a classroom. We also collect some information automatically through some tools or software. We will not use or ask for parent or students’ email addresses and have no intention of spamming or marketing to anyone. We do not ask students to enter any other personal information when setting up an account. See below for more information regarding the information we collect:
6. How does PayGrade use the Information it Collects?
PayGrade does not sell or rent any of you, or your student’s personal information to any third party for any purpose, including for advertising or marketing purposes. Targeted advertising is not permitted on PayGrade. We only use the information you provide us to:
7. Photos and Videos (User Content)
When students create an account, they are able to upload a picture of themselves. This photo is sent to be approved by the teacher prior to the class being able to see it. If we discover that we have collected information from a student in a manner that is inconsistent with COPPA, we will take appropriate steps to either delete the information or immediately seek the parent’s consent for that collection. We do not disclose any personal information about students to third parties, except to service providers when necessary to provide the Service, as required by law or to protect the security of the Service or other users. Information collected from students (including personal information and information collected automatically) is never used or disclosed for third party advertising or for any first- or third-party targeted advertising, and student’s personal information is never sold or rented to anyone, including to marketers, advertisers, banks, or other financial institutions. If a teacher chooses to set up their students’ accounts, he or she can choose to provide full names for students (e.g., first name and last name) when setting up their class; they can also opt to only provide non-identifying information (e.g., just first name, only initials, or even just seat numbers).
8. What Student’s Information is Visible to Others?
The student’s profile, picture, and resume are never made available or visible to the public through PayGrade. Teachers may share their classroom profiles with other teachers and administrators in the building, but without a media release and/or written permission from a legal guardian, students’ information is not available to use for any reason outside of the school. In addition, students can see each other’s profile pictures, resume, classroom jobs, net worth, net currency, and transactions through the news log and class ranking. This is similar to how a teacher might display classroom jobs, behavior charts, and progress toward a specific goal around the classroom. The only other time student information or teacher information is visible to others is when the teacher contacts PayGrade to assist in setting up, managing, navigating, editing, or deleting their account. PayGrade staff will also periodically access teacher accounts to see if they are using the account and send follow up emails with how to better use the software but they will not change, alter, or delete any information unless asked to do so by the teacher.
9. Will PayGrade share any information it collects?
PayGrade will not share or disclose any information about teachers, schools, and students unless under the below circumstances. And even if we share information under these circumstances, it will be in line with this Privacy Policy and the COPPA law.
10. How does PayGrade Protect and Secure your Information?
Your PayGrade account is protected by a password. You can help us protect against unauthorized access to your account by keeping your password secret and confidential at all times. The security of your personal information is important to us. We work hard to protect our community, and we maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect against unauthorized use, disclosure, or access to personal information. We make every effort to maintain the security of personal information, and we work hard to ensure the integrity and security of our systems; however, no practices are 100% immune, and we cannot guarantee the security of information at all times. Outages, attacks, human error, system failure, unauthorized use, or other factors may compromise the security of user information at any time. If we learn of a security breach, we will attempt to notify you electronically (subject to any applicable laws) so that you can take appropriate protective steps. For example, we may post a notice on our homepage (www.paygrade.io) or elsewhere on the Service. Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to receive notice of a security breach in writing.
11. Can I opt-out of providing information?
You can always decline to share personal information with us, or even block all cookies. However, it is important to remember that many of PayGrade’s features may not be accessible or function properly.
12. How can I access and manage my personal information?
PayGrade aims to provide you with easy access to any personal information we have collected about you. If that information is incorrect, we give you easy ways to update it, or to delete it, unless we have to keep that information for legitimate business (e.g., we need at least an email address for your account) or legal purposes. Upon request, PayGrade will provide you with information about whether we hold any of your personal information, and if you are a user of PayGrade, you may request access to all your personal information we have on file by contacting us at support@paygade.io. In some cases, we will not be able to guarantee complete access due to legal restrictions. For example, you will not be allowed to access files that contain information about other users or information that is confidential to us. We may not be able to fulfill requests that are unreasonably repetitive, require disproportionate technical effort, or would be extremely impractical.
13. How can I delete my account?
You can delete your account at any time by contacting us at support@paygade.io. If you are a school, teacher, or student, you can delete your account anytime by logging into your account and deleting your profile from the profile options. When you delete your account, we delete your profile information and any other content you provide in your profile (such as your name, username, password, email address, and profile photo).
14. Parental Choices
If you are the parent or legal guardian of a student who has created a PayGrade account and you do not want your student to have a PayGrade account, talk to your teacher about alternatives or to have him/her delete your child’s account and/or email us at support@paygade.io.
15. How Long Does PayGrade Keep Student Information?
We only keep a student’s personal information for as long as his or her student account is active for the school year – unless we are required by law to retain it, need it to ensure the security of our community or our Service, or to enforce our Terms of Use. More specifically, PayGrade operates a 3-tier student data protection policy to protect all students’ information (3-Tier Student Data Protection Policy):
16. How long does PayGrade keep information about Teacher/School?
We store your personal information for as long as it is necessary to provide products and Services to you and others, including those described above. Personal information associated with your account will be kept until your account is deleted. Please note that we may have to retain some information after your account is closed, to comply with legal obligations, to protect the safety and security of our community or our Service, or to prevent the abuse of our Terms of Use. You can, of course, delete your account at any time, as stated above.
17. Organization Accounts
Companies can sponsor a group of teachers and customize the PayGrade experience. To join an organization, a teacher must request access via the partner organization, and they will be provided with an organization pin to link their account. Once a teacher account is linked to an organization, the organization will gain access to the teacher account for support. A partner organization may see teacher and student account information throughout the support process. Organizations only have access to anonymized and aggregated student data (see section 5 of this privacy policy to understand collected information). To have a teacher account un-linked from an organization, email support@paygrade.io
18. Social Media Plugins/Widgets
The Service may now or in the future include social media plugins, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram. These social media plugins may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our site, and may set a cookie to enable the plugin to function properly. Social media plugins and widgets are either hosted by third parties or hosted directly on our website. Your interactions with these social media plugins are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing each social media plugin.
19. How will PayGrade Notify me of changes to this policy?
We may occasionally update this Privacy Policy. You can see when the last update was by looking at the “Last Updated” date at the top of this page. We will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. If we make any significant changes, we will provide prominent notice by posting a notice on the Service. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy from time to time to stay informed about our collection, use, and disclosure of personal information through the Service. If you do not agree with any changes to the Privacy Policy, you may terminate your account by contacting us at support@paygade.io. By continuing to use the Service after the revised Privacy Policy has become effective, you acknowledge that you accept and agree to the current version of the Privacy Policy.