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Privacy Policy

INTRODUCTION:

This privacy notice discloses the privacy practices for www.brainfuse.com, Brainfuse HelpNow, its live tutoring, writing lab, asynchronous content, and all its associated features.  This privacy notice applies solely to information collected by this website. It will notify you of the following:

  • What personally identifiable information is collected from you through the website, how it is used and with whom it may be shared.
  • What choices are available to you regarding the use of your data.
  • The security procedures in place to protect the misuse of your information.
  • How you can correct any inaccuracies in the information.

INFORMATION COLLECTION, USE, AND SHARING:

On our website, we collect the following types of information: Information you provide to us directly- We ask for certain types of personal information when you correspond with us, request a demo, request a speaker or otherwise engage with us on our Website, including your name, school name, school district, email address, and/or user name and password, and phone number. We will not sell or rent this information to anyone. We will use your information to respond to you, regarding the reason you contacted us. We will not share your information with any third party outside of our organization, other than as necessary to fulfill your request, e.g. to ship an order. All third parties who receive personal information about our users are not permitted to use personal information they access or receive from us for any other purposes than as needed to carry out their work for us. If vendors require student personal information in order to deliver our service, these third parties are obligated to adhere to Brainfuse’s commitments to data use and security as stated within this privacy policy. We do not use Student Data for marketing or targeted advertising purposes. We do not collect, maintain, use, or share student personal information beyond that needed for authorized educational/school purposes, or as authorized by the parent/student. ‘Educational/School purposes’ are services or functions that customarily take place at the direction of the educational institution/agency or their teacher/employee, for which the institutions or agency would otherwise use its own employees, and that aid in the administration or improvement of educational and school activities (e.g., instruction, administration, and development and improvement of products/services intended for educational/school use).

YOUR ACCESS TO AND CONTROL OVER INFORMATION:

You may opt-out of any future contacts from us at any time. You can do the following at any time by contacting us via the email address or phone number given on our website 866.272.4638 or [email protected]:

  • See what data we have about you if any.
  • Change/correct any data we have about you.
  • Have us delete any data we have about you.
  • Express any concern you have about our use of your data.

SECURITY:

We take precautions to protect your information. When you submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and offline.

Wherever we collect sensitive information, that information is encrypted and transmitted to us in a secure way. You can verify this by looking for a lock icon in the address bar and looking for “https” at the beginning of the address of the Web page.

While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, billing or customer service) are granted access to personally identifiable information. The computers/servers in which we store personally identifiable information are kept in a secure environment.

If you feel that we are not abiding by this privacy policy, you should contact us immediately via telephone at 866.272.4638 or email at [email protected]

COOKIES:

Like most websites and online services, we automatically collect certain types of usage information when you visit our Website. This information is typically collected through cookies, log files, web beacons, and similar tracking technology (collectively, “cookies”). These cookies collect information about how you use the Website (e.g., the pages you view, the links you click, and other actions you take on the Website), information about your browser and online usage patterns (e.g., Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, browser language, referring / exit pages and URLs, pages viewed, whether you opened an email, links clicked), and information about the device(s) you use to access the Website (e.g., mobile device identifier, mobile carrier, device type, model and manufacturer, mobile device operating system brand and model, and, depending on your mobile device settings, your geographical location data at the city, state, or country level ). In addition, we may also use clear gifs in HTML-based emails to track which emails are opened and which links are clicked by recipients. The information allows for more accurate reporting and improvement of the Website. We may also collect analytics data, to help us measure traffic and usage trends for the Website.

We use or may use the data collected through cookies, log files, device identifiers, and clear gifs information to remember information so that you do not have to re-enter it on subsequent visits to provide and monitor the effectiveness of our Website monitor aggregate metrics such as the total number of visitors, traffic, and usage on our website and our Website diagnose or fix technology problems otherwise plan for and enhance our Website.

We use “cookies” on this site. A cookie is a piece of data stored on a site visitor’s hard drive to help us improve your access to our site and identify repeat visitors to our site. For instance, when we use a cookie to identify you, you would not have to log in a password more than once, thereby saving time while on our site. Cookies can also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our site. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information on our site.

LINKS:

This website contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of any other site that collects personally identifiable information.

STUDENT DATA PRIVACY:

Brainfuse provides infrastructure, analysis, and online tutoring services to assist school districts, schools, and other educational partners access, use and analyze data to effect change in K-12 education. During the course of offering certain services, we have access to Student Data. “Student Data” information that is directly related to an identifiable current or former student that is maintained by a school, school district, or related entity or organization, or by Brainfuse.

Brainfuse has access to Student Data only as requested by the educational organization as necessary to perform the Service. The type of Student Data we collect will depend on how the organization uses our services. We will never build a personal profile of a student for any purposes other than for supporting authorized educational/school purposes or as authorized by the parent and or student.

All Student Data that we have access to is owned and controlled by the education organization. We use such data to provide our services and for other limited purposes permitted by our agreements with the education organizations, such as to evaluate, improve, and develop our products, applications, and services. We will never use Student Data to engage in targeted advertising.

Brainfuse does not use behavioral targeting of advertisements – i.e. ads that use any behavioral information to provide targeted advertising to students. We do not permit this for third-party advertisers. We do not collect, use, or share such student information for any purposes beyond the authorized educational or school purposes, or as authorized by the student or parent.

Brainfuse collects information from children only in the direction of a school or educational institution for the purpose of providing our services. We rely on each school to obtain consent and provide appropriate and disclosure, if necessary, for us to collect any student information from students under 13, as permitted by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Please contact us at [email protected] if you believe we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child under 13 without proper consent so that we may delete such information as soon as possible.

STUDENT DATA SECURITY:

We take precautions to protect student personal information, and all information is protected both online and offline. We use appropriate administrative, technological, and physical safeguards to protect the privacy, security, confidentiality, and integrity of student personal information. This includes protections against risks of unauthorized access or usage, and unintended or inappropriate disclosures.

STUDENT DATA SHARING:

We only share student data as needed to perform our services and/or at the direction of an educational organization and as authorized by our contract. For example, student data may be shared between and among authorized organization users and administrators who access our services under the same agreement, but only for the purpose of providing our service as purchased by the organization. This sharing may depend on the settings and functionality selected by the organization.

STUDENT DATA RETENTION:

Brainfuse is committed to data retention that is in the best interest of our school, district partner, and their students. Data is retained only for academic programming purposes. We will not retain student personal information beyond the period required to support the education organization, or as authorized by students/parents.

Upon contract absolvement, data is either handed over to the district and/or destroyed. The data becomes the school or district’s property and Brainfuse will agree with the district on the best way for it to change hands or be destroyed at the end of the contract. If you have any questions about reviewing, modifying, or deleting any personal information of a student, please contact your school directly.

ANONYMIZED DATA:

We may use data that has been de-identified and/or aggregated for product development, research analytics, and other purposes, including for the purpose of analyzing, improving, or marketing our service. If Brainfuse publicly discloses or shares with third parties (e.g., in marketing materials, published research, analytics, or in application development) information that is derived from student data, such data will be aggregated and/or anonymized to reasonably avoid identification of a specific individual.

In the event of a change of control: If we sell, divest or transfer the business or a portion of our business, we may transfer information, including student personal information to the new provider to maintain, provided that the new provider has agreed to data privacy standards no less stringent than our own.

PRIVACY POLICY CHANGES:

We may modify or update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will not make material changes to this policy or other practices governing the use of student personal information that are inconsistent with contractual requirements. If we change the policy in a material manner, we will use our best efforts to provide additional notice before the changes take effect. We will alert users either via email notification or a banner on our website with a button that captures consent or provides a prominent statement that the changes are in effect and users provide consent by continuing the first log on following the change. In the event that this change impacts data usage differently than when the terms were initially provided, we will allow users to make choices for data usage.

STUDENT PRIVACY PLEDGE 2020 SIGNATORY:

Student Privacy Pledge signatory

The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) and The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) introduced a Student Privacy Pledge to safeguard student privacy regarding the collection, maintenance, and use of student personal information. The commitments are intended to concisely detail existing federal law and regulatory guidance regarding the collection and handling of student data, and to encourage service providers to more clearly articulate these practices. FPF and SIIA recently updated the Student Privacy Pledge in our Pledge 2020 process. Download the PDF.