Platform Privacy Policy

Last Updated and Effective: June 1, 2021

Ellevation Platform Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies only to the Ellevation platform for educators of English language learners. It does not apply to the Ellevation website https://ellevationeducation.com. The Privacy Policy for the Ellevation website may be found here https://ellevationeducation.com/privacy-policy.

Introduction and Scope of this Policy

Ellevation is a web and mobile-based platform designed to help educators support English Learners (ELs) and other students. Ellevation is owned and operated by Ellevation Inc. (“Ellevation,” “we,” “us”). We are committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information, and we have provided this policy to our users (collectively, “you,” “your”), including our education institution customers and their employees (collectively, “Customers”) and students of the types of information we collect, and the ways in which we will use and disclose it.

By accessing or using Ellevation, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Ellevation operates from the United States and its Services are intended for use in the United States. We do not market our services to residents or carry out operations in regions outside of the US, including, but not limited to the European Economic Area. If you are located outside the United States, the information you provide to us is transmitted and processed in the United States, and will be protected subject to this Privacy Policy and applicable laws, which may not be as protective as the laws in your country. By using Ellevation, you agree to this.

Information Customers Provide

When Customers decide to use Ellevation, they provide us with a staff ID number, first and last name, and email address for each staff member who will have an Ellevation account. We use this information to create the accounts and provide initial account credentials. Customers may provide additional, optional information about their staff members, such as names of the courses they teach and their scheduling options. In addition, Customers may share comments on our instructional materials within Ellevation, and these comments will be visible to all Customers. Customers may also provide us with information when they contact us with questions, for troubleshooting or other customer service-related requests

Student Data:
Customers provide minimally required information about their students, such as student first and last name and ID#, used to ensure that Customers are able to view and monitor student activity within Ellevation.

Customers may choose to upload additional student information onto Ellevation, such as demographic, assessment, schedule, and instructional data, as well as comments on their student records. This information is used only for our Customers’ internal educational purposes.

We provide Customers of Ellevation Math with a username and password for each of their student users. When a student logs in, they are required to provide a new password.
Within Ellevation Math, students may submit text or audio answers to questions as they progress through the Ellevation learning modules. We treat this information as personal information under all applicable laws. This information is used for the Customer’s educational purposes, to allow them to review their students’ progress and understanding of the lessons.

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA):

As part of our Contract with Customers, Customer agrees to appoint Ellevation as a “school official” as the term is used in FERPA, 34 C.F.R. §99 et. seq. Ellevation agrees to be bound by the relevant provisions of FERPA, including that we will remain under the “direct control” of our Customers with respect to the use and handling of “education records” as the term is used in FERPA. Ellevation will use student personal information only to fulfill the Services in performance of its Contract and will only share student personal information with its third party partners as necessary to fulfill the Services in performance of this Agreement.

Students Under Age 13: Under the direction of the Customer, students under age 13 may use Ellevation Math. In doing so, as noted above, students may provide typed or verbal responses to questions about the lessons in open text fields. Ellevation operates Ellevation Math in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”). In accordance with our Terms of Use and consistent with applicable law, our Customers agree to obtain any necessary parental consent prior to permitting students to access and use Ellevation Math. We do not require that students provide more information than is necessary to operate Ellevation Math, and we use student personal information only to provide Ellevation Math to our Customers. Customers may make the personal information provided by students available to parents or legal guardians for their review through the Customer dashboard available within Ellevation, and we will support Customers in facilitating that access at their request.

Information We Collect Automatically

When you use Ellevation, our servers automatically record information sent from your browser (“Log Data”). Log Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type and machine model, pages of Ellevation that you visit, the time spent on those pages, activity you engage in on the pages, the referring URL, and access times and dates. We use this information to monitor, analyze use of and administer Ellevation, and to better tailor Ellevation to your needs.
To collect this information, we use certain technologies including:

Cookies
A cookie is a small data file sent from a website or application and stored on your computer or device. Cookies allow us to recognize your browser when you return to our platform, and to remember your login information. Cookies also allow us to serve certain features, to better understand how you interact with Ellevation, and to monitor aggregated usage. You can set your browser to detect some cookies, to stop accepting cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie. To learn more about browser cookies, including how to manage or delete them, look in the Tools, Help or similar section of your web browser, or visit http://allaboutcookies.org.

We use third party service providers, including Google Analytics to assist us in collecting and understanding Log Data. For more information about Google Analytics, see the Google Analytics Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy. You can prevent Google Analytics from collecting information about you and recognizing you on return visits to our Platform by disabling cookies on your browser or by installing the Google Analytics opt out plug in. Note that we are not responsible for the Google Analytics opt-out tools.

By using Ellevation, you agree to our use of these tracking technologies.

How We May Use Your Information

The Customer retains control of all student personal information that Ellevation maintains. At no point is Ellevation the owner of such data, nor at any point does Ellevation control such data.

We do not sell or rent personal information.

We use and disclose personal information only for the purposes of providing Ellevation to our Customers as described above, and as follows:

As directed by our Customers to provide them with Ellevation features and services
To our third party service partners to permit them to provide features and services on our behalf (see Third Party Service Providers section below);
To investigate a suspected violation of the Terms of Service, suspected fraud or other unlawful activity;
As may be required by law or as ordered by a court, where legally permissible, to notify Customers and to work with Customers to seek to limit the scope of the required disclosure, as further described below;
In the event of a reorganization, merger, sale, bankruptcy or other disposition of our business, in which case the transferred information will remain subject to the terms of this Privacy Policy; and
With your consent and as permissible under applicable laws and regulations.

In the event that we receive a court order or law enforcement request (including but not limited to an administrative subpoena or judicial warrant) for access to, use of, or inspection of Customer data, including Customer’s student personal information, wherever legally permissible, we will not act directly on such request, but will instead promptly refer such requests directly to Customer. To the extent we are legally required to provide the information requested prior to or in addition to such referral, wherever legally permissible we will promptly notify the Customer of the request and of Ellevation’s intent to comply with the request.

Third Party Service Providers

We employ third parties to facilitate delivery of Ellevation and to provide certain features on our behalf, such as maintenance services, database management, and customer support. These parties are provided with the minimally required information necessary for them to provide these features and services. They have agreed to handle the information in compliance with this Privacy Policy, and may use the information only to provide Ellevation to our users.

How You Can Access and Modify Your Information

Customers may review, correct, update, or request that we delete personal information they or their students have provided to us by accessing the dashboard within Ellevation. In order for such updates to remain in effect, Customers must make corresponding updates in data files that they choose to upload to Ellevation after they have made updates within the platform.
Since Ellevation is used under the direction of our Customers, parents, guardians, and eligible students must work directly with their school or district to review or modify information in their education record that may be stored on Ellevation.

Opt Out

Customers may choose to provide us with contact information in order to receive information about our products or to subscribe to email updates and marketing messages. You have the right to opt-out of receipt of those messages, and may do so at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link that appears at the bottom of each message, or by contacting us at privacy@ellevationeducation.com. Ellevation will respond or otherwise act on such requests within a reasonable period consistent with applicable law.

Data Retention

Prior to expiration or termination of the Contract and upon written request from Customer, Ellevation will provide Customer with a one-time, delimited file export of its personal student information from the Services via SFTP. Within 90 days of termination, or within 30 days of receipt of a written request from Customer, Ellevation will securely destroy Customer’s student and staff member personal information.

We may retain de-identified information, including aggregated, de-identified data for a variety of purposes subject to applicable law, including:
To develop and improve our educational products for adaptive learning purposes and for customizing the student experience;
To demonstrate the effectiveness of Ellevation, including in our marketing materials; and
To develop and improve our educational products.

Security

We take commercially reasonable and appropriate technical, organizational, and physical security measures to maintain the confidentiality, security, and integrity of the data entrusted to Ellevation and to help prevent unauthorized access to our Customer data. We store data in secure server and cloud-based environments that use firewalls, VPNs, event logging, and other industry-standard protections in an effort to monitor and prevent access from outside intruders. We also encrypt the data in transit, require unique account credentials, and limit data access. Not all security risks are reasonably foreseeable, however, and Ellevation is not responsible for security incidents that are not reasonably foreseeable and not reasonably within its control.

Updates To This Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy in the future. When we do, we will post a notice within the product and provide other notifications as required by law. If we make material changes to the Privacy Policy, we will notify our primary Customer contact via the email address we have in our records and changes will become effective in 30 days after the “last updated” date at the top of this policy. Customers with concerns on any material changes should reach out to their account representative to have them addressed within those 30 days.

Non-material changes will become effective when posted in Ellevation. The “last updated” date at the top of this policy indicates when it was last revised.

Contact Information

For additional information regarding our privacy practices, please contact us at: privacy@ellevationeducation.com

Notice for California Residents

Ellevation is a Service Provider under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). As a California resident, you have certain rights regarding your personal information. These rights include:

Right to Know and Access Information: You may request access to the personal information we maintain about you in the ordinary course of business. This may include what personal information we collect, use, or disclose about you.
Right to Deletion: You may request your personal information be deleted.

As noted below, in the event you choose to exercise your rights under the CCPA, you may contact the institution to which you have provided your personal information. Ellevation refers all requests directed to it to the appropriate Customer.

In order to prevent unauthorized access to your information, we are required by law to verify your identity before we may address your request. Since we will facilitate your requests through your education institution, we will rely on their verification of your identity and our existing Customer contact information in order to process requests.

While Ellevation will fulfill requests made under the CCPA, we may not fulfill some or all of your requests to access or delete information as permitted by applicable law.

We do not sell your personal information.

In the event we fulfill a request to delete your personal information, such personal information may still remain on Ellevation’s backup systems until such time as the information is deleted in accordance with Ellevation’s data retention schedule. Such backup information is not ordinarily accessible by Ellevation personnel.

To Exercise Your Rights
Ellevation is used at the direction of our Customers. In addition, we are obligated under FERPA to remain under the direct control of our Customers with respect to our use and maintenance of student personal information that is part of the education record. As such, to exercise your rights as described in this section, please contact your education institution and we will work with them to facilitate your request.

Your exercise of the above rights is subject to certain exemptions to safeguard the public interest and our interests. Requests to exercise these rights may be granted in whole, in part, or not at all, depending on the scope and nature of the request and applicable law. Where required by applicable law, we will notify you if and why we are unable to fulfill your request.

Authorized Agent: California residents may use an authorized agent on their behalf to exercise a privacy right discussed above. If you are an authorized agent acting on behalf of a California resident to communicate with us or to exercise a privacy right discussed above, you must be able to demonstrate that you have the requisite authorization to act on behalf of the resident and have sufficient access to their laptop, desktop, or mobile device to exercise these rights digitally. If you are an authorized agent trying to exercise rights on behalf of a Ellevation user, please contact the user's school or district with supporting verification information, which includes a valid Power of Attorney in the State of California, proof that you have access to the user’s device, and proof of your own identity.

Non-discrimination: We shall not discriminate or otherwise penalize anyone for exercising their rights.

Categories of Personal information we collect	Identifiers such as a real name, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name; your name is also considered personal information under subdivision (e) of California Business and Professions Code Section 1798.80 Internet or other electronic network activity information regarding your interaction with Ellevation Geolocation information in the form of your school address Education information, defined as information that is not publicly available personally identifiable information as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. section 1232g, 34 C.F.R. Part 99).
Categories of sources from which the Personal Information is collected	We collect the Personal Information directly from the Customer or in limited circumstances, from student users.
Business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling Personal Information	We collect your Personal Information to provide the services and for the following business purposes: Performing services in accordance with our contract with the Customer and the terms of use including maintaining or servicing accounts, providing customer service, processing or fulfilling orders and transactions, verifying customer information, and processing payments. Detecting security incidents, protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, and prosecuting those responsible for that activity. Debugging to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality. Sending you product communications.
Categories of third parties with whom we share Personal Information	We share your personal information only with service providers who support us in delivering the Services as described above. We do not share your Personal Information with "third parties" as the term is defined in CCPA. That is, we do not share your Personal Information with individuals or organizations to use for their own commercial purposes.
Specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected	Customer information, including ID number, first and last name, and email address for their employee users, and student first and last names and ID numbers, as well as IP address for all users. Customers may provide additional information about their students, such as demographic, assessment, schedule, and instructional data, as well as comments on their student records. When using Ellevation Math, Students also provide passwords and text or audio responses to questions in the learning modules.