Privacy Policy - Hello PLATO

Privacy Policy

Last Updated: March 24th, 2021

CastNet Learning, Inc. d/b/a Hello PLATO (“Hello PLATO,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) is committed to protecting the privacy of the online visitors to Schools (defined below) who use our Service. This Privacy Policy (this “Privacy Policy”) applies to our websites and online experiences that link to this Privacy Policy (collectively, our “Service”), and it describes how we collect, use and disclose your personal information when you visit our Service or otherwise engage with us. By accessing or using our Service, you signify that you have read, understood, and agree to our collection, storage, use, and disclosure of your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service.

A note about Student Records: Our Service is intended for providers of educational services, such as schools, school districts, teachers, and authorized school users and administrators (collectively, “Schools”), for educational purposes. When we contract with a School to provide the Service, we may collect or have access to Student Records (defined below), which may be provided by the School. Please see the “Student Records” section below to understand the principles which guide our collection, use and disclosure of Student Records.

Use the links below to navigate to each section:

1. OUR COLLECTION OF INFORMATION

We collect personal information that our website visitors and Schools provide to us in a variety of ways. For example, you may provide us your personal information when you place an order, register for an account, make a purchase, send us messages, subscribe to our mailing lists, newsletters or other forms of communications, participate in a survey, integrate a third-party site or service, or use some other feature of our Service. Sometimes we collect personal information automatically when you interact with our services and sometimes we collect the personal information directly from you. At times, we may collect personal information about you from other sources and third parties.

Information You Provide:

We collect the following information you provide in connection with our Service:

Contact and Account Information. We collect information from Schools, such as full name of the authorized teacher or user and email address when you register for our Services; sign up for our mailing list; complete your user profile; or otherwise communicate or interact with us. We use this information to create, verify, and personalize your account, to fulfill your request or transaction, to communicate with you directly, and to send you marketing communications in accordance with your preferences.
School Information and Student Records. We collect information from Schools, such as School name, district, teacher or authorized administrator title, organizational units associated with the School, course information and topics, grade levels taught, course work and assignments, course sections, student rosters and Student Records (defined below), including personal information about the School’s students, such as student name, email address, age, ethnicity, gender, school name, courses and topics of study, assignments and content (e.g., homework), grades, and class attendance. For more information on how we process and protect Student Records that we collect from Schools, please see the section on “Student Records” below.
Payment and Transaction Information. We collect information such as date and time of your transaction, amount purchased, order details, whether you used a particular coupon or deal, and payment information, such as a credit/debit card, when you make a purchase on our Service.
Comments, Chat and Opinions. When you contact us directly (e.g., by email, phone, mail or by completing an online form or participating in online chat), we may record your comments and opinions. We may also record comments and opinions you express when responding to surveys. We use this information to respond to your question or comment, to evaluate and improve our products and services and to inform our marketing and advertising activities.

We use this information to operate, maintain, and provide to you the features and functionality of the Service, as well as to communicate directly with you, such as to send you email messages. We may also send you Service-related emails or messages (e.g., user account verification, change or updates to features of the services, technical and security notices) and communications from or about Hello PLATO.

Information Automatically Collected When You Use Our Service:

Like most digital platforms, we collect certain personal information automatically when you visit and use our Service, including:

Information We Receive from Third-Party Sites You Connect to/Integrate with Our Service. We may receive personal information about you from third party platforms, networks, services and/or sites that you integrate with our Service and combine that with information we collect through our Service. For example, if you register through or otherwise grant access to a third-party site or service, such as Google (e.g., Google Classroom/GSuite), we may collect personal information that is associated with your third-party site account. This information we collect may include, for example, your name, email address, courses, student rosters, course materials, and student submissions, including some Student Records. If you create or upload assessments or other academic or educational resources or materials, we collect the content of these materials and metadata you provide about them. The information we receive from these third-party sites is dependent upon that third party’s policies and your privacy settings on that third-party site. You should always review and, if necessary, adjust your privacy settings on third-party websites and services before linking or connecting them to our Service.
Information You May Post or Submit on the Service. We collect information about how you use the Service, your actions on the Service, and content you post to the Service or send through messages or other functionalities (“User Content”). Please remember that we may, but have no obligation to, monitor, record, and store User Content in order to protect your safety or the safety of other users, to assist with regulatory or law enforcement efforts, or to protect and defend our rights and property. You consent to the recording, storage and disclosure of such communications you send or receive for these purposes.
Usage and Device Information. To provide a personalized and high-quality experience for our users, we, and our third-party partners, may use various technologies that automatically record certain technical information from your browser or device when you visit our website, read our e-mails, use our Service, or otherwise engage with us. This information is typically collected through a variety of tracking technologies, including cookies, web beacons, embedded scripts, location-identifying technologies, file information, and similar technology (collectively, “Tracking Technologies”). We, and our third-party partners, use these Tracking Technologies to automatically collect usage and device information, such as:
- Your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, platform type, device type, operating system, date and time stamp, a unique ID that allows us to uniquely identify your browser, mobile device or your account, and other such information.
- We also collect information about the way you use our Service, for example, the site from which you came and the site to which you are going when you leave our website, the pages you visit, the links you click, how frequently you access the Services, whether you open e-mails or click the links contained in e-mails, whether you access the Services from multiple devices, and other actions you take on the Services.
- When you access our Service from a mobile device, we may collect unique identification numbers associated with your device (including, for example, a UDID, Unique ID for Advertisers (“IDFA”), Google AdID, or Windows Advertising ID), mobile carrier, device type, model and manufacturer, mobile device operating system brand and model, phone number and, depending on your mobile device settings, your geographical location data, including GPS coordinates (e.g., latitude and/or longitude) or similar information regarding the location of your mobile device, or we may be able to approximate a device’s location by analyzing other information, like an IP address.

We may collect analytics data, or use third-party analytics tools such as Google Analytics, to help us measure traffic and usage trends for the Services and to understand more about our users by monitoring aggregate metrics such as total number of visitors, traffic, usage, and demographic patterns on our website. You can learn more about Google’s practices at http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners and view its currently available opt-out options at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

We may also work with third-party partners to employ technologies, including the application of statistical modeling tools, which permit us to recognize and contact you across multiple devices.

Do Not Track Signals. Although we do our best to honor the privacy preferences of our users, we are unable to respond to Do Not Track signals set by your browser at this time.

If you would prefer not to accept cookies, most browsers will allow you to (i) change your browser settings to notify you when you receive a cookie, which lets you choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) set your browser to automatically reject cookies.

Please note that not accepting cookies may negatively impact your experience using the Service, as some features and services on our Service may not work properly. Depending on your mobile device and operating system, you may not be able to delete or block all cookies and you may not be able to block non-cookie technologies and these browser settings that block cookies may have no effect on such techniques. You may also set your e-mail options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us to know whether you have accessed our e-mail and performed certain functions with it. We and our third-party partners may also use cookies and tracking technologies for advertising purposes. For more information about tracking technologies, please see “Third-Party Tracking and Online Advertising” below.

Information from Other Sources and Third Parties

We also obtain personal information from other sources, which we often combine with personal information we collect either automatically or directly from you. We receive the same categories of personal information as described above from the following sources and third parties:

Social Networks Through Your Interactions. When you interact with our services through various social media networks, such as when you “Like” us on Facebook or when you follow us or share our content on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Instagram or other social networks, we may receive some information about you that you permit the social network to share with third parties. The data we receive is dependent upon your privacy settings with the social network. You should always review and, if necessary, adjust your privacy settings on third-party websites and social media networks.
Information Provided by Others. From time to time, we may receive information about you from third parties and other users. We may also collect information about you that is publicly available. We may combine this information with the information we collect from you directly.

2. OUR USE OF INFORMATION

We use your information for purposes described in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise disclosed to you on our Service or in connection with our Service. For more information on how we use Student Records that we collect from Schools, please see the section on “Student Records” below.

For example, we use your information to:

To fulfill your requests and provide the Service to you. For example, we may use your information to process and complete your orders, requests, or transactions, or respond to your customer service requests or feedback. We may also use your information to personalize your experience with us.
For marketing purposes. We may send you communications about new features, updates, products and special offers. We may also use your information to serve you ads about products and special offers about our products or other products or services we think you might find interesting. We may also use individual and aggregate information about you to inform our marketing and advertising campaigns. For more information on your choices about marketing communications, see “Your Choices and Control Over Your Information” and “Third-Party Tracking and Online Advertising” below.
To communicate with you. For example, we may communicate with you about your account activities, such as by providing you transaction confirmations and alerts. If you register with us, we may enroll you in our email newsletter or other
periodic electronic communications and also send you promotional communications. We may communicate with you by email, postal mail, or other means. For more information on how to adjust your communications preferences, see “Your Choices and Control Over Your Information” below.
To monitor, improve and develop our products and services. We may use your information to understand our visitors and users and tailor our product offerings accordingly. From time to time, we analyze statistics and trends to make our
Service better and to develop new services or features.
To protect the security and integrity of our business, comply with legal requirements and obligations, or as otherwise permitted by law. We may use information to protect our company, our affiliates, our customers, our franchisees and our websites. We may also use information in order to comply with laws, regulations, court orders, or other legal obligations or to assist in an investigation to protect and defend our rights and property, or the rights or safety of third parties, to enforce our Terms of Service, this Privacy Policy, or agreements with third parties, to detect and prevent fraud or for crime-prevention purposes, or for any other reason permitted by law.

3. OUR DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION

We may share personal information in the instances described below. For more information on how we share Student Records that we collect from Schools, please see the section on “Student Records” “Student Records” below.

The Public. When you provide feedback or otherwise post User Content on our Service (e.g., if you post a comment/review on our website), your information (e.g., your first name and comments) may be displayed on our websites or on our social media pages. When you engage with us on social media, we may tag your social media account or the social media account of others (e.g., to give photo credit to another user).
Third Parties at Your Request. For example, you may have the option to share your activities on the Service with your contacts, such as through email.
Service Providers. We share personal information with third-party vendors, consultants and other service providers who perform functions or services on our behalf and under our instructions to make our services available to you. For example, this may include vendors and providers who engage in marketing or advertising activities or provide mailing or email services, tax and accounting services, auditing and compliance, fraud prevention, infrastructure provisioning, analytics services, IT services, product fulfillment, and web hosting.
Business Transaction or Reorganization. We may take part in or be involved with a corporate business transaction, such as a merger, acquisition, joint venture, or financing or sale of company assets. We may disclose personal information to a third-party during negotiation of, in connection with or as an asset in such a corporate business transaction. Personal information may also be disclosed in the event of insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership.
Legal Obligations and Rights. We may disclose personal information to third parties, such as legal advisors and law enforcement:
- in connection with the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims;
- to comply with laws or to respond to lawful requests and legal process;
- to protect the rights and property of Hello PLATO, our agents, customers, and others, including to enforce our agreements, policies, and Terms of Service;
- to detect, suppress, or prevent fraud;
- to reduce credit risk and collect debts owed to us;
- to protect the health and safety of us, our customers, or any person; or
- as otherwise required by applicable law.
With Your Consent or At Your Direction. In addition to the sharing described in this Privacy Policy, we may share information about you with third parties whenever you consent to or direct such sharing.

We may also share information with others in an aggregated or otherwise anonymized form that does not reasonably identify you directly as an individual.

4. STUDENT RECORDS

We consider Student Records to be confidential and do not use Student Records for any purpose other than to provide the Service on the School’s behalf, in accordance with contractual agreements with the School. To help Schools address their obligations to protect their students’ data privacy, we have implemented additional controls and procedures for Schools when they enter into a contract with Hello PLATO to use the Service as part of the School’s educational curriculum. When the Service is used as part of the School’s educational curriculum, the personal information related to the Student that is (i) provided to Hello PLATO by a School, or (ii) collected by Hello PLATO during the provision of the Service to a School, may include information defined as “educational records” by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”) or other information protected by similar student data privacy laws. We call this information “Student Records.”

Our collection and use of Student Records is governed by our contracts with the Schools, by our Privacy Policy, and by applicable privacy laws. For example, we work with Schools to help protect personal information from the Student’s educational record, as required by the FERPA.

We collect, maintain, use and share Student Records only for an authorized educational purpose and as described in our Privacy Policy, or as directed by the School.
We do not disclose Student Records for targeted advertising purposes.
We do not build a personal profile of a Student other than in furtherance of an educational purpose.
We maintain a comprehensive data security program designed to protect the types of Student Records maintained by the Service.
We will clearly and transparently disclose our data policies and practices to our users.
We will never sell Student Records unless the sale is part of a corporate transaction, such as a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, or other sale of assets, in which case we will require the new owner to continue to honor the terms provided in this Privacy Policy or we will provide the School with notice and an opportunity to opt-out of the transfer of Student Records by deleting the Student Records before the transfer occurs.
We will not make any material changes to our Privacy Policy or contractual agreements that relate to the collection or use of Student Records without first giving notice to the School and providing a choice before the Student Records are used in a materially different manner than was disclosed when the information was collected.

How we share and disclose Student Records. We disclose Student Records in the manner described in our Privacy Policy under the Section entitled “Our Disclosure of Information”, unless noted otherwise. Depending on the manner in which Hello PLATO is used by a School and the terms of the agreement between the School and Hello PLATO, we may provide access to certain Student Records and teacher account usage data to the School for the purpose of monitoring student usage and activity and evaluating the effectiveness of the School’s use of the Service.

How we retain Student Records. We will not knowingly retain Student Records beyond the time period required to support an educational purpose, unless authorized by the School. To delete your account and related Student Records, please contact us at contact@helloplato.com.

Questions about Student Records. If you have questions about specific practices relating to Student Records provided to Hello PLATO by a School, please direct your questions to your School.

5. YOUR CHOICES AND CONTROL OVER YOUR INFORMATION

Profile, controls and data sharing settings. You may update your account information and may change some of your account controls and data sharing preferences by visiting your “Account” page or emailing us at support@helloplato.com

Disconnecting your Hello PLATO account from third party sites. As discussed above, you may be able to connect your Hello PLATO account to accounts you have on third party sites. You may disconnect your account from a third party site at any time by visiting the “Account” page to remove authenticated sites and services.

How to control your communications preferences. You can stop receiving promotional email communications from us by clicking on the “unsubscribe link” provided in such communications. We make every effort to promptly process all unsubscribe requests. You may not opt out of service-related communications (e.g., account verification, transactional communications, changes/updates to features of the Service, technical and security notices).

Modifying or deleting your information. If you have any questions about modifying your information, or if you want to remove your name or comments from our Service or publicly displayed content, you can contact us directly at support@helloplato.com . We may not be able to modify your information in all circumstances.

6. THIRD-PARTY TRACKING

Google Analytics We use Google Analytics to recognize you and link the devices you use when you visit our site or Service on your browser, log in to your account on our Service, or otherwise engage with us. We share a unique identifier, like a user ID or hashed email address, with Google to facilitate the service. Google Analytics allows us to better understand how our users interact with our Service and to tailor our advertisements and content to you. For information on how Google Analytics collects and processes data, as well as how you can control information sent to Google, review Google’s site “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps” located at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. You can learn about Google Analytics’ currently available opt outs, including the Google Analytics Browser Ad-On here https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.

7. CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

Our websites and online services are not directed to, and we do not intend to, or knowingly, collect or solicit personal information from children under the age of 13. Hello PLATO collects and uses student information at the direction of and under the control of a School. As such, we rely on each School to provide appropriate notice to parents of the School’s use of third party service providers such as Hello PLATO, and for the Schools to provide consent, if necessary, and authorization for Hello PLATO to collect Student information, as permitted under applicable laws. If you are under the age of 13, please do not use our websites or online services or otherwise provide us with any personal information either directly or by other means. If a child under the age of 13 has provided personal information to us, we encourage the child’s parent or guardian to contact us at support@helloplato.com to request that we remove the personal information from our systems. If we learn that any personal information we collect has been provided by a child under the age of 13, we will promptly delete that personal information.

8. THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES

Our websites and online services may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Except where we post, link to or expressly adopt or refer to this Privacy Policy, this Privacy Policy does not apply to, and we are not responsible for, any personal information practices of third-party websites and online services or the practices of other third parties. To learn about the personal information practices of third parties, please visit their respective privacy notices.

9. HOW TO CONTACT US

If you have any questions or requests in connection with this Privacy Policy or other privacy-related matters, please send an email to support@helloplato.com.

10. UPDATES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We will update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make changes to this Privacy Policy, we will change the “Last Updated” date at the beginning of this Privacy Policy. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by email to your registered email address, by prominent posting on this website or our online services, or through other appropriate communication channels. All changes shall be effective from the date of publication unless otherwise provided.