Privacy Policy

Last Updated: 23 February 2024 

Magpie Literacy (“we”) aims to live in a world where every person can read. We want to develop a tech-enabled, integrated reading product that ensures all students get access to high-quality tools to build their foundational reading skills. Magpie built the First Foundations application at https://www.magpie.org (the “Site”) to further these goals and support children learning to read. Magpie is a project of Cambiar Education, a 501c3 Public Benefit Corporation. 

The First Foundations app (the “Service”) is a foundational literacy curricular tool aiming to help students more easily and quickly learn how to read. It is a web-based program that includes instructional moments, supported practice, instructional games, and micro-assessments. Research shows that explicitly teaching foundational skills will increase students’ ability to acquire later skills in service of learning how to read. We currently operate the following website: https://www.magpie.org (“Site”) as well as ancillary services and applications. 

We are committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Notice, located at https://www.magpie.org, explains the types of information we collect when you use our services. It also explains how we will use, disclose, and protect your information. This Privacy Notice applies to all content on the Site and the Services we offer. 

1. Types of Information We Collect 

We collect Personal Information from Educators/Administrators and Parents/Guardians and collect certain usage information (including via cookies) through the provision of Services, through the Site, and the app as further described below. 

1a. Information You Provide to Us 

i. Educator/Administrator Data: When an educator or school administrator registers for First Foundations, we may ask them to provide certain personal information, such as first and last name, their role, the name of school/organization, grade level, district, city, state, email address, and a password. 

ii. Student & Child Data: When an educator, school administrator, parent or guardian registers students for First Foundations, we may ask them to provide each student’s first name and last name or last initial, demographic information, and indirect identifiers such as current grade level. We also ask them to create log-in information including username and password. Student accounts may only be created at the direction of a parent/guardian, educator, or school administrator. Students are not permitted to register for the Services on their own. 

iii. Parent/Guardian Data: When you as a parent or guardian register for First Foundations, we ask you to provide certain personal information, such as your first and last name, the name of your child, grade level, district, city, state, email address, and a password. 

iv. Program Usage Data: When a student uses First Foundations, we may collect certain program/application usage information, such as the lessons and activities a student completes, voice recordings and transcripts, the responses students provide, and the timing of those responses. Additionally, we may collect certain student generated content such as writing, pictures, etc. 

v. Email Data: When you send us an email message, we retain the content of your message, your email address, and any information you provide to us, such as your name, your company, your contact preferences, and any response we send back to you. If you choose to include any personal information (any information that can be used to identify you, such as name, address, email address, physical address, or phone number) that information will be retained along with the content of your email message. We retain this information for so long as needed to help manage any follow-up questions you may have, measure how effectively we address your concerns, and to improve the Site, Services, and

our program. In some cases, we might follow up with additional project-related communications in the future. We periodically delete email information based upon our retention policies. 

vi. A note about Student Data in the Educational Context: When our Service is used for K-12 school purposes by an educator or K-12 educational institution user, (collectively, an “Educator”) Magpie is a School Official as defined by Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”) and is governed accordingly. All personal information related to the student (whether collected from the Educator, the parent or through the student’s use of the Service) is considered Student Data. Magpie does not own or control Student Data and collects the Student Data only subject to the direction and control of the school. We consider Student Data to be confidential and do not use such data for any purpose other than to provide the services on the school’s behalf and to maintain, support, evaluate, diagnose and develop our Services, and otherwise in accordance with contractual agreements with the school. When an Educator uses First Foundations in the classroom or in an educational context, we rely on the Educator, on behalf of the school or educational institution, to provide the requisite consent for Magpie to collect personal information from a student under 13 for the use and benefit of the school and for no other commercial purpose, as permitted by COPPA. Please note that our processing of Student Data will be governed primarily by our agreements with our Educator partners, which may include different or more restrictive terms than are described in this Privacy Policy. 

1b. Information Collected Automatically 

i. Like most web-based services, we (or our service providers) may automatically collect information from your browser or your device when you use the Site. For example, this could include the frequency and duration of your use of the Site, or the IP Address through which you access the site. 

ii. Cookies are pieces of information that are transferred to the hard drive on your computer or other electronic devices for record-keeping purposes, like keeping you logged in to your account. These cookies or similar technologies may identify your browser, device, Internet Protocol (IP) address, unique device identifier, device attributes, location, language, and possibly the date and time you accessed our Site. Ultimately, these cookies and similar technologies allow websites to remember important information that will make your use of the website more convenient. You can use the options in your web browser to notify you when you receive a cookie or you may change your cookie preferences in your internet browser or with third parties. You can control and/or delete cookies used by our Site at any time; however, without some cookies and similar technologies, aspects or all of the Site and Services may not be able to work. 

iii. We do not, nor do we allow third parties to, track our users across third-party websites over time. iv. As part of our commitment to providing a secure and efficient service, we may utilize third party service providers for services such as infrastructure, analytics, security, speech recognition, and customer service (“service providers”). We only disclose personal information to service providers as needed to support the Site and Services. Our service providers are required to maintain confidentiality, use reasonable security practices, to use information only for our stated purpose, to prevent disclosure of the information to unauthorized parties, and to abide by applicable laws and regulations. 

1c. Information Received from Third-Party Sources 

i. Other than information we receive from parents, guardians, teachers and /or school administrators, we do not receive any information about any person using the Site from any third party sources. 

2. How We Use and Share the Information We Collect 

i. We are committed to protecting student privacy. Student Data is never used for any purpose other than the purposes set forth in the contractual agreements with the school. Student Data is only used to facilitate a teacher, school, or district’s identification of their students using First Foundations and to provide the services to the school as set forth in the contractual agreement between Magpie and the

school. Our collection, use, and disclosure of Student Data is governed by our agreements with the school, by the provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”), Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and other applicable state and federal laws which relate to the collection of Student Data. Please refer to the Privacy Policy for Child and Student Data below for more information about how we collect and process personal information from child and student users under the age of 13. If you are a student or parent, please contact your school if you have questions about the school’s use of Magpie. 

ii. Personal information collected from school officials or parents/guardians may be used to: a. Create accounts; 

b. Facilitate sequential and progressive lessons to users; 

c. Administer our Site and Services, including to monitor and diagnose any problems and to improve the Services; 

d. Provide you with technical support, customer service, and account maintenance; e. Respond to a question or request or fix an issue; 

f. Send you information about your account, the Site, and the Services; 

g. Help us understand and improve the effectiveness and performance of our Site and Services; h. Tailor the Site and Services to better support the operations of our users. 

iii. Personal information that we collect for a particular purpose will be saved and used only for that purpose unless you have agreed to allow us to use it for some other purpose. 

iv. You are in control of the personal information that you provide to us. You can review, revise, or delete your personal information as described below. 

v. Information such as grade level and other demographic information may be collected and used in aggregated, anonymized reports to help us better understand how our Services are used and how to improve the Services. 

vi. We may use your email address to send you other communications relating to Magpie and our Services. You may unsubscribe from these other communications at any time. 

vii. We may use aggregated, anonymized program information to improve and demonstrate the efficacy of our Site and Services. 

viii. We may use Site information to test new applications or services. This may mean that we partner with third-party researchers or application developers. We will not share personal information with such researchers without appropriate consent from a School administrative user and/or parent or guardian. 

ix. We utilize De-Identified student data for research and to operate, analyze, develop and improve our Service and/or other purposes, in accordance with FERPA, applicable laws and our agreements with Schools. De-Identified Data means data from which all personally identifiable information, including direct and indirect identifiers, has been permanently removed or obscured so that the remaining information does not reasonably identify an individual and there is no reasonable basis to believe that the information can be used to identify an individual. If we share or publicly disclose De-Identified Data, that data will be aggregated or anonymized to reasonably avoid identification of a specific School or individual student. 

x. We do not share any personal information collected via the site with third parties other than our service providers, who are contractually obligated to maintain confidentiality and security. 

xi. We will not sell, rent, or otherwise share your personal information for a commercial purpose. xii. Like all web sites, we are obligated to respond to legal requests for data (e.g., a subpoena or other legal request). To date, we have not received, or had to comply with, any legal requests for data. Where appropriate, we may notify users about the legal requests, unless (i) providing notice is prohibited by the legal process itself, by court order we receive, or by applicable law; (ii) we believe that providing notice would be futile, ineffective, create a risk of injury or bodily harm to an individual or group, or create or increase a risk of fraud upon Magpie, or its users. In instances where we comply with legal requests without notice for these reasons, we will attempt to notify that user about the request after the fact where appropriate and where we determine in good faith that we are no longer prevented from doing so. 

xiii. We may need to disclose personal information where, in good faith, we think it is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Magpie, our employees, our community, or others, or to prevent violations of our Terms of Use or other agreements. This includes, without limitation, exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection or responding to law enforcement and government requests.

xiv. In the event that all or a portion of Magpie or its assets are acquired by or merged with a third-party, personal information that we have collected from users would be one of the assets transferred to or acquired by that third-party. This Privacy Notice will continue to apply to your information, and any acquirer would only be able to handle your personal information as per this notice. In the event that all of a portion of Magpie or its assets are acquired by or merged with a third-party, we will not transfer Student Data belonging to our Educational Institution customers unless the new owner has agreed to privacy standards no less stringent than our own and we will provide notice of the acquisition to each Local Education Agency (LEA) within sixty (60) days following the completion of such a transaction. If the LEA does not approve of the transfer and use of personal information by such a successor organization, the LEA may request deletion of all Student Data. 

4. Advertising 

i. From time to time, the Magpie team may communicate with parents, guardians, teachers, school administrators and other adults about new products or features or other educational products or services. 

ii. We do not use, disclose, sell, or rent Student Data or personal information of minor users to third parties for targeted advertising, marketing or other commercial purposes. We do not permit third-party advertising networks to collect information about students’ or minors’ use of the Services for advertising purposes. 

5. Your Rights 

i. If you would like to know what personal information we have collected about you, modify any personal information you have provided to us, or have us no longer use this information, please contact info@magpie.org. 

ii. If you are a parent or legal guardian of a minor child, or student over age of majority and have questions about Student Data we may have about your child, contact your child’s school. 

6. Security and Data Retention 

i. We store, retain, and delete personal information as required by our contract(s) your LEA, applicable laws and regulations. Identifiable data will be deleted at the conclusion of the term of the contract or research project as required by FERPA. 

ii. In circumstances where personal data is collected, we restrict access to personal data to authorized Magpie administrators, agents or independent contractors who need to know that information in order to process it for us, and who are subject to strict confidentiality obligations and may be disciplined or terminated if they fail to meet these obligations. 

iii. We make concerted good faith efforts to maintain the security of all of the information we hold, including using commercially reasonable information security safeguards to protect our Site and Services against risks of loss, unauthorized access, destruction, misuse, modification, or inadvertent or improper disclosure of data. However, no information system can be 100% secure. We comply with all applicable laws governing our obligations to report any suspected data incident. 

7. Other Agreements, Changes, and Updates 

i. We may revise this Privacy Notice from time to time. When we update our Privacy Notice, we will create a banner over the home page of our site that notifies people that the privacy notice has been updated. Additionally, you can see when the last update was by looking at the “Last Updated” date at the top of this page.

ii. In addition to this Privacy Notice, your rights and obligations concerning our Site and Services are governed by the Terms of Use and other applicable policies, guidelines, and requirements, such as a contractual agreement with the school. When you use our Site or Services, please review each agreement carefully, as you must agree to be bound by each such agreement before you may use the Site or Services. 

8. Contact Us 

i. Magpie welcomes your comments regarding this Privacy Notice. If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, please contact us: info@magpie.org 

Privacy Policy for Child and Student Data 

Magpie does not knowingly collect any information from a child or student under the age of 13 (or the applicable age of consent in local jurisdictions) unless and until we have obtained parental consent or an Educator has authorized us to collect such information through the provision of the Service to students on the school’s behalf. When Magpie collects and uses Student Data at the direction of and under the control of a school or Educator, Magpie relies on each school or Educator to provide appropriate notice to parents of the Educator’s use of third party service providers such as Magpie, and for the Educator to provide consent and authorization for Magpie to collect personal information from children under 13, as permitted by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and other applicable data protection laws. All personal information collected from or about a child under 13 in the Educator context is “Student Data” because when Magpie collects personal information from a child on behalf of a School, the information is considered part of that child’s educational record and is under the direct control of the School. 

This Privacy Policy for Child and Student Data describes our practices with respect to personal information collected from child or student users under the age of 13. 

Personal information collected from children & students under 13 

We intentionally limit the collection of personal information from children to only what is needed to provide the Service. Most of the children’s personal information collected by Magpie is provided by the authorized Educator or parent/guardian adult users and is not collected directly from the children themselves. The type of personal information Magpie collects from children depends on how the Educator or parent uses the Service. When the Educator or parent allows the child to log into and use the First Foundations Service, we may collect: login credentials, authentication events, usage information about the child’s use of the Service and activities, such as login timestamps, child-generated content, voice recordings and transcripts, and similar information. We also collect information about the browser or device used by the child to access the Service, including an IP address or other unique identifier, browser type, language, and other such information. We may link or combine this information with personal information we receive about the child from the Educator or parent. 

How we use and disclose personal information collected from children 

We collect, use and disclose personal information from a child under 13 to provide the Service and for no other commercial purpose.

Magpie only shares personal information collected from or about a child or student under 13 in a few limited circumstances, described below. We do not use a child’s personal information for marketing or advertising purposes and we will never sell, rent, share or disclose a child’s personal information with third parties for marketing or advertising purposes. 

We share information within the Service as needed to perform the Service and/or at the direction of the Educator or parent. For example, personal information of a student may be shared between and among authorized school users such as teachers and school administrators. This sharing will depend on the settings and functionality selected by the school. The First Foundations Service does not permit a child or student user to share information publicly or with others through the Service. 

We share information with our trusted third-party service providers who perform technology services on our behalf (e.g., web hosting, chat providers, analytics services, speech-to-text transcription services), but strictly for the purpose of carrying out their work for us. Contractors and service providers who may have access to personal information of children or students in the course of performing their services to us are subject to confidentiality and data security requirements. 

We may be required to share information with law enforcement or other third parties when compelled to do so by court order or other legal process, to comply with statutes or regulations, to enforce our Terms of Use or contractual agreements, or if we believe in good faith that the disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property or personal safety of our users. 

We may use information in an aggregated and/or anonymous form that does not reasonably identify an individual child or student. For example, we may use and share aggregate or anonymized data to study and improve our Service, user functionality, and educational products and services. 

If we sell, divest or transfer our business, we will not transfer personal information of our customers unless the new owner intends to maintain and provide the Service as a going concern, and provided that the new owner has agreed to data privacy standards no less stringent than our own. In such case we will provide the parent/guardian or, in the case of K12 educational services, the Educator with a notice within 60 days of the transaction and provide an opportunity to opt-out by requesting a deletion of all personal information of the child and/or student(s). 

Accessing or Deleting a Child’s Personal Information 

Upon written request, we will provide the parent or Educator the opportunity to access and review the personal information collected from their child/students. At any time, a parent or Educator can refuse to permit any further collection of a child’s personal information and/or request to delete a child’s personal information. We do not knowingly retain a child’s personal information for longer than necessary to support a school’s educational purpose or to provide the Service for which it has been collected. Upon request from the Educator or parent, we will promptly delete and/or de-identify a child’s personal information. Even if we do not receive a deletion request, we may delete or de-identify personal information of a child or student after a period of inactivity in accordance with our standard data retention schedule. 

If you are a parent whose child uses the First Foundations Service through a K12 school account, please direct your request to access or delete your child’s data to the Educator or school who will then provide the appropriate instruction to Magpie regarding your child’s personal information.