Privacy Policy
Last updated May 2022
MathOwl Inc. (“MathOwl”, “we”, “us”) owns and maintains the MathOwl website (“site”) and MathOwl web app (“app”) services, and is solely responsible for the data practices of those services. Any individual who uses those services is called a user (“you”), and their data privacy during the use of those services is governed by this policy.
During the use of our services, certain data is exchanged between users and MathOwl. This Privacy Policy describes our collection, use, storage, and disclosure of such data when using our services. Please read it carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your data and how we treat it.
You may use the links below to navigate through the key areas of our policy:
- Our Promise
- How and What Information is Collected
- Use of Your Information
- Storage and Security of Your Information
- Disclosure of Your Information
- Your Data Rights
- Children’s Privacy
- Governing Laws and International Users
- Policy Changes
- Contact Us
Our Promise
MathOwl is committed to protecting your privacy. We are dedicated to maintaining an honest and respectful relationship with our users, and strive to be open and clear about our intentions and actions. We hold a high standard of confidentiality in our relationship with you, and give you our promise that:
We only collect data that we need to provide the functionalities of our services and store it only for as long as is needed for our services to function correctly
We do not rent or sell any of your data to any third parties and share only the required minimum with trusted third parties which are needed to run our services
We always transfer data securely via encrypted connections and store data securely within Canada by encrypting it at rest
You are the owner of the data that you provide to us and it is your choice if/when you wish to edit or delete it
How and What Information is Collected
Personal Information
If you create a MathOwl web app account (“account”), or if you contact us, then you may provide us with your email, name, role (Student, Teacher, or Parent), and other information. These are considered Personally Identifiable Information (name and email) and Demographic Information (role).
If you sign into and use the app then you will be generating User Content during your interactions with it. Examples of such interactions include creating courses and activities as a Teacher or Parent, or enrolling in courses and attempting activities as a Student.
Personally Identifiable Information, Demographic Information, and User Content are all considered Personal Information, and are only collected if you contact us or create an account.
Sensitive Information
If you create an account, then you will need to create a password for your account, which will then be cryptographically hashed, ensuring that nobody has access to your raw password.
If you create an account and specify that your role is either Teacher or Parent, then you may need to provide credit card information to pay for your service use. We do not store such information ourselves, but instead relay it to our financial transactions provider (see Disclosure of Your Information) for processing.
Sensitive Information is considered a specific type of Personal Information and is only collected if you create an account.
Usage Information
If you use any of our services, then we automatically log technical information about your access location and device. Such information can include your web request, internet protocol (IP) address, operating system, browser type, platform type, and date & time of your request.
Usage Information is always collected if you use any of our services, but such information alone cannot be used to identify you. It is only associated with Personal Information if you are signed into your account.
Locally-stored Information
If you use any of our services, then we automatically store certain session information on your computer, which persists even when the browser is closed. We do not use cookies, but instead make use of the browser’s localStorage and indexedDB functionalities for these purposes.
Locally-stored Information is always created if you use any of our services, but it only includes Personal Information if you are signed into your account.
Use of Your Information
Service Functionality
All of the information collected is necessary to provide our service functionality. Examples of the core functionalities and the information required for their operation include:
- Email and password are used to authenticate your account, and the authentication state is persisted in your browser’s localStorage for your convenience and to prevent data issues that may arise from unreliable network connections
- Your role determines the capabilities of your account, while the credit card information is used to support the account type if the role is a Teacher or Parent
- User Content is created during your interaction with the app, and is persisted to indexedDB to prevent data issues that may arise from unreliable network connections
- Usage Information is recorded during account sign-in (and deleted upon sign-out) to ensure that multiple devices are not simultaneously signed into the same account, which helps prevent data conflict issues
Please Contact Us if you have any questions about the relevance/use of any information collected.
Service Maintenance and Improvement
We constantly analyze anonymous Usage Information to ensure the health and stability of our service; however, if you encounter issues with our service, then we may require your Personal Information to be able to identify and fix the issue.
We may also run analyses on anonymized User Content and Demographic Information in order to identify how our service is used; such analyses are used for reporting purposes, as well as to help us identify how to meaningfully improve our service.
Any data used for analyses will first be anonymized, so that no Personally Identifiable Information or Sensitive Information is ever used.
Communication
We will only use your Personal Information to communicate with you if you have contacted us, or if we encounter an issue that involves your account directly.
Marketing and Advertising
We do not use any Personal Information for marketing or advertising purposes, unless we first obtain explicit permission from you to use your feedback/reviews of our service.
Storage and Security of Your Information
Our Servers
All data except for financial information – which is stored directly by our financial transactions provider (see Disclosure of Your Information) – is stored on servers in Canada, and is encrypted at rest. The transfer of any data between the servers and your browser is conducted over secure connections, protected by the Transfer Layer Security (TLS, formerly SSL) protocol, and only accessible to authenticated users, in specific situations (see Disclosure of Your Information).
Access to data internally to MathOwl is limited to those who require it to perform their work correctly, and only to the extent that is required by their work.
Your Computer
Locally-stored Information on your computer only contains Personally Identifiable Information if you are signed into your account. If you are on a device that other people may use, we recommend that you always sign out of your account when you are done using our service.
We also recommend that you use a school or professional email when registering for an account rather than your private email, and that you do not share your password with anyone.
Disclosure of Your Information
MathOwl Web App
All Personal Information is private between Teachers/Parents and the Students in their courses – Students do not have access to other Students’ information, and Teachers/Parents only have access to the information of the Students in their courses.
Third-Parties
Our service infrastructure is provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS), which means that AWS has access to all information that we collect. We have carefully assessed their data policies and have found them to our satisfaction, but we still recommend that you read AWS' Data Privacy Documentation.
Our financial transactions functionality is provided by Stripe, which means that Stripe has access to all financial information that is required to make such transactions. We have assessed their data policies and have found them to our satisfaction, but we still recommend that you read Stripe's Privacy Policy.
We do not share any of your information with any other third-parties. Our interactions with AWS and Stripe are critical for our service functionality – if you do not accept their data privacy statements, please do not use our service.
Other Circumstances
If we are required to share your information by law, then we will attempt to fulfill our legal obligation while providing the minimal amount of your information as is possible.
In the case of a business merger or sale of business, we will first require you to give consent to the transfer of any of your data before doing so.
Your Data Rights
Any data that you provide to us is yours. You may add, edit, or delete your Personally Identifiable Information whenever you wish, through the functionality of our app. If you wish to have a copy of your raw data, please Contact Us to request one.
If you choose to delete your account, then we will not retain any Personally Identifiable Information of yours; however, we may retain anonymous Usage Data as well as anonymized User Content for the the purposes of Service Maintenance and Improvement.
Children’s Privacy
Our service is intended to be used by Students, Parents, and Teachers for the purposes of helping those Students learn mathematics. As such, it is inevitable that we must deal with children’s data, and so we do our best to both minimize the amount of data that we collect, and also minimize access to that data.
Although our service may be used to help students below the age of 13, we require that only those aged 13 or older are able create an account. If a student below the age of 13 wishes to use our service, they must use their parent’s or guardian’s account to access the service.
Governing Laws and International Users
MathOwl is located in Canada, and, as such, is governed by and compliant with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Our services are aimed towards the Canadian public; however, we make no discrimination of where our users are coming from, and so we cannot enforce that our users are only Candian.
To any international users of our services: although the strictness of our data privacy policies should be enough to comply with your local data privacy laws, we cannot make the claim that they necesarily do. If you have any concerns about our data policies, please don't hesitate to Contact Us to obtain clarity on any aspects, so that you may judge for yourself whether or not you should use our service.
Policy Changes
Any changes that we make to our privacy policy will be reflected on this page. Any major changes (as opposed to grammar edits) will be stated in this section, along with an effective date associated with those changes. We will notify you ahead of time of any major changes to our data privacy practices, so that you may decide whether or not to continue using our services after those changes take effect.
The date of the most recent update will be shown at the top of this page.
Contact Us
We aim to make our privacy policy clear and transparent; however, if you have any questions about your data privacy while using our services, please don't hesitate to contact our Data Privacy Officer at [email protected].