The last update to our Privacy Policy was posted on October 21, 2019.
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) requires us to inform parents or legal guardians about how we collect, use, and disclose personal information from children under the age of 13. COPPA also requires that we get consent from parents or legal guardians before we allow children under the age of 13 to use and interact with some sections, applications, and activities on our Platform. We offer users a number of activities, some of which are directed at children under the age of 13, and other activities that are targeted for older users.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires us to inform parents or legal guardians about how we collect, use, and disclose personal information from children under the age of 16 in some member countries of the European Union. The GDPR also requires that we get consent from parents or legal guardians before we allow children to use and interact with some sections, applications, and activities on our Platform.
Verifiable Parental Consent
Should we want to collect personal information from a child, COPPA and the GDPR requires that we first obtain a parent or legal guardian’s consent. In an email (or other approved method) sent to the parent or legal guardian we will describe what information we would like to collect, how we propose to use it, how the parent can offer and cancel consent. If we do not obtain consent from the parent within a reasonable timeframe, we will remove the child and parent information collected with the request.
Teacher Consent in Replace of a Parent
For school-based activities, school administrators and teachers are allowed under COPPA to act on behalf of the parents to give consent when collecting personal information from children. Teachers and school administrators should always inform parents when collecting personal information from children on their behalf.
Information We Collect From Children, How We Use It, and Parental Rights
Registration
Children can register with our Platform to use our software, online applications, view content, participate in contests, receive emails, and engage in other activities. By doing so we may collect information from children. When we collect personal information from a child, we will hold that information only as long as reasonably necessary to allow the child to continue to use and interact with our Platform.
During the registration process we may ask a child to give us information for security purposes, announcements, and notifications. This information includes a child’s name, birthdate
(to validate the child’s age), gender, username, account name, password, and parent or legal guardian’s email address and other contact information. Children can choose whether to provide their information to us; however some of our Platform features may not function without the required information.
To comply with COPPA requirements, on our Platform where we ask for the age of a user who is under the age of 13 and under 16 where the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies in the European Union, we will ask for their parent, legal guardian, or teacher’s email address before we collect any personal information from a child under these ages. If you think that your child is involved in an activity that collects personal information and you or another parent or legal guardian has not received a request for consent to collect such information, please contact us using the contact information at the top of this page.
Automatic Information Collected and Persistent Identifiers
When children interact with our Platform and services, specific information may automatically be collected. We collect this information to make our Platform and services useful to children and other users. We also use this information for internal business purposes, including improving our Platform. Some examples of this type of information include the child’s IP address, mobile device identifier, type of web browser, type of operating system, online service provider used, and the regularity with which the child visits different parts of our Platform.
This data and information are collected using online technologies such as cookies, web beacons, and other unique identifiers that are explained in the “Information We Collect and How We Collect It” section of our regular Platform Privacy Policy. This information and data may be collected by our Platform or by a third party.
How We Use Collected Information
This information and data are primarily used for our own purposes in order to:
- Let members and children access and use features of our Platform
- Improve the features and usability of our Platform
- Let us analyze data to see how our Platform is performing
- Email notifications to users and children
Sharing Information
We will not share a child’s personal information with other individuals or companies except in limited situations, including the following:
- When other companies perform services for us, like customer support, email services, delivery services, call centers, data management services, help desk providers, law firms, payment processors, accountants and shopping cart providers; however, these companies are prohibited from using a child’s personal information for purposes other than those requested by us or required by law.
- Disclosing a child’s personal information if required or permitted by law, for example, in response to a subpoena, law enforcement, court order, or public agency’s request.
- To protect the safety of a child.
- To safeguard the security of our Platform and companies that provide services for us.
Parental Rights
As a parent or legal guardian you have the following rights regarding your child’s use of our Platform:
- To review the personal information we collected from your child.
- To revoke the consent to use or further collect your child’s personal information.
- To request that your child’s personal information be changed or deleted.
- To allow the collection and use of your child’s information, but not allow disclosure to third parties unless it is part of our service.
- To send you a new notice and get your consent if we make changes to the collection, use, or disclosure practices to which you previously agreed.
Parents can exercise their rights shown directly above by contacting us using the contact information at the top of this page.