Protecting the privacy of our youngest users is fundamental to our business and mission. This Children’s Privacy Policy explains how Seesaw collects personal information from children under the age of 13 (a “child”), and how it uses, discloses and protects such information when authorized by a School or the child’s parent or guardian.
We do not knowingly collect information from a child under 13 unless a School has authorized us to collect such information through the provision of the Service on the School’s behalf. In that case, we rely on the School to provide the appropriate consent for Seesaw to collect personal information from a child under 13 and we collect and use the child’s personal information only for the educational purposes authorized by the School, subject to the School’s oversight and control and in accordance with our contractual agreements with the School.
Seesaw is dedicated to COPPA compliance and aligns with iKeepSafe COPPA certification. You can learn more about the iKeepSafe COPPA certification here.
How we collect and use personal information from a child. When authorized to collect a child’s personal information by a School, we may collect the type of information listed below. We do not require users younger than 13 to disclose more information than is reasonably necessary to use the Services.
Account Information: student name and/or username, email address, and optional profile picture or avatar. This information may be provided by a teacher or other School administrator creating the account or by the students themselves. Students are not permitted to create accounts by themselves and must be invited to a Seesaw class by a teacher or school administrator. This information may also be collected from a third-party authentication service like Google or Clever, if the school uses these services to create and authenticate student accounts.
Content and Usage Information: Seesaw collects Journal Content that a student uploads to a class or adds to a student journal, which could include photos, audiovisual content (including from the child’s device camera, microphone, or photo/video library), drawings, files, notes, hyperlinks, and other ways of documenting student learning. Seesaw also collects content in Messages that a child user sends or receives in Seesaw. Messages may include text, audio, video, photos, drawings, files, notes, hyperlinks, or other information. Seesaw also collects information about the child’s use of his or her Seesaw account, such as pages visited, amount of time spent on the Service, actions (e.g., views, uploads, messages) and similar information about the child’s interactions with Seesaw.
Seesaw uses the child’s Account, Content and Usage Information to provide the Seesaw Service to the child, the child’s Family Member and teacher for the School’s educational purposes.
Device Information and Log Data: When a child logs into a Seesaw account, Seesaw collects log data which includes information about the child’s browser or device, such as the IP address, first party cookie identifiers, browser type, operating system, device information and identifiers, and mobile carrier. This information is typically collected through cookies or other types of log data and we may use third-party providers to collect this information on our behalf. We use this information to help us understand usage, to diagnose problems and provide support, to administer the Seesaw Service, facilitate navigation, display information more effectively, remember users’ settings and preferences, and recognize a user’s computer or device to facilitate authentication and for security purposes, provide school administrators with information about how Seesaw is performing in their Schools, and otherwise as needed to support the internal operations of the Seesaw Service.
We do not use or disclose personal information of a child for targeted advertising purposes or to create a profile of a child other than to support the school’s authorized educational purpose.
A child may share personal information with other users within Seesaw only if permitted by the teacher or school.
Student work (e.g., Journal Content and Messages) is private to the classroom by default. The teacher or school administrator may choose to enable settings that will allow child users to share information with other users. For example, the teacher can invite a Family Member to view a student’s Journal Content or Messages in Seesaw. Teachers control who can access a student’s account by authorizing specific people to connect to that student’s account. Teachers decide whether Family Members can view, like, share, or comment on their student’s work and whether students can view, like, and comment on classmates’ work. Teachers can turn on settings that require teacher approval of student work, allowing teachers to moderate and, when necessary, remove content shared by students before it is posted. Teachers may also choose to publish some class content to a public class web page managed by Seesaw. In addition to controlling what student work is published, teachers have the option to password protect the public class web page.
Teachers also control whether or not students or Family Members can save Seesaw content to their personal device or get a link to specific Journal Content. However, Seesaw cannot prevent all forms of sharing (e.g. a user taking a screenshot and posting to social media), so it is important that teachers only grant access to authorized parties and discuss their policies with families.
School administrators can access all Journal Content and Messages shared in their Seesaw organization, including Messages that have been edited or deleted by the child.
How we share or disclose a child’s personal information.
We share the child’s personal information with authorized users of the child’s school. School administrators and the child’s teacher, and other authorized school users can access all student personal information, as well as all Journal Content and Messages shared in their Seesaw organization, including Messages that have been edited or deleted.
When enabled and directed by the school, Seesaw facilitates the sharing of the child’s personal information with other authorized users, such as approved Family Members, within Seesaw. Seesaw may also assist the school in providing access to a child’s personal information upon request, including as required by FERPA.
Seesaw may disclose a child’s personal information in a few other limited circumstances:
- Seesaw may disclose personal information to a third party to comply with applicable laws or regulations, or a valid legal request – including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements. If we are compelled to release a child’s personal information, we will do our best to provide advanced notice to the school or Family Member, unless we are prohibited from doing so by law.
- We use a small number of third-party service providers in order to operate and improve Seesaw – for example, a data center operator that manages our servers or a notification service that helps us send messages to users about their accounts and the Service. We share children’s personal information with these third parties only as necessary to perform their services to Seesaw, and they are contractually obligated to meet our strict security standards, maintain the accuracy of the data they process, and only use personal information for purposes of providing or supporting the Seesaw Service. A list of our third-party service providers can be found here.
- We use a handful of analytics providers, including Google Analytics and Amplitude, who collect browser and device information from all users of our Seesaw applications, including users under 13, to help us improve the Services. These third-party service providers do not use your data for any purpose other than to provide the requested services to Seesaw. You can view a list of Seesaw’s third-party service providers and review their privacy policies here: https://seesaw.com/subprocessor. If you have questions about our third-party service providers, you can contact us at privacy@seesaw.me.
- We may disclose children’s personal information in the event that we sell, divest or transfer our business to a new corporate owner. However, we will not transfer Student Data (including personal information of a child) unless the new owner has agreed to data privacy standards no less stringent than our own or we will provide the schools with notice and an opportunity to opt out of the transfer of Student Data by deleting the Student Data before the transfer occurs.
- We may also share aggregated or de-identified information in a manner that cannot be reasonably used to identify an individual user with third parties.
How to access and delete a child’s personal information
We rely on the school’s authorization to collect personal information from a student under 13. The school may withdraw that authorization at any time by closing the child’s account and submitting a request to delete the child’s personal information.
We work closely with our school partners to ensure that parents and legal guardians have all rights to access, review, correct or delete a child’s personal information in accordance with applicable laws. If you are a parent or legal guardian of a child, please contact your child’s school or teacher to learn more about how your child uses Seesaw in school and to exercise your parental rights.
If you have any questions about your child’s use of Seesaw, please contact privacy@seesaw.me.
If you are not satisfied with our response, or if you have any questions or concerns relating to Seesaw’s compliance with COPPA, you can contact the iKeepSafe Safe Harbor Program’s dedicated consumer complaint department at COPPAPrivacy@ikeepsafe.org.