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Privacy Policy
Katie Gracey avatar
Written by Katie Gracey
Updated over 6 months ago

Last updated: August 5th, 2022

What is ClassBank (formerly ClassEquity)?

ClassBank is a platform that empowers teachers to create a positive classroom culture while teaching financial literacy through experiential learning. Educators use ClassBank to assign students to classroom jobs, issue a mock salary for those jobs, and send other transactions such as bonuses and fines. This is done through the ClassBank Website. Students can then log in to deposit their transactions and purchase items through the class store.

Students can have their own account that allows them to apply for classroom jobs, make deposits and withdrawals, purchase items in the store, and choose an icon from a list of preselected avatars. In order to have a student account created, students will need to either (1) have the student account created at school by their teacher; (2) receive a unique code from their teacher to create their own account with a password and an email address or username. For cases (1) and (2) we require that the teacher represents to ClassBank that they have obtained any necessary parental consent as outlined in our Terms of Service.

More information on how the Service operates is located here and your participation and use of the Service is governed by our Terms of Service (“Terms”).

How does ClassBank (formerly ClassEquity) protect children’s personal information?

Protecting children’s privacy is especially important to us – we’re educators ourselves, after all. COPPA protects the online privacy of children under the age of 13 (“child” or “children”); for more information about COPPA and generally protecting children’s online privacy, please visit OnGuard Online.

What information does ClassBank (formerly ClassEquity) collect from children, and how is it used?

ClassBank collects the minimal amount of information from students necessary to use our Service. Currently, student accounts are created in the following ways: (1) by the student’s teacher; or (2) by the student if the teacher elects to provide the student with a Class Code. When logging into a student account created by a teacher, students sign in using the email or username and password created by the teacher. If a student has created their own account, they will use the email or username and password they created.

If a student’s Educational Institution or teacher elects to utilize student accounts on a shared device (or any other devices) in the Educational Institution (e.g. a school), the Educational Institution will be responsible for obtaining any necessary parental consent under COPPA to create the student account on behalf of the student and let students access their accounts, as outlined in our Terms of Service.

Alternatively, a teacher may choose to allow students to set up their own accounts using the unique code provided by the teacher. When students set up their own ClassBank account, we ask students to provide their name, an email address, a password and the unique code they have been given by their teacher to connect with the class. They will use the email address and password to access their account instead of the Class Code once the account is created. Consistent with the requirements of COPPA, before inviting the students via the Class Code the teacher has represented to ClassBank that they have obtained any necessary parental consent, as outlined in our Terms of Service. We don’t require students to enter any other personal information when setting up an account – they can use a non-identifiable email.

If you wish to not provide student email, you may use a placeholder email instead (e.g. [email protected]). Please note that student email addresses are solely used for log-in purposes. We do not send any emails to students except in the case to reset a password.

Student Activity

Once a student account is created (whether created by the student’s teacher or Educational Institutional or the student themself), students will apply for classroom jobs, deposit and withdraw transactions, and purchase rewards from the classroom store with the mock money they earn on ClassBank. A student account can only be created after the teacher has represented to ClassBank that they have obtained any necessary parental consent as outlined in our Terms of Service.

The student transactions can be viewed by the student themself, and the student’s teachers and Educational Institution Staff. Other students in the class cannot see any other students’ transactions or account information. If the Educational Institution or teacher elects to utilize student accounts in the classroom, the Educational Institution will be responsible for obtaining any necessary parental consent under COPPA, as outlined in our Terms of Service.

Further information and content

In addition to the information listed above, we automatically collect some information from any use of our Service as set forth in the “Information collected automatically” section.

We use this information to provide the Service to the child, for security and safety purposes, as required by law, or to enforce our Terms. We will not require children to provide more personal information than is reasonably necessary in order to participate in the Service. If we discover that we have collected information from a child in a manner inconsistent with COPPA, we will take appropriate steps to either delete the information, or immediately seek the parent’s consent for that collection. We do not disclose any personal information about children to third-parties, except to service providers necessary to provide the Service, as required by law, or to protect the security of the Service or other users. Additionally, personal information collected from students is never used for behaviorally-targeted advertising to students by us or any third-party, and children’s personal information is never sold or rented to anyone, including marketers and advertisers.

We also receive from the child or the child’s teacher whatever name he or she has provided.

Email notifications

Student email addresses are used solely for log-in purposes. ClassBank does not send email notifications to students for any reason. Students will only receive an email if their teacher requests to reset the student password. When a teacher sends the reset password email and link, the email and link are generated and sent through Google Firebase.

What Children’s Information is Visible to Others?

No student’s account, or activity is made available or visible to the public through ClassBank. Only the student, the student’s teachers or Educational Institution Staff at the student’s institution can see the student’s account and Activity. A student account cannot be created for children without the child’s teacher or Educational Institution representing to ClassBank that they have obtained any necessary parental consent, as outlined in our Terms of Service. Classes and Student Activity are not visible to the general public. Please note that if the teacher chooses to display ClassBank in their classroom, students physically present in that classroom may see other students’ names, classroom jobs, and account balances – this is similar to how paper-based sticker charts displayed in a classroom might work. If some of this information should be private, teachers can choose not to display ClassBank this way, for example by not presenting ClassBank on a screen in the class.

How Long Does ClassBank (formerly ClassEquity) Keep Children’s Information?

We keep a child’s personal information until his or her student account is deleted, except if we are required by law to retain it, need it to ensure the security of our community or our Service, or to enforce our Terms. At a district’s option and direction, we will return or destroy data to the district or school when we receive direction from the district or school.

Parental Choices

If you are the parent or legal guardian of a child who has created a ClassBank account and you have not received notice or been asked for consent by the child’s school (as per COPPA), you should contact the teacher and school that set up the account for your child.

At any time, parents can refuse to permit us to collect further personal information from their children, and can request that we delete the personal information we have collected from their child by contacting the teacher that created the account for the child. Please keep in mind that deleting records may require us to terminate the account in question.

What information does ClassBank (formerly ClassEquity) collect?

We collect two types of information about you: (1) information that you voluntarily provide us by using the ClassBank Service (described below under “Information you provide to us”) and (2) information collected automatically as result of your use of the Service (described below under “Information collected automatically”). The types and amounts of information collected will vary depending on whether the user is a student, teacher, or Educational Institution Staff (e.g. we collect less information from students) and how they use ClassBank.

Information you provide to us

There are currently two categories of users on our Service: students and teachers or Educational Institution Staff. We describe the information collected from students in the section above; for other users (teachers or Educational Institution Staff), we collect and store the following types of information from each type of user:

Account Information

To create a ClassBank account as a teacher or Educational Institution Staff, you are asked to provide some basic information such as your first and last name, the name of your Education Institution, grade level, email address, and password. Student accounts are created in the following ways: (1) by the student’s teacher; or (2) by the student if the teacher elects to provide the student with a Class Code. Before the student account is created, the student’s teacher or Educational Institution will have represented to ClassBank that they have obtained any necessary parental consent as outlined in our Terms of Service. If the student’s teacher is creating the student account, they will provide the student’s name, email address or username, and password. If a student sets up the account, they will be asked to enter the unique code they have been given by their teacher (students are unable to sign up for the Service without this), their name, a unique email address, and password. In this case the student’s teacher or Educational Institution will have represented to ClassBank that they have obtained any necessary parental consent, as per COPPA, as outlined in our Terms of Service. Student profiles are not made available or visible to the general public through the functionality of our Service.

School Information, Collaboration Features and Content

If you are a teacher or Educational Institution Staff, as part of the account information you provide, you may choose to associate your account with an existing school or may enter a new school name and possibly your school’s address if we do not have it already. By connecting you with your Educational Institution, the Service may enable and provide additional collaboration features for teachers and Educational Institution Staff within the same Educational Institution such as sharing classes.

Class Information

As a teacher you’ll need to enter the class name and possibly the names of the students in your class. It is the teacher’s choice what they enter here: for example, teachers could enter John S or John Smith. If a teacher is part of an Educational Institution, the classes they set up in ClassBank will be shared with teachers and Educational Institution Staff at the Educational Institution.

Job Applications and Transactions

As a teacher you can review student job applications and send students transactions. These applications and transactions cannot be viewed by the general public through our Service. These applications and transactions can only be viewed in ClassBank by the receiving student or students (in case of a group submission), teachers in the class, Educational Institution Staff at the teacher’s institution.

Contact Information

When you choose to provide us with your personal information through the Service in some other manner (e.g., when you send us an email asking a question, submit a support request, participate in a video testimonial about our Service, or choose to participate in any research efforts with ClassBank to improve the Service) we may store this information for as long as relevant.

Our use of the information above is described below in the “How Does ClassBank Use the Information it Collects” section.

Information collected automatically

Like most web-based services, we (or our service providers) may automatically receive and log information on our server logs from your browser or your device when you use the Service. For example, this could include the frequency and duration of your visits to ClassBank (similar to TV ratings that indicate how many people watched a particular show). If you use ClassBank on different devices, we may link the information we collect from those different devices to help us provide a consistent Service across your different devices. If we do combine any automatically-collected information with personal information, we will treat the combined information as personal information, and it will be protected as per this Privacy Policy.

The technologies and information we automatically collect include:

  • Cookies and other similar technologies: We (or our service providers) may use cookies or similar technologies to identify your browser or device. Local storage: We may also use, collect and store information locally on your device using mechanisms such as browser web storage (including HTML 5) and application data caches.

  • Server log information: Like most online services, when you use our Service, we automatically collect and store certain information in our server logs. This information helps us make decisions about what we should work on next – for example, by showing which features are most (or least!) popular. Examples include things like:

    • Details of how you used our service, such as your activity on the Service, and the frequency and duration of your visits to the ClassBank Website (similar to TV ratings that indicate how many people watched a particular show)

  • IP Address: Device event information such as crashes, system activity, hardware settings, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and referral URL

How does ClassBank (formerly ClassEquity) use the information it collects?

First and foremost, you should know that ClassBank does not sell or rent any of your, or your child’s, personal information to any third-party for any purpose – including for advertising or marketing purposes. ClassBank does not share personal information with third-parties except in the limited circumstances set forth in the section “Will ClassBank share any information it collects?” Third-party advertising is not permitted on areas where users are required to log in to ClassBank and personal information collected from students is never used for behaviorally-targeted advertising to students (by us or third-parties). We use the information we collect from you to provide you with the best ClassBank experience. More specifically, this information is used to:

  • Provide and improve the Service, for example by developing new products and features, based on information you have provided directly (through support chat) or that we have collected in aggregate

  • Respond to your emails, submissions, questions, requests for information or customer support

  • Customize the Service for you, and improve your experience with it

  • Send you information about features on our Service or changes to our policies and Service

  • Provide teachers information about events, announcements, offers and promotions (related to the ClassBank service), products, including third-party products, and services we think will be of interest to you

  • Most crucially, to protect our community by making sure the Service remains safe and secure

We use automatically collected information (described in the “Information collected automatically” section above) to provide and support our Service, and for the additional uses described in this section of our Privacy Policy.

Will ClassBank (formerly ClassEquity) share any information it collects?

First and foremost, you should know that ClassBank does not sell or rent your (or your child’s) personal information to any third-party for any purpose – including for advertising or marketing purposes. Third-party advertising is not permitted on areas where users are required to log in to ClassBank and personal information collected from students is never used for behaviorally-targeted advertising to students (by us or third-parties). Furthermore, we do not share personal information with any third-parties except in the limited circumstances described in this Privacy Policy and as set forth below:

Service Providers

Third-party advertising is not permitted on areas where users are required to log in to ClassBank and personal information collected is never used for behaviorally-targeted advertising to students (by us or third-parties). We do work with vendors, service providers, and other partners to help us provide the Service by performing tasks on our behalf – we can’t build everything ourselves, after all! We may need to share or provide information (including personal information ) to them to help them perform these business functions, for example sending emails on our behalf, database management services, database hosting, providing customer support software, and security. Additionally, we may also share information with social networking and other websites, applications or partners, for marketing and advertising our products or services on those websites or applications (this will never include personal information of students). Please see here for a list of the third-parties we work with to provide the Service. Generally, these service providers do not have the right to use your personal information we share with them beyond what is necessary to assist us. Additionally, these service providers must adhere to confidentiality and security obligations in a way that is consistent with this Privacy Policy.

Testimonials

We post testimonials on our Service which may contain personal information such as the name, photo and/or a video of the individual in the testimonial. We obtain the individual’s consent in advance to ensure we have permission to post this content publicly. To request removal of your personal information from our testimonials, please contact us through [email protected].

Analytics Services

We use analytics services to help us understand and improve how the Service is being used. These services may collect, store and use information in order to help us understand things like how often you use the Service, the events that occur within the application, usage, performance data, and from where the application was downloaded. A current list of analytics providers that we use is located here.

Aggregated Information and Non-Identifying Information

We may share aggregated, non-personally identifiable information publicly, including with users, partners or the press in order to, for example, demonstrate how ClassBank is used, spot industry trends, or to provide marketing materials for ClassBank. Any aggregated information shared this way will not contain any personal information .

Legal Requirements

We may disclose personal information if we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to comply with the law, such as complying with a subpoena or other legal process. We may need to disclose personal information where, in good faith, we think it is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of ClassBank, our employees, our community, or others, or to prevent violations of our Terms of Service or other agreements. This includes, without limitation, exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection or responding to government requests.

Sharing with ClassBank (formerly ClassEquity) Companies

Over time, ClassBank may grow and reorganize. We may share your personal information with affiliates such as a parent company, subsidiaries, joint venture partners or other companies that we control or that are under common control with us, in which case we will require those companies to agree to use your personal information in a way that is consistent with this Privacy Policy.

Change of control

In the event that all or a portion of ClassBank 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 Policy will continue to apply to your information, and any acquirer would only be able to handle your personal information as per this policy (unless you give consent to a new policy). We will provide you with notice of an acquisition within thirty (30) days following the completion of such a transaction, by posting on our homepage, or by email to your email address that you provided to us. If you do not consent to the use of your personal information by such a successor company, you may request its deletion from the company.

In the unlikely event that ClassBank goes out of business, or files for bankruptcy, we will protect your personal information, and will not sell it to any third-party. For more information on our practices regarding your data if we go out of business, please see our FAQ.

With your consent

Other than the cases above, we won’t disclose your personal information for any purpose unless you consent to it.

How does ClassBank (formerly ClassEquity) protect and secure my information?

Your ClassBank account is protected by a password. You can help us protect against unauthorized access to your account by keeping your password secret at all times.

The security of your personal information is important to us. We work hard to protect our community, and we maintain administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect against unauthorized use, disclosure of or access to personal information. In particular:

  • Our engineering team is dedicated to keeping your personal information secure

  • We periodically review our information collection, storage and processing practices, including physical security measures, to guard against unauthorized access to systems

  • We continually develop and implement features to keep your personal informationsafe – for example, when you enter any information anywhere on the Service, we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL/TLS) by default

  • We ensure passwords are stored and transferred securely using encryption and salted hashing

  • The ClassBank Service is hosted on servers at a third-party facility, with whom we have a contract providing for enhanced security measures. For example, personal informationis stored on a server equipped with industry standard firewalls. In addition, the hosting facility provides a 24×7 security system, video surveillance, intrusion detection systems and locked cage areas.

For additional information on our security practices, please visit our Privacy Center.

Although we make concerted good faith efforts to maintain the security of personal information, and we work hard to ensure the integrity and security of our systems, no practices are 100% immune, and we can’t guarantee the security of information. Outages, attacks, human error, system failure, unauthorized use or other factors may compromise the security of user information at any time. If we learn of a security breach, we will attempt to notify you electronically (subject to any applicable laws) so that you can take appropriate protective steps; for example, we may post a notice on our homepage (www.classbank.com) or elsewhere on the Service, and may send email to you at the email address you have provided to us. Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to receive notice of a security breach in writing.

Can I opt-out of providing information?

You can always decline to share ppersonal information with us, or even block all cookies. However, it’s important to remember that many of ClassBank's features may not be accessible, or may not function properly.

How can I access and manage my personal information?

ClassBank aims to provide you with easy access to any personal information we have collected about you. If that information is incorrect, we give you easy ways to update it, or to delete it, unless we have to keep that information for legitimate business (e.g., we need at least an email address for your account) or legal purposes.

Accessing Your Information: Upon request, ClassBank will provide you with information about whether we hold any of your personal information, and, if you are a user of ClassBank, you may request access to all your personal information we have on file by contacting us at [email protected]. In some cases, we won’t be able to guarantee complete access due to legal restrictions – for example, you will not be allowed to access files that contain information about other users or information that is confidential to us.

Managing Your Information: You may update, correct, or delete some of your profile information or your preferences at any time by logging into your account on ClassBank and accessing your account settings page. You may have to verify your identity before you can do that. You may also, at any time, update, correct, or delete certain personal information that you have provided to us by contacting us at [email protected]. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe. We may reject requests for access, change or deletion that are unreasonably repetitive, require disproportionate technical effort (for example, developing a new system or fundamentally changing an existing practice), risk the privacy of others, or would be extremely impractical (for instance, requests concerning information residing on backup systems).

Where we can provide information access and correction, we will do so for free, except where it would require a disproportionate effort. We aim to maintain our services in a manner that protects information from accidental or malicious destruction. Because of this, even after you update or delete personal information you have provided us from our Service, your personal information may be retained in our backup files and archives for a reasonable period of time for legal purposes or for so long as is necessary in light of the purposes for which such records were collected or legitimately further processed.

How can I delete my account?

We hope you love using ClassBank now and always. However, if for some reason you ever want to delete your account (or your student’s account, if you are his or her teacher), you can do that at any time by contacting us at [email protected].

When you delete your account, we delete your profile information and any other content you provide in your profile (such as your name, username, password, email address) and depending on the category of user you are (i.e., teacher, school leader or student), transactions, jobs, job applications etc.. For more details, please read “What happens when I delete my account?” in our FAQs.

How long does ClassBank (formerly ClassEquity) keep information about me?

We store your personal information for as long as it is necessary to provide products and Services to you and others, including those described above. Personal information associated with your account will be kept until your account is deleted, unless we no longer need the data to provide products and services, in which case we will contact you prior to you deleting your account.

Please note that we may have to retain some information after your account is closed, to comply with legal obligations, to protect the safety and security of our community or our Service, or to prevent abuse of our Terms. You can, of course, delete your account at any time, as per the “What happens when I delete my account?” section of our Help Center. Additionally, please note that even if your account is deleted, transactions or other content sent between teachers and students could be retained to assist schools with various recordkeeping or compliance obligations. For more details, please read “What happens when I delete my account?” in our Help Center.

What communications will I receive from ClassBank (formerly ClassEquity)?

If you registered on ClassBank, provided an email or phone number to us, or otherwise opted-in to receive communications from us, we may send you messages and updates regarding your account, including privacy and security notices, updates regarding the Service, and information regarding products, features or services from ClassBank (or third-parties we believe you may be interested in). These communications may include, but are not limited to, social media updates, SMS/MMS messages, push notifications, email, and postal mail. If you have an account with us, we’ll also use your email address to contact you for customer service purposes, or for any legal matters that arise in the course of business. We may receive a confirmation when you open an email from us if your device supports it. We use this confirmation to help us understand which emails are most interesting and helpful.

If you invite another person to join you on ClassBank by providing their email address, we may contact them regarding the Service using the appropriate form of communication. If they would prefer not to receive our communications, they may opt-out using the “Unsubscribe” or “STOP” instructions contained in those communications.

You can always unsubscribe from receiving any of our emails whenever you’d like by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the email. You can further indicate your preferences by contacting us using the information in the “How can I contact ClassBank with questions?” section below. Please note that if you do not want to receive legal notices from us, such as this Privacy Policy, those legal notices will still govern your use of the Website, and you are responsible for reviewing those legal notices for changes.

Social Media Features/Widgets

The Service may now or in the future include social media features, such as the Facebook Like button, and the Twitter Tweet button, or the ability to register on ClassBank or otherwise grant access to a third-party social networking service, such as through Facebook Connect or Google (collectively “Social Media Features”). These social features are only available to teachers and administrators (not students). These Social Media Features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our site, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. You may be given the option by such Social Media Features to post information about your activities on our Service to a profile page of yours that is provided by a third-party social media network in order to share with others within your network. Social Media Features are either hosted by a third-party or hosted directly on our Service. Your interactions with these Social Media Features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing each Social Media Feature. If you are not comfortable accessing such social media websites and using such Social Media Features, please don’t use them!

Third-party Services

The Service may contain links to websites and services provided by third-parties. Any personal information you provide on third-party websites or services is provided directly to that third-party and is subject to that third-party’s policies governing privacy and security. This Privacy Policy does not apply to these websites or services. The fact that we link to a website is not an endorsement, authorization or representation that we are affiliated with that third-party, nor is it an endorsement of their privacy or information security policies or practices. These other websites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you, including if you view a video through an embedded video player which is played off our Service, but may appear to still be playing on our Service. We are not responsible for the content or privacy and security practices and policies of third-party websites or services. We encourage you to learn about third-parties’ privacy and security policies before providing them with personal information.

How will ClassBank (formerly ClassEquity) notify me of changes to this policy?

We may occasionally update this Privacy Policy – you can see when the last update was by looking at the “Last Updated” date at the top of this page. We won’t reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. If we make any significant changes, we’ll provide prominent notice by posting a notice on the Service and/or notifying you by email (using the email address you provided), so you can review and make sure you know about them.

In addition, if we ever make significant changes to the types of personal information we collect from children, or how we use it, we will notify teachers in order to obtain parental consent or notice for those new practices.

We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy from time to time, to stay informed about our collection, use, and disclosure of personal information through the Service. If you don’t agree with any changes to the Privacy Policy, you may terminate your account (although we’ll be sad to see you go!). By continuing to use the Service after the revised Privacy Policy has become effective, you acknowledge that you accept and agree to the current version of the Privacy Policy.

Canada

We endeavor to provide privacy protection that is consistent with Canada’s private sector privacy laws, including the personal information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”). For any questions regarding how we comply with PIPEDA, please contact us at [email protected].

California Privacy Disclosures

Do Not Track: Currently, various browsers offer a “do not track” or “DNT” option that relies on a technology known as a DNT header, which sends a signal to Web sites visited by the user about the user’s browser DNT preference setting. ClassBank does not track its users over time and across third-party websites to provide behaviorally-targeted advertising and therefore does not respond to Do Not Track (DNT) signals. For more information on “do not track”, please visit www.allaboutdnt.org.

Notice for Minors (users under 18)

If you are under the age of 18, or the parent of a child using ClassBank under the age of 18 residing in California, you are entitled to request removal of content or information you (the minor) have publicly posted on our Service. Currently, we do not allow minors to post content to share publicly, but we do still allow minors (or the minor’s parents if under 13) the option to delete personal information associated with their user accounts or content that they upload through their student account (which is not shared publicly (only the student’s parents, teachers, or school leaders can view). If you are a minor, or the parent of a minor under 13, and would like to delete personal information associated with your account or content you uploaded through your account, please follow the directions set forth in the “What happens if I delete my account?” section of our Help Center. Although we offer deletion capabilities on our Service, you should be aware that the removal of content may not ensure complete or comprehensive removal of that content or information posted through the Service, as there may be de-identified or recoverable elements of your content or information on our servers in some form. Additionally, we will not remove content or information that we may be required to retain under applicable laws.

How can I contact ClassBank (formerly ClassEquity) with questions?

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or how we protect our community, please contact us at [email protected] – we’d love to help. If you’d like, you may also write to us at:

ClassEconomy LLC

2200 E. River Road

Suite 123

Tucson, AZ 85718

Further Privacy and Security Resources

For teachers, school leaders, parents, students, or administrators seeking more information on how we provide safety on ClassBank, we provide privacy and security related materials on our Privacy Center.

For Key Terms that are used in this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service, please visit this Key Terms FAQ.

Other Privacy Materials

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