Privacy policy

Stile Education is committed to protecting your privacy. Our education services are designed for use by K-12 education institutions, teachers, students and administrators. Please note that this is just an overview, and that our full Terms of Service and Privacy Policy contain more details.

Stile Education proudly supports the Safer Technologies 4 Schools (ST4S) assessment initiative. ST4S evaluates digital products and services used by schools across Australia against a nationally consistent security and privacy control framework. Stile works closely with ST4S to push for further privacy and security standards in the education technology sector.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are you advertising or selling data?

No. Stile never has and never will run third party advertisements, or sell any personal data from our teachers or students.

We will uphold this commitment even if Stile is acquired or goes bankrupt

If you’re not advertising, then how do you make money?

Stile partners directly with schools and districts to help their teachers provide a world class science education for every student.

Please reach out if you’re interested in setting up a trial!

Does Stile comply with the CCPA, FERPA, COPPA, and the Australian Privacy Act?

Yes! Please see our full privacy policy for more details.

What data do you collect on students?

Stile collects students’ responses to quiz questions, polls, class discussions and brainstorming sessions. This includes multiple choice, free text answers, and — optionally — uploaded files. Feedback and marks left by teachers on student work are also collected and stored.

Additionally, we record metadata about students’ interactions with Stile, including the IP address and User Agent of the student’s browser.

Students at schools without a Single Sign On integration will be required to set a Stile password.

Stile optionally collects student names and email addresses, although setting up anonymous accounts with pseudonyms is also possible (our support team can help set this up, just reach out to mailto:help@stileeducation.com).

Stile does not collect sensitive data such as student demographics, parent / guardian contact details, address, conduct, transportation, medical or criminal records etc.

How do you use student data?

Stile collects, stores, processes, and shares student data only for the purposes of providing and improving our educational services, or as authorized by a District, School or a parent / guardian.

How does Stile secure this data?

Stile employs industry best practice to secure your data and prevent access by unauthorised parties. This includes encrypting all network communication with strong, modern ciphers; storing passwords only in a salted, slow-hashed format; automatically restricting access to all uploaded data to only pre-authorised nominated people (teachers, school admins etc.); regular third party penetration tests of Stile’s systems; and logging all access to Stile’s systems so that we can track down any unauthorised or mis-allocated data access.

Our security team is continually monitoring for problems, and upgrading Stile’s systems to keep abreast of new best practise standards and respond to potential emerging threats.

As a result of this work, Stile has never suffered a data breach.

We’re so confident in our security that we encourage security research by permitting anyone to test our systems in accordance with our vulnerability disclosure policy.

Does Stile have a Student Data Privacy Agreement with my school in the United States?

We have data privacy agreements with many school districts and are happy to work with your school and district to get an agreement in place. Please email us at privacy@stileeducation.com for more information.

Can you just change these policies at any time for any reason?

No. Stile will not make any material changes to our Privacy Policy or Terms of Service that relate to the collection or use of Student Data without first giving notice to the school or parent and providing a choice before the Student Data is used in a materially different manner than was disclosed when the information was collected.

How can I contact you?

Please reach out with any questions or requests to mailto:privacy@stileeducation.com

Privacy Policy – Stile

Stile Education Pty Ltd and Stile Education Inc (Stile, we, us) is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy governs how Stile collects, holds, manages, uses and discloses your personal information and should be read together with our Terms, which govern your use of our services.

• Our Services
• What is Personal Information?
• What Personal Information we collect
• Sensitive Information
• How does Stile collect and store Personal Information?
• Disclosure to recipients outside of Australia
• Why does Stile collect, hold, use and disclose Personal Information?
• Links to external websites
• Embedding YouTube videos
• Unsolicited information
• Access to data within a school
• Access to data between schools
• Direct Marketing
• Security
• Notifiable Data Breach scheme
• Deleting Personal Information from Stile
• Updating and correcting your Personal Information
• Requesting your Personal Information
• How you can contact us, find out more information or make a complaint
• Nevada Privacy Rights
• California Privacy Rights
• California Privacy Notice

Our Services

Stile provides education services, technology (including hardware) and tools (including lab supplies) to education institutions, districts, schools, teachers and students via its websites (stileeducation.com and stileeducation.com.au), platform (stileapp.com/login), mobile applications, printed materials (including homework and study guides) and professional learning services (including events and webinars) (Services).

We provide our Services to individuals and schools in the United States and Australia and in doing so, comply with applicable US law, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Rights Act (FERPA) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and applicable Australian law, including the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Australian Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles.

By using our Services or interacting with Stile, you agree to the collection and use of your personal information as set out in this policy. If you do not agree to the terms of this policy (as updated from time to time), you should not use our Services or interact with us.

What is Personal Information?

When we use the term “Personal Information” in this policy, we refer to information or data protected by privacy laws in Australia and USA, as applicable. We include information that identifies or relates to an identified individual, or is protected as personal information or personal data under applicable US laws. We also include “personal information” as defined in the Australian Privacy Act, which means information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether the information is true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not.

What Personal Information we collect

The kinds of Personal Information we collect depend on what Services you use and how you interact with us, including as set out below. The Personal Information we collect about you is yours; we don’t claim any ownership over it.

If you provide Personal Information about other individuals to us, you must ensure that you have informed those individuals that you are providing their Personal Information to us and that you have obtained their consent and advised them of this policy.

When you contact us

When you communicate with us - for example, to make an enquiry or raise an issue or to complete a survey or competition form - via telephone, post, social media, email or an online form, we keep a record of that communication, including your name, email address, postal address, other contact details and any other information you provide us.

New staff

When we recruit new staff, we collect applicant details such as your name, contact details, qualifications and work history. Generally, we will collect this information directly from you.

We may also collect Personal Information from third parties in ways which you would expect, for example, from recruitment agencies or referees you have nominated.

Before offering you a position, we may collect additional details required by law, such as your tax file number or social security number, superannuation information, and other information necessary to conduct background checks to determine your suitability for certain positions (for example, positions which involve working with children).

When you use our Services

Some of our Services require you to create and activate an account with Stile. When you do so, we request that you provide your school name, email address and full name, and to create a password. We may request the contact details of staff members at your school, such as details of your accounts department and I.T. support staff.

Stile does not require students or teachers to provide their real names to use the Services. If you are a teacher, you may enter pseudonyms for yourself and your students. Some customers provide their students with aliased numeric or random email addresses for use with online services, avoiding the need to store identifying information about them.

Information collected by schools

Stile provides a flexible interface for schools to collect a range of information from their students, such as files, text, photos, videos and more. Select members of the Stile staff have access to that information, but only if the school has consented. Stile staff access this information to administer Stile’s operational and administrative support systems and for no other reason.

As we are not aware of the specific nature of this information, we treat it all as Personal Information.

Schools are responsible for providing required notices and obtaining necessary consents from the students’ parents or legal guardians to allow us to collect and process such Personal information.

In this capacity we are acting as a service provider to the schools under FERPA, the CCPA and other privacy laws. Please contact your school if you have any questions about the Personal Information being collected and if you want to make a request about your Personal Information. If we receive such a request directly, we will notify the school about the request and will act upon their instructions in responding (unless we are required to respond directly to you by law).

Education Records

We may have access to student education records that are subject to the FERPA, 20 U.S.C. 1232g, et seq. and applicable regulations (“Education Records”). This information is considered confidential and is protected from disclosure, except with the consent of the student or, in the case of a minor, a parent, legal guardian or another person authorised to consent on behalf of the student, or as otherwise permitted under the FERPA.

Where we gain access to Education Records, we do so as a service provider to educational institutions. We only use Education Records to provide Services to users pursuant the relevant contract with the educational institution. We will not use such information to market to users except as permitted by law or by the contract.

Except as required or permitted by law, or with consent as noted above, we will not disclose or share Education Records with any third party unless:

• such disclosure is permitted by the terms of our contract with the particular educational institution from which we received the Educational Records; and
• the third party has agreed to maintain the confidentiality of the Education Records to the same extent required of Stile under its contract with the educational institution.

If you seek access to protected Education Records, we will only retrieve it upon receipt of, and in accordance with, written directions from an authorised person and if allowed by law. If we receive a court order or lawfully issued subpoena seeking the release of such data or information, we will provide notification to relevant users with a copy of the court order or subpoena prior to releasing the requested data or information, if allowed by law or judicial and/or administrative order.

If you are a student or parent/guardian and you would like to request to access, modify, refuse further collection of or delete a student’s Personal Information that we have been provided under a contract with a school or school district, please contact your school or school district with your request, as we may not be able to respond to such requests directly under our contractual confidentiality obligations with the schools and school districts.

Children’s information

We handle all Personal Information relating to persons less than 13 years of age (“child”, “children”) in accordance with the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Stile relies on each School to obtain and provide appropriate parental/guardian consent, make any required disclosures, and to manage the collection and usage of childrens data in Stile in accordance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Stile Education is not responsible for obtaining, and does not directly obtain such parental consent for collecting information from or about children under the age of 13.

If Stile becomes aware that a child’s Personal Information has been collected without parental consent, then it will take appropriate steps to delete this information. If you are a parent or guardian and discover that your child has a registered account with the Stile without your consent, please email Stile at privacy@stileeducation.com and request that Stile delete that child’s Personal Information from its systems.

Student data

Schools are responsible for what Student Data is shared — which may include data and records relating to student information, performance, or use — and for notifying Stile when that Student Data is no longer required by the School and may be deleted.

Parents / guardians may request to access, correct, and update a student’s personal information, but these requests may require the School’s authorization to update or delete information contained in active School accounts. If you have any questions about reviewing, modifying, or deleting personal information of a Student, please contact your School directly.

Stile will delete or permanently anonymise all copies of any Student Data within six months of receiving a valid deletion request.

Cookies and other tracking technology

We (and our service providers) may automatically collect Personal Information about your use of our Services through cookies and other tracking technologies, such as your browser type and operating system, web pages that you view, links you click, your IP address, the length of time you visit our Services, the referring URL when you click certain buttons, how far you scroll on a page or the webpage that led you to our Services.

Some information is stored in your browser after you log into the Stile application which identifies your browser and keeps you logged-in. However, this information isn’t accessible to other websites and doesn’t let Stile or anyone else track you across the web. This information is deleted when you log out of the Stile application. You can use incognito mode to make this information temporary.

Through our auto-saving technology, information may be collected before you submit a form or page on Stile’s Services. If you’ve typed something into Stile, assume it has been immediately sent to our servers.

Currently, our systems do not recognize browser “do-not-track” requests.

Our Services do not use Google Analytics, cross-site cookies, or any other tracking technologies which monitor your browsing activity across the web. Our marketing website (stileeducation.com) does use Google Analytics to better understand usage of that website. Students and teachers are not required or expected to use stileeducation.com in the course of using the Stile Services.

Usage data is never sold to third parties (although it may be transferred in the case of a merger, acquisition, reorganization or similar transaction involving Stile or its assets or business).

Other individuals or circumstances

Stile may collect Personal Information about other individuals, such as service providers and contractors to Stile, and other individuals who interact with Stile on a commercial basis. The kinds of Personal Information we collect will depend on the capacity in which you are dealing with Stile. It may include your name, contact details, and information regarding our interactions and transactions with you.

If you are participating in an event we are managing or delivering, we may take images or audio-visual recordings which identify you. These will never be sold. We will ask for your permission prior to displaying and or using these images or audio visual recordings.

Sensitive Information

We do not collect any sensitive information.

How does Stile collect and store Personal Information?

Stile generally collects Personal Information directly from you over the phone, by email, over the internet or social media, or in person. We may also collect Personal Information about you from other sources, for example your parent or guardian, your school, a referee, a recruitment agency or a government agency.

We take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

We use the Amazon Web Services (AWS) to securely store your data. The physical security of AWS servers and other infrastructure is tightly controlled according to industry best practice. In addition to a strong security focus, AWS has also been designed to be resilient to failure, featuring multiple separate power supply systems, independent network links and a range of other measures to ensure servers are always available.

Disclosure to recipients outside of Australia

Where the Australian Privacy Act applies to your Personal Information, we will only disclose it to recipients outside Australia where we have taken reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipient does not breach the Australian Privacy Principles in relation to your Personal Information -unless we have your consent, or an exception under the Australian Privacy Principles applies.

Stile Education Pty Ltd may share your Personal Information with its subsidiary Stile Education Inc – but only if permitted or required by law. Stile Education Inc is based in the US and, if it is required to do so by law, it may disclose your Personal Information within the US.

Why does Stile collect, hold, use and disclose Personal Information?

We collect, hold, use and disclose your Personal Information only in accordance with this policy, with your consent (or, in the case of a child, the consent of their parent, legal guardian or an authorised school administrator) or in accordance with applicable laws.

We do not use your Personal Information to build a profile on you to sell to others, or to target advertising to you now or in the future. If you close your account with Stile, we will no longer use your Personal Information. Except as otherwise permitted or required by law, we will not access the Personal Information you have provided us unless you ask us to (usually in connection with a support enquiry) or if we’ve got reason to believe we need to do so to investigate or prevent a violation of our Terms.

We collect, hold, use and disclose Personal Information for purposes reasonably necessary to provide you with our Services, including:

• to provide you with information, products or services you have requested;
• to provide and manage your account, including evaluating and processing your application for an account, managing orders and payments and collecting overdue amounts;
• to promote and market our Services to you via SMS or email newsletters (if permitted);
• to personalise and customise your experiences with Stile;
• to provide security and prevent fraud;
• to research, develop, improve and expand our Services;
• to inform you of updates and our activities, events, facilities and Services;
• to provide third party information and offers (if permitted);
• to use aggregated or de-identified information for the purposes of data analysis, research and reporting;
• to enter into contracts with you or third parties and managing client relationships;
• to respond to requests for information, general inquiries and complaints;
• to manage, plan, advertise and administer programs, events and competitions;
• for recruitment purposes and to provide internal services to staff;
• to respond to law enforcement and other governmental requests, to defend or exercise legal claims and to comply with regulatory or other legal requirements; and
• for any other use required or permitted by law or any other purpose communicated to you at the time that the Personal Information was collected or for which you provided your consent.

Service providers

We may disclose your Personal Information to third party vendors, service providers, contractors or agents who perform functions on our behalf, such as when Stile experiences a technical problem or to ensure that the Services operate in an effective and secure manner. If we share your Personal Information with a service provider, we ensure that party has agreed to comply with our privacy standards as described in this policy.

De-identified data

We may share non-personal, de-identified and aggregated information with third parties and publicly for marketing, advertising, research or promotional purposes. We will not sell your Personal Information to third parties.

Legal disclosure of your data

We also may disclose your Personal Information in order to comply with the law, a judicial proceeding, court order, or other legal process, such as in response to a subpoena.

Affiliates

We may disclose the Personal Information we collect from you to our affiliates or subsidiaries solely for the purpose of providing Services to you; however, if we do so, their use and disclosure of your Personal Information will be maintained by such affiliates and subsidiaries in accordance with this policy.

Business Transfers

We may transfer your Personal Information to another entity if we are acquired by or merged with another entity, if substantially all of our assets are transferred to another entity, or as part of a bankruptcy proceeding. We will ensure to the extent permitted by law that any such entity is bound by privacy obligations that are at least as strict as those set out in this policy. Student Data will not be used in a materially different manner without first giving notice to the school or parent and providing them a choice, even in the event of acquisition or merger with another entity.

To protect us and others

We may disclose your Personal Information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person, violations of our Terms or this policy, or as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.

Links to external websites

Stile may include links to external websites on our Services, but we are not responsible and will not be liable for the operations or policies of any third-party external website.

Embedding YouTube videos

The Stile video widget includes a YouTube search feature to allow easily embedding a YouTube video into a Stile lesson. Stile uses YouTube API services to accomplish this, which follows Google's privacy policy: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy. No personal information about Stile users is shared with YouTube; the video search terms entered by the user are sent to YouTube anonymously.

Unsolicited information

If we receive information that we did not request, we will comply with applicable privacy obligations, including by destroying or de-identifying the information unless we are required to keep it by law.

Access to data within a school

We provide extensive controls to allow schools to manage who can access the information stored on behalf of that school. Such information includes instructions, questions, student work, student results and comments teachers have entered about students. Accordingly, your Personal Information may be accessible to other users at your school.

Access to data between schools

Stile is designed to keep each school’s data completely isolated. We do not disclose school-specific data (such as content, student work and student results) across schools even if, as a Stile user, you are a member of more than one. However, if you accept an invitation to join another school’s Stile account, we will disclose your full name and email address to that school.

Direct Marketing

We may use your Personal Information to send you direct marketing if you would reasonably expect us to or if you have consent, and provided you have not opted out of these communications.

We will seek your consent to provide you with direct marketing if we have obtained your Personal Information from a third party. Direct marketing may include promotional material about us or important updates about our Services. We keep these to a minimum, while providing you with information you need or might want to know.

We always give you the ability to unsubscribe from direct marketing by utilising the “unsubscribe” mechanisms provided in each communication or by emailing us at privacy@stileeducation.com.

We never send email marketing to student email addresses.

Security

Stile employs industry best practice to help prevent unauthorised access to or misuse of your Personal Information. These safeguards include physical, technical, organisational and administrative controls as set forth below:

• all network communication between Stile and your web browser is encrypted;
• passwords are stored in an irreversibly scrambled form which helps to protect them even in the event of a data breach;
• a sophisticated access control system is built into the core of Stile that manages the security of each piece of data you provide us, ensuring that only those who have been nominated can access it;
• only specific Stile staff members can gain access to the data we store on your behalf, and all such access is automatically logged. These security logs are regularly audited to ensure the customer provided explicit permission for this access to occur; and
• we log all actions performed on Stile by user and IP address allowing us to track down unauthorised access for as long as our logs are kept.

If you register for an account, you will be asked to select a password to help protect your information and verify your identity before being granted access or being able to make corrections to any of your Personal Information. You should never disclose your password to anyone. If you believe that your password or your account has been compromised, please contact us as soon as possible.

Despite our efforts, no data security measures can guarantee 100% security.

Stile also maintains physical security over paper stores, such as through locks and security systems at our premises.

Notifiable Data Breach scheme

Part IIIC of the Australian Privacy Act establishes the Notifiable Data Breaches Scheme (NDB scheme) in Australia. The NDB scheme sets out obligations for notifying affected individuals and the Australian Privacy Commissioner about a data breach which is likely to result in serious harm. Where serious harm to affected individuals is likely, we will notify those individuals and the Australian Privacy Commissioner in accordance with our legal obligations. You may contact our Privacy Officer (details set out below) should you require additional information.

Deleting Personal Information from Stile

We will keep your Personal Information only for as long as required for our business purposes and otherwise as required by applicable law. Where we no longer need to keep your Personal Information, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify your Personal Information.

You may request the deletion of your Personal Information from Stile upon account closure. Personal Information will be destroyed or de-identified from our live systems within six months from receipt of the request. Note that this Personal Information removal includes all Personal Information you or your teachers and students have uploaded or provided to Stile that we’ve managed on your behalf, but not our account-keeping records on you, which we’ll keep for future reference.

Updating and correcting your Personal Information

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that the Personal Information that we hold is accurate, up-to-date and complete. You can update or correct your Personal Information at any time by contacting us at privacy@stileeducation.com. We welcome any changes to your Personal Information to keep our records up to date.

Requesting your Personal Information

You are entitled to access Personal Information that we hold about you. If you request access to your Personal Information, we will grant your request unless providing you with access would unreasonably affect the privacy of others or is otherwise not permitted under applicable laws. If we refuse your request to access your Personal Information, we will provide you with written reasons for the refusal.

A request for access can be made to privacy@stileeducation.com.

How you can contact us, find out more information or make a complaint

If you feel that your privacy has not been respected or that we have conducted ourselves inconsistently with this policy or the applicable law in respect of your Personal Information, or for any other queries, problems, complaints or communication in relation to this policy, please address them to the Privacy Officer at privacy@stileeducation.com. We’ll be in touch as soon as practical to address your concerns.

Stile is a product of Stile Education Pty Ltd.

You can find out more information about the Australian Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. The Information Commissioner may be contacted at www.oaic.gov.au or by email at enquiries@oaic.gov.au.

Nevada Privacy Rights

Stile does not sell your Personal Information as that term is defined under Nevada Law. However, if you wish to exercise an opt-out right under Nevada law, you may email us at privacy@stileeducation.com.

California Privacy Rights

Section 1798.83 of the California Civil Code permits California residents to request from a business, with whom the California resident has an established business relationship, information related to the Personal Information disclosed by those parties to third parties for direct marketing purposes and the names and addresses of the third parties with whom the business has shared such information during the immediately preceding calendar year. Although we do not disclose your Personal Information to third parties for their direct marketing, you may make one request each year by emailing us at privacy@stileeducation.com or sending a letter to:

USA

California Privacy Notice

This California Privacy Notice supplements the Privacy Policy and contains the disclosures required under the CCPA.

If you are a California resident, you may have the right to request Stile to:

• disclose if we have collected Personal Information about you;
• disclose the categories of Personal Information that we have collected about you (if any); the categories of sources from which the Personal Information is collected; the business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling Personal Information; and the categories of third parties with whom the business shares Personal Information;
• disclose the specific pieces of Personal Information that we have collected about you (if any);
• delete Personal Information we have collected about you (if you satisfy the conditions set out in the CCPA); and
• not sell the Personal Information we have collected about you (although as noted above, we do not sell your Personal Information).

You can submit a request under the CCPA by emailing us at privacy@stileeducation.com. In order to respond to a request, we will need to verify your identity. If you have an account with us that is password-protected, we may verify your identity through our existing authentication practices for your account. If you do not have an account with us, and your request concerns “categories” of Personal Information collected, we can request from you two data points of Personal Information to verify your identity. If you do not have an account with us, and your request concerns specific Personal Information, we can request from you at least three data points of Personal Information as well as a signed declaration with penalty of perjury to verify your identity. As a California resident, you also have the right to designate an agent to exercise these rights on your behalf. We may require proof that you have designated the authorized agent to act on your behalf and to verify your identity directly with us. Please contact us at privacy@stileeducation.com for more information if you wish to submit a request through an authorized agent.

We hereby inform you that we will not discriminate against you if you exercise any of your rights under the CCPA; for example, we may not deny you goods or services for that reason, or subject you to different prices than those paid by other consumers, unless provided otherwise under the CCPA, Federal, or State law.

As stated above, we collect the following categories of Personal Information from California residents: (a) identifiers; (b) Personal Information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)); (c) protected class information including race, gender and ethnicity if provided by the school; (d) commercial information, including records of products or services purchased, obtained, or considered from Site; (f) geolocation data in the form of IP Addresses; (g) audio and video information in the form of uploads of users (including students and teachers if requested by the teacher); (f) internet or other electronic network activity information; (h) Non-public education information (per FERPA); and (i) inferences drawn from the Personal Information collected through the Services regarding student behavior (but only for use by the schools and not for sale or marketing purposes).

We collect this information to provide the Services and for the other purposes described above. We collect this either from you directly or from school districts that are our customers and share this information with school districts and service providers and others as set forth above. If we are acting as a service provider to schools in connection with the CCPA, we are not responsible for responding directly to requests under the CCPA and will forward such requests to the school for direction on a response.