Effective starting: October 04, 2021 (view archived versions)

The following policy applies to the OnlineIPT® website together with our services (hereinafter referred as "Site" or "Services") operated by Ballard & Tighe, Publishers, a division of Educational IDEAS, Inc., (hereinafter referred as "B&T" or "We"). Your privacy is important to us and so is being transparent about how we collect, use, and share information about you.

This policy also explains the choices you have about how we use the information about you. Your choices include how you can object to certain uses of information about you and how you can access and update certain information about you. This Privacy Policy governs our collection and use of Your Personal Data on this Site. Personal Data includes information that can identify you as a specific individual, such as your name or email address. Personal Data does not include aggregate or statistical information. If you do not agree with this policy, do not access or use our Services.

We collect information about you when you provide it to us, when you use our Services, and when other sources provide your information to us, as further described below.

Account Information
We collect information about you when you create or modify an account through our Services. For example, you provide your contact information when you submit a questionnaire to create a new account for our Services.

Information you provide through our support channels
The Services also include our customer support channels where you may choose to submit information regarding a problem you are experiencing with our Service to our support team, customer representatives, or support ticket. You will be asked to provide contact information to validate your account and/or identity and any other information that would be helpful in resolving the issue. For example, you may request the account ownership to be updated from you to a new contact.

Content you provide through our Site
We collect and store information that you input into the Site as described below.

• As it relates to administrators/examiners: This includes information on users authorized to access the Site under the account including district/school administrators and examiners. The Site collects personal information including district/school name and code, administrator’s name, e-mail, and optionally, phone number.
• As it relates to students: We collect student information entered by district/school or educational institutions that use the OnlineIPT for their language proficiency assessments. Such information includes student’s name, ID, school, gender, ethnicity, country of birth, birthdate, primary language, and optionally, indicators for native English speaker, native Spanish speaker, economically disadvantaged, migrant, and limited English proficient status.  In student test history, we store information about each test taken, test date, and score data.

Server Logs
When you visit the Site, like most websites, our servers automatically record the page requests made when you visit our sites. These "server logs" typically include your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser.

This information is analyzed in an anonymous form. It is used solely for the purpose of improving the attractiveness, content, and functionality of our website.

How we use the information we collect depends in part on which Services you use, how you use them, and any preferences you have communicated to us. When you submit a questionnaire to create a new account for our Services, we use it to personalize and set up the Site for you. Below are the specific purposes for which we use the information we collect about you.

• As it relates to administrators/examiners: We use information collected during registration to perform customer inquiries. For example, if you request contact information/service changes for your account or technical support for the site, we will use the information provided to validate your account and perform such requests. We also use your contact information to send transactional communications via e-mail and within the Services, including confirming your account activation, responding to your support tickets, sending system maintenance notices and product feature updates.
• As it relates to students: We use student demographic information and test responses to properly score the student, provide diagnostic information on their weaknesses, and report scores in groups by demographic characteristics. Without reference to information related to student names, we may also use the same data for scaling and norming purposes and improving the quality of the test.

For research and development
We are always looking for ways to make our Services smarter, faster, more secure, integrated, and useful to you. B&T uses this assessment data for internal business purposes. Student information in an aggregated and anonymous form may be used for statistical analysis purposes and research aimed at improving the quality of the test.

For safety and security
We use information about you and your Service use to verify accounts and activity, to monitor suspicious or fraudulent activity, and to identify violations of Service policies.

To protect our legitimate business interests and legal rights
Where required by law or where we believe it is necessary to protect our legal rights, interests, and the interests of others, we use information about you in connection with legal claims, compliance, regulatory, and audit functions, and disclosures in connection with the acquisition, merger, or sale of a business.

We have implemented reasonable safeguards designed to prevent loss, misuse and unauthorized access, but cannot guarantee that your personal data will never be disclosed in a manner inconsistent with this Privacy Policy (for example, as a result of unauthorized acts by third parties that violate applicable law or relevant web policies). When you access the Site, you will be asked to enter your password to help protect your personal data. These passwords help the Site verify your identity before granting access or making corrections to any of your personal data. You should never disclose your password to anyone. B&T support team will never ask you for this information.

We store your information in a secure data center located in the United States. Our Site is configured with data encryption and scalable, high-performance firewalls to prevent corruption of data, block unknown or unauthorized access to our systems and information, and to provide reasonable protection of private information. We also use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology that protects the data you send over the Internet. If you use our services from outside the United States, your data will be transferred and stored in our cloud services located in the United States.

LEGAL BASES FOR COLLECTING YOUR INFORMATION 

If you are an individual in the European Economic Area (EEA), we collect and process information about you only where we have legal bases for doing so under applicable EU laws. The legal bases depend on the Services you use and how you use them. This means we collect and use your information only where:

• We need it to provide you our Services, including to operate our Services, provide customer support and personalized features, and to protect the safety and security of our Services;
• It satisfies a legitimate interest (which is not overridden by your data protection interests), such as for research and development, to market and promote our Services, and to protect our legal rights and interests;
• You give us consent to do so for a specific purpose; or
• We need to process your data to comply with a legal obligation.

If you have consented to our use of information about you for a specific purpose, you have the right to change your mind at any time, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place. Where we are using your information because we or a third party (e.g., your employer) have a legitimate interest to do so, you have the right to object to that use though, in some cases, this may mean no longer using our Services.

We share information we collect about you in the ways discussed below, including in connection with possible business transfers. In case of a corporate restructuring (such as a merger or acquisition), we will only share the information we collect as long as the receiving entity adopts this privacy policy regarding the privacy and security of your information. We do not sell information about you to advertisers or other third parties.

• As it relates to administrators/examiners: If you register or access our Services using an e-mail address with a domain that is owned by your district, employer or organization, then certain information about you including your name, contact info, content, and past use of your account may become accessible to that organization’s administrator and other Service users sharing the same domain. If you are the administrator of the account, we may share your contact information with current or past Service users, for the purpose of facilitating Service-related requests.
• As it relates to students: Student information is not shared between school accounts. If you are the account administrator or examiner for two or more schools, OnlineIPT login will prompt you to select which account you are logging into, and subsequently, you will only see students related to that account. If a district account includes multiple schools in its account hierarchy, student information from all schools within the district account is shared with the district account owner and district-level examiners.

We will retain your Personal Data for as long as the information is needed for the purpose described in the Privacy Policy. You may request to delete your Personal Data by first contacting your local administrator since Services are administered for you by an administrator (see "Notice to End Users" below). Otherwise, you may contact us via e-mail at support@ballard-tighe.com. Unless otherwise required by law, we will delete it within 30 days of your request.

To maintain the Site’s optimum performance and data handling, we reserve the right to delete test records after a two-year period if necessary. Thus, test records at the individual student level may no longer be available. Customers may export the data from the Site at any time prior to the two-year period for internal archiving purposes.

Administrator/examiner account information
We retain your account information for as long as your account is active. If the Services are made available to you through an organization (e.g., your district, employer or organization), we retain your information as long as required by the administrator of your account. If you have elected to receive product update e-mails from us, we retain information about your marketing preferences for a reasonable period of time from the date you last expressed interest in our
Services. If you delete your account, we'll also delete this information. But please note: (1) there might be some latency in deleting this information from our servers and back-up storage; and (2) we may retain this information if necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, or enforce our agreements.

Student Personal Information
We will not, without your prior consent, disclose Personal Information collected about you on this Site to any other party.

We do not sell student data to third parties under any circumstances, and the OnlineIPT does not allow behavioral targeting of advertisements.

Cookies are small text files that we transfer to your web browser that allow us to identify your web browser and store information about your session. The purpose of the cookies is to keep track of your activities on our site. If you decline cookies, you will not be able to use the OnlineIPT.

Controlling Student Personal Information
You have certain choices available to you when it comes to your information. Below is a summary of those choices, how to exercise them and any limitations.

Your Choices: You have the right to request a copy of your information, to object to our use of your information (including for marketing purposes), to request the deletion or restriction of your information, or to request your information in a structured, electronic format. Below, we describe the tools and processes for making these requests.

Access to and Rectification of Your Personal Data: Where the Services are administered for you by an administrator (see "Notice to End Users" below), you may need to contact your administrator to assist with your requests first. For all other requests, you may contact us as provided in the Contact Us section below to request assistance.

Controlling Account Owner and Examiner Personal Information

Access and update your information: Our Services give you the ability to access and update certain information about you from within the Service. For example, you can access your profile information from your account and update your privacy preferences.

Deactivate your account: If you no longer wish to use our Services, you or your administrator may be able to deactivate your Services account. If you can deactivate your own account, that setting is available to you in your account settings. Otherwise, please contact your administrator. If you are an administrator and are unable to deactivate an account through your administrator settings, please contact our support team. Please be aware that deactivating your account does not delete your information; your information remains visible to other Service users based on your past participation within the Services.

Request that we stop using your information: In some cases, you may ask us to stop accessing, storing, using, and otherwise processing your information where you believe we don't have the appropriate rights to do so. For example, if you believe a Service account was created for you without your permission or you are no longer an active user, you can request that we delete your account as provided in this policy. Where you gave us consent to use your
information for a limited purpose, you can contact us to withdraw that consent, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place at the time. You can also opt out of our use of your information for marketing purposes by contacting us, as provided below. When you make such requests, we may need time to investigate and facilitate your request. If there is a delay or dispute as to whether we have the right to continue using your information, we will restrict any further use of your information until the request is honored or the dispute is resolved, provided your administrator does not object (where applicable).

Opt out of promotional communications: If you have opted in to receive promotional communications but no longer wish to receive them, you may opt out by using the unsubscribe link within each e-mail, updating your e-mail preferences within your Service account settings menu, or by contacting us as provided below to have your contact information removed from our promotional e-mail list or registration database. Even after you opt out from receiving promotional messages from us, you will continue to receive transactional messages from us regarding our Services. You can opt out of some notification messages in your account settings.

Protecting Your Privacy
We take every step possible to protect your privacy. We also employ security measures to protect personal information in storage. The data will always remain protected, and we will never add you to any e-mail lists unless you make a specific request for us to do so. We use any information we gather only to help us understand your needs and make our web site or products more valuable to you. We will not provide any personal information to other companies or individuals without your permission and we will not sell your personal information to anyone.

B&T may disclose to authorized law enforcement personnel the personal data from anyone who poses a threat. This might include those that are attempting to commit fraud or those who conduct activities that could bring harm to others.

Notice to End Users
Our products are intended for use by organizations. Where the Services are made available to you through an organization (e.g., your district, school, employer), that organization is the administrator of the Services and is responsible for the accounts over which it has control. If this is the case, please direct your data privacy questions to your administrator, as your use of the Services is subject to that organization's policies. We are not responsible for the privacy or security practices of an administrator's organization, which may be different than this policy.
Administrators are able to:

• require you to reset your account password;
• restrict, suspend, or terminate your access to the Services;
• access information in and about your account;
• access or retain information stored as part of your account;
• change the e-mail address associated with your account;
• change your information, including profile information;
• restrict your ability to edit, restrict, modify, or delete information.

Please contact your organization or refer to your administrator’s organizational policies for more information.

Disclaimer
The Site may have links to external web sites such as government agencies and other services provided by B&T. When you link to another site, you are no longer on the OnlineIPT Site and this Privacy Policy will not apply. When you link to another web site, you are subject to the privacy policy of that new site.

Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time. If there are any substantial changes, you will be prompted to review and accept the revised privacy policy next time you log in. If you do not agree to the revised policy, please refrain from using this website and/or leave this website.

Contact Us
Questions regarding this Privacy Policy or the information practices of the Services should be directed to OnlineIPT Privacy by e-mailing or by mailing us at:

Ballard & Tighe, Publishers
Re: OnlineIPT Privacy
950 W. Central Ave. Unit B
Brea, Ca 92821
(800) 321-4332/ (714) 990-4332
feedback@ballard-tighe.com