Privacy policy

The demo

The demo starts with a built-in, made-up sample class. Without an account, nothing you do stays anywhere but your own browser or phone. Even once you sign in, the untouched sample class is never uploaded — only classes, students, and grades you create or edit are backed up (below).

Your camera

The camera is used to read QR codes and barcodes. Camera frames are processed on your device and are never recorded, stored, or uploaded — signed in or not.

If you sign in

Signing in uses your Google account (we never see or store a password), and keeps you signed in for up to 30 days at a time, renewed as you keep using it: your device holds a session credential, and we keep a matching sign-in record so the session can be ended — signing out ends it right away. When you're signed in, the app backs up your data to our servers so it can be restored on any device you sign into. That stored data is:

• Your account: your name, email address, and Google account identifier.
• Your classes: class names and periods; your students' names and, if you added them, student ID numbers and school email addresses; which students are in which class.
• Your students' codes: what each code you linked to a student holds — the code printed on a card, or the number in a school ID barcode — plus which kind of code it was, so the app can recognize the student when you scan.
• Your assignments and grades: including the full change history — every grade change is kept as a tamper-evident log entry with its time, the device and the teacher account that recorded it, and the value it replaced, so you can always see exactly what changed and when.
• Records that keep your devices in step: technical notes such as when each entry reached our servers.
• Sign-in sessions: a small record of each active sign-in — when it was created, when it was last used, and whether it has been ended — kept so a session can be revoked.

Student photos, if you add any, stay on your device only — they are not uploaded.

Where it lives, and who can reach it

Data is stored in the United States: our servers run on Fly.io, the database is MongoDB Atlas, and nightly backup copies are kept in Fly.io object storage. Everything travels over encrypted connections (TLS), and every request to our servers is checked against your verified sign-in. Backup copies are encrypted so that only the developer's offline key can read them. Your data is readable by your own account, and by any co-teacher you invite to a specific class (below) — no other account can reach it. The developer can reach the database to run, debug, and support the service, and uses that access for nothing else.

Who we rely on (subprocessors)

These companies handle the data described above:

• Fly.io — runs our servers (United States).
• Tigris — the object storage, sold through Fly.io, that holds the encrypted nightly backups (United States).
• MongoDB Atlas — the database that stores your classes, grades, and account (United States).
• Google — verifies your sign-in; and, only if you choose to connect it, Google Classroom (below).

If this list changes, we'll update this page. We don't use any analytics, advertising, or tracking vendors at all.

Co-teachers (optional)

You can invite another teacher to help teach one of your classes by entering their email address. The invitation can be claimed only by someone who signs in with that same Google-verified email, so no one else can pick it up. Once they accept, that co-teacher can view and edit the shared class — its roster, assignments, and grades, including the grade history — and can see your name and email as the class's owner. They get access to that one class only, not your others.

If you import a class from Google Classroom, the other teachers on that Google course become co-teachers of the class here. You can remove any of them at any time.

The shared class and everything in it stay stored under your account; the co-teacher reaches it through the service rather than keeping a copy of their own. Every grade records which teacher account entered it. If you remove a co-teacher, or they leave, their access ends the next time their device connects. We keep a share record for each invitation — who sent it, the invited email, the invited teacher's account once they accept, and its status (invited, accepted, or removed) — even after access is removed, as the history of who could reach the class.

Students and children

GradeInClass is a tool for teachers. There are no student logins and we do not knowingly collect information from children. Student records you store belong to you and your school; we store and process them only to provide the service to you. We handle student information in line with FERPA, COPPA, and applicable state student-privacy laws, and we never sell student data, never use it for advertising, and never mine it.

Google Classroom (optional)

If you connect Google Classroom, GradeInClass reads the courses, rosters, and coursework you choose to import. For a class you connect, each assignment sends grades to Google Classroom unless you turn that off: every grade you record, and any later change or removal, goes to that assignment as you record it. These grades go straight from your browser to Google; they are not routed through our servers.

Connecting uses Google's sign-in with your explicit consent, and GradeInClass's use of Google user data — both what it reads and what it writes — complies with the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Your Google access token stays in your browser; we do not store it on our servers.

Keeping devices in sync

When you change something on one device, GradeInClass sends a small notification so your other devices — and any co-teacher — pick the change up right away. The notification carries no personal information: it is only a timestamp and a random, temporary tag for the browser tab that made the change — never names, grades, student data, or even a class's name. Each class's notifications are labeled with a code that can't be guessed, so no one else can pick them up, and the notification service stores nothing at all.

This website

gradeinclass.com uses no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking cookies. Our hosting provider keeps standard, short-lived server access logs (IP address, requested page, time) used only to keep the site running.

Email

If you email contact@gradeinclass.com, we'll have your email address and whatever you wrote. We use it to reply to you, and for nothing else.

Deleting your data

Email contact@gradeinclass.com from your account's address and we will delete your account and everything stored under it from the live database, confirmed back to you. Nightly backup copies from the last 60 days expire on their own; beyond that we keep one encrypted archive copy per month for disaster recovery, and we remove your data from those archives on request. Inside the app, "archive" hides a class or a student from your lists and keeps the data; to have data deleted, email us as described above.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, the new version is posted here with a new effective date. Questions: contact@gradeinclass.com.