Privacy policy

Who we are

Contemplanda LLC builds software for schools and publishes online courses.

This policy covers this website, contemplanda.com, and the invoices and payments we handle for the schools that use our software and our courses. It does not cover the sites we run for schools, or direct.contemplanda.com. A school's own policy covers that school's site.

When a school uses our platform to run its own website or its student records, those records belong to the school. We hold them for the school, use them only to run the service the school asked us for, and follow the school's instructions about them.

This website

contemplanda.com has no accounts and no forms, and there is nothing to buy on it. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and carries no advertising or tracking scripts. Its fonts are served from the site itself. One thing on the site does come from another company: a course preview that includes a video loads a player from YouTube, in YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode.

If you only read this website, we ask you for nothing. A course preview remembers a few display choices in your browser on this device, such as turning off celebrations or closing a tip, and none of them identifies you. We store nothing else in your browser. The only other record of your visit is the ordinary server record our host keeps, described next.

Vercel, the company whose computers run the site, keeps server records of requests made to it, including the internet address (IP address) a request came from, the time, the page requested and the web browser used.

Paying an invoice

Schools pay our invoices from a payment page we send to the school. The person paying is normally the school's billing contact.

Today we sell only to schools, and a family pays its school, not us. If that changes and we sell a course directly to a family, we will update this policy before we do.

Card payments

Stripe, the company that processes our payments, collects the card details. You type them into boxes on the payment page that belong to Stripe, not to us, and they go straight to Stripe. Our systems are not built to receive a card number or to store one.

The receipt names the card by its brand and its last four digits. We read those from Stripe when we build the receipt. We do not keep them in our payment records, and the only copy we hold is the one inside the receipt email.

Payments from a bank account

A school can pay from a bank account by signing in to its bank through Stripe. We do not ask anyone to type an account number.

United States payment rules require us to keep a record showing that someone gave permission for money to be taken from the account. That record holds the account holder's name and whether the account is personal or a business, the name of the bank, the routing number, the last four digits of the account, Stripe's identifier for the bank account the school linked and how it was checked, the email address entered on Stripe's bank form, the time the permission was given, the internet address (IP address) and web browser of the person who gave it, Stripe's own identifiers for the permission and for the payment, the amount, and which version of the payment page was shown. We also keep a picture of the payment page as it appeared.

What else we keep about a payment

For every payment we keep the invoice it pays, the amount, the dates, how it was paid, and the email address the school has given us for its invoices. We also keep a record of which member of our staff created the payment page.

An invoice for course seats is built from our own records of which student was enrolled in which course, and those records stay linked to the invoice.

We do not put a student's name on a payment page, in a receipt, or in an invoice email we send a school. Before an invoice email goes out, our software checks it for a student's name and refuses to send it if one appears.

Emails about payments, and the copies we keep

When a school pays, we email a receipt from info@contemplanda.com to the school's billing contacts, and send a copy to ourselves at the same address. The receipt gives the amount, the invoice and what it covers, the date, and either the card brand with its last four digits or the payment reference for a bank payment. It greets the person by the name the school has given us. It does not carry bank details.

We keep three copies of each of these emails:

• a log entry showing who it went to, its subject, and whether we were able to send it
• the message exactly as it was sent
• the copy in our own info@contemplanda.com mailbox, the same way any email program keeps a copy of what it sends

If you write to us

If you email info@contemplanda.com we receive your email address, your name if you give it, and whatever you write. We keep it to answer you and as part of our business records.

Please do not send us a card number or a bank account number in a message. Use the payment page instead.

Who else sees this information

• Stripe receives the card or bank details, the amount and the invoice reference, and processes the payment.
• Supabase is our database provider. The payment records described above are stored there.
• Vercel runs this website and the payment page on its computers, and keeps server records of both, including the link used to reach a payment page.
• Microsoft carries the email we send, through Contemplanda's own Microsoft 365 account, which is also where the mailbox copy sits.
• Discord carries a short alert to our own staff channel when something goes wrong. An alert can name the invoice, the school and the reason a payment failed. It does not carry bank details or the name of the person who paid.

These companies work for us under their own written terms and handle the information to provide their service to us. Stripe also uses payment information for its own purposes, such as preventing fraud and meeting the rules that apply to it as a payment company, under Stripe's own privacy policy. We stay responsible for choosing and managing the companies that work for us.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for advertising. We do not use one school's information to serve another customer. We do not train AI models on a school's information or on the information described in this policy.

We do not send identifiable student or family information to a generative AI service without the school's written approval naming the feature, its purpose and the provider. A school can have any such feature turned off at any time. No AI output decides a grade, an admission, a charge or any other decision about a student. A person decides.

We give information to someone else only in these cases: when the law requires it; when we must answer a lawful request from a court or a government agency; when our accountant, bookkeeper or tax preparer needs it for our own records; when we have to collect an unpaid invoice; and if our business is ever sold or transferred, in which case the new owner takes it on these same terms.

How long we keep information

• The record that a bank debit was authorized: three years in our live system, then kept in an archive. Payment rules require us to be able to show that a debit was authorized for at least two years after the permission ends, and we keep the record longer as part of our own payment records.
• Payment and invoice records: while the school uses our services, and afterward as our own business and tax records.
• The log of emails we sent, and our stored copies of those emails: 365 days. The copy in the info@contemplanda.com mailbox stays there as ordinary sent mail.
• Records of errors: 180 days.
• Messages you send us: as long as we need them to answer you and to keep our business records.

When a school's agreement with us ends and the school has its export, we delete the school's data, keeping only what the law requires and our own invoices and security logs. Copies in our backups go as those backups expire in their normal rotation.

Cookies, analytics and tracking

contemplanda.com sets no cookies and runs no analytics. The only thing it loads from another company is the YouTube player on a course preview that includes a video, and the only things it keeps in your browser are the course preview display choices described above.

The payment page is different. Stripe loads its own code there so that it can collect the card or bank details itself, and that code stores identifiers in your browser, including one that lasts about a year, which Stripe uses to detect fraud. Those identifiers are Stripe's, under Stripe's own privacy policy.

We put no advertising scripts on contemplanda.com or on the payment page, and we do not measure or record anything about how people use the payment page. We do not track you across other websites, and we do not respond differently to a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal, because there is no tracking by us for such a signal to switch off. If you play a video in a course preview, YouTube can collect information about that playback under its own privacy policy.

Security

We protect the information we hold with reasonable safeguards. Our systems are not built to receive or store a card number. We send each payment page to the school at its own long web link, and we do not publish or list those links. Our admin tools keep a record of the main actions our staff take in them.

Our staff look at identifiable information only when a support, repair, security or maintenance task requires it.

If a security breach affects information we hold for a school, we tell that school within 72 hours of discovering it. If a breach affects information we hold in our own right about a person, such as a payment record, we tell that person as California law requires. If a law enforcement agency tells us that a notice would get in the way of its investigation, we give the notice as soon as that agency allows.

Children

This website is not directed to children and we do not knowingly collect information from children here. No page on this website asks you for personal information.

Where a school uses our platform or our courses for its students, the student records on it belong to the school. We hold them for the school under our agreement with it, and the school decides who may see them. We do not sell student information, we do not advertise to students, we do not use student information to build a profile for anything other than the school's own work, and we do not train AI models on it. We keep reasonable security practices for it. When a school asks us to delete a student's information we do it, keeping only what the law requires, and copies in our backups go as those backups expire in their normal rotation.

Seeing or correcting your information

If you are a school's billing contact and you want to know what we hold about you, write to info@contemplanda.com. We will tell you what we have, correct anything that is wrong, and delete what we are free to delete. Some records we have to keep: the record that a bank debit was authorized, and our payment, invoice and tax records. If we cannot delete something you ask about, we tell you what it is and why we are keeping it. We answer within 30 days.

If your question is about a student's records, those belong to the student's school. Ask the school. If you write to us, we pass your request to the school and then do what the school asks us to do.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we post the new version on this page and change the effective date at the top. If a change is material, we mark it at the top of the page so that you can see that something changed. The version posted here is the one in force.

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