Privacy policy

This privacy policy explains what personal information TaleTykes, Inc. collects about the adults who use TaleTykes, how we use it, who receives it, how long we keep it, and the choices and rights you have. It applies to our website at www.taletykes.com, our iPhone and iPad app, the emails and texts we send, and any other place that links to this policy (together, the "Service").

Information about children is handled under a separate, stricter notice: the Notice for parents about children's information. This policy gives a short summary of children's information in the section called Children, but the children's notice is the document that controls. Student information that a school provides is also governed by the school's agreement with us and our School terms.

Scope and who we are

1.1 Who we are

TaleTykes, Inc. ("TaleTykes", "we", "us" or "our") is a Delaware corporation based in the United States. We run a reading and writing practice service for children in Pre-K through grade 8. TaleTykes is the business responsible for the personal information described in this policy, except where we handle student information on behalf of a school, as explained in Schools and FERPA.

Our mailing address is available on request from legal@taletykes.com and is given in full in every school agreement. For privacy questions, email privacy@taletykes.com.

1.2 Who this policy covers

This policy covers the adults who use TaleTykes:

• Parents and legal guardians who hold a family account, and other grown-ups a parent invites into the family (for example, a grandparent or a caregiver).
• Teachers who hold a classroom account or who are added by their school or district.
• School and district administrators who manage TaleTykes for their organization.
• People who visit our website, read our help center, ask for a school quote, or write to us, whether or not they have an account.

It does not cover TaleTykes employees' and contractors' information we hold as an employer.

1.3 How TaleTykes is set up

Only adults hold accounts. A child never creates an account and never signs up for anything. A grown-up sets up a child space for each child, and the child uses it on a device the grown-up has trusted, signing in with a picture password, a three-word passphrase, a username, or a class badge. Families and teachers pay for TaleTykes; there is no free plan and no advertising.

Books are made for each child's current reading skills and are checked by our own code for decodability, reading level, safety and format before any child sees them. Children never type to an AI model. They answer with pictures, tiles and choices.

1.4 Words we use

• "Personal information" means information that identifies, relates to, or could reasonably be linked to a particular person or household. Some state laws call this "personal data".
• "Child" means a person under 13, or any learner in a child space, whatever their age.
• "Family account" means the account a parent or guardian opens for their household.
• "School customer" means a school, district or teacher who uses TaleTykes under the School terms.
• "Service provider" means a company that processes personal information for us, under a contract, only to help us run the Service. Our list of these companies is on the Subprocessors page.

The short version

A few more points worth knowing:

• Children don't hold accounts. A parent or a school sets up each child's space and gives consent for it.
• Your sign-in records include the IP address and browser type of each signed-in session. We use them to keep your account secure.
• Stripe handles payments. We never see your full card number.
• Texts are opt-in, go only to a verified parent's US mobile number, and stop when you reply STOP.
• We keep information only as long as the Data retention schedule says, then delete it.
• If you live in a US state with a privacy law, you have the rights that law gives. We give the core rights (to know, get a copy, correct and delete) to every account holder in the US. See Your choices and rights and the US state privacy notice.

Summary table

The table below gives a quick view. The sections that follow give the detail.

What we collect

We collect personal information from three kinds of source: you, the devices you use, and other organizations you connect to TaleTykes (a school, a sign-in provider, or Stripe). We collect only what we need for the purposes listed in How we use information.

4.1 Information you give us directly

Account details. When you open an account, we collect your name, your email address, your role (parent or guardian, other grown-up in a family, teacher, or school administrator), and, for families, your family role (parent, or another grown-up a parent invited). We also record your time zone, so that reading days, weekly notes and quiet hours follow your local clock.

Sign-in methods. TaleTykes does not use passwords for families or teachers. You can sign in with:

• A one-time link sent to your email address.
• An 8-digit code sent to your email address.
• A passkey stored on your phone, computer or security key.
• Your Google account or your Apple account.
• Your school's single sign-on, if your school or district has set it up.
• An optional authenticator app as a second step, with backup codes.

When you use a sign-in link or code, we store only a one-way hash of it, and it expires after a few minutes. When you add a passkey, we store only the public key and a device label; the private part never leaves your device. If you set up an authenticator app, we store the shared secret and your backup codes in protected form so we can check your codes.

Children's spaces. When you set up a space for a child, you give us information about that child, such as a nickname and grade. This is covered in the children's notice and summarized in Children.

Family settings. You can set, for each child, a daily time limit, topics to block, read-aloud and voice choices, whether the child's first name appears in books and messages to you, a weekly reading goal, and similar controls. For the family, you can choose your notification settings, quiet hours, the weekly note, and an optional US mobile number for text tips.

Family members. If you invite another grown-up into your family, we create an invite code and store only a hash of it. When they accept, they open their own account, and we record their family role.

Teachers and school staff. If you use TaleTykes as a teacher or administrator, we collect your school or district, your role there, your classes and grade levels, any co-teachers you add, the class rosters you build or import, class news you post, notes you share with families, and the data protection agreement status for your organization. If your district connects an integration, we store the connection details, and we encrypt any access or refresh tokens with our own application keys.

School quote requests. If you ask for a school or district quote at /schools/quote, we collect your name, your role, your work email, your school or district name and kind, your state, the number of students, the grades, when you'd like to start, an optional note of up to 500 characters, and the price estimate shown to you. A free-text note on this form is never sent to an AI model.

Support and feedback. When you email us or write through Help, we keep your message and our reply. If you answer "Was this helpful?" on a help article, we store your answer, an optional reason, an optional comment of up to 500 characters, and, if you're signed in, your account id. To make sure one person's vote counts once, we set a random first-party cookie and store only a hash of it.

Notes between parents and teachers. If your child's family account is linked to a class, you and the teacher can share short notes. We store those notes so both sides can read them.

Reports and safety cases. If you report a book or raise a safety concern, we store the report, what you told us, and how we resolved it.

Free text and AI. Anywhere an adult can type free text that might later shape a book, such as a request for a story about a family trip, that text is checked by a moderation step and reduced to structured fields from a fixed menu before any prompt is built. Your words are not sent to an AI model as typed, and names are taken out.

4.2 Information we collect automatically

Sign-in session records. Each time you sign in, our sign-in system creates a session record. The record includes the IP address and the browser user-agent (a short text string that names your browser and operating system) from the request, the time it was created, and when it was last used and expires. We use these records to show you your signed-in devices in Account → Security, to let you sign out devices you don't recognize, and to apply our idle and maximum session limits.

Request limits. To stop people from guessing codes or flooding our forms, we count requests. Our own counters are keyed by a one-way HMAC of the email address or IP address, never the raw value, and old counters are cleared within a day. The sign-in system's own request limiter keeps the IP address next to a short counter for the same purpose.

Server logs. Like every website, our hosting provider receives the technical details of each request: the time, the page or file requested, the IP address, the browser user-agent, the response and any error. These logs stay with our hosting provider and are kept for 30 days or less. We don't send errors to any outside error-tracking service.

Activity in the Service. We keep first-party records of what happens in the Service where we need them to run it: for example, which books a child has opened, which emails and texts we have sent you, which notices you accepted, and changes made to sensitive settings. We do not use a third-party analytics tool, and we do not build a profile of your activity across other websites or apps.

Audit log. Sensitive actions are written to an append-only audit log. That includes sign-ins to staff tools, every time a TaleTykes staff member opens a child's information, consent changes, deletions, exports and changes to school settings. Each entry is chained to the one before it with a hash, so entries can't be edited or removed without it showing.

Cookies and device storage. We set a small number of first-party cookies that the Service needs to work, such as the cookie that keeps you signed in. We do not use advertising, analytics or third-party cookies. The full list is on the Cookies page.

Information we don't collect automatically. We don't collect your precise location, contacts, photos, files, or advertising identifiers. We don't use device fingerprinting, tracking pixels, session recording, or social media plugins. Our fonts are built into the site, so loading a page doesn't contact a font service.

4.3 Information from schools, rostering services and learning platforms

If you are a teacher or administrator, or your child uses TaleTykes through school, we may receive information from the school or district, or from a service the school uses:

• Rostering services (Clever, ClassLink, or any OneRoster source). When a district connects one, we receive the schools, classes, teachers and students the district chooses to share. For teachers, that is usually name, email and class assignments. For students, we keep a first name and last initial, the grade, the class, and the roster's own student id. We store the connection token encrypted.
• Google Classroom. A teacher can connect their own Google account so that TaleTykes can post skill results to their Classroom gradebook. We store the Google refresh token encrypted, the course link, and the Classroom user id of each matched student. Student names from Classroom are shown to the teacher for matching but are not stored.
• LTI 1.3 platforms (for example, Canvas or Schoology). A district can register its learning platform. When a teacher launches TaleTykes from a course, we receive the launch details, the course id, and the platform's ids for its members, which we use to match students and post scores to the gradebook.
• School single sign-on (SAML). If a district sets up single sign-on, its identity provider (for example, Microsoft Entra ID or Okta) sends us your email address and an identifier when you sign in.

Student information received this way is used only to provide TaleTykes to that school, under the school's agreement with us. See Schools and FERPA.

4.4 Information from sign-in providers

If you choose to sign in with Google or Apple, that company sends us your email address, whether it has verified that address, your name if you've shared it, and an identifier it issues for TaleTykes. Google may also send a link to your profile picture; we don't use it. We never receive your Google or Apple password. A Google or Apple sign-in only attaches to an existing TaleTykes account when the provider says the email address is verified and matches.

You can remove a linked sign-in from Account → Security. What Google and Apple themselves collect when you use their sign-in is covered by their own privacy policies.

4.5 Information from Stripe

Stripe, Inc. processes our payments. When you start a trial, buy a plan or a book pack, or update your card, you enter your card details on a Stripe page or form. Stripe keeps your full card number; we never see or store it.

From Stripe, we receive and keep:

• Your Stripe customer id and subscription id.
• Your plan, billing period, subscription status, trial dates, and renewal or cancellation dates.
• A record of each payment, refund, failed payment and book pack purchase, as billing events.
• A one-way hash of the card's fingerprint, so that one card can start only one free trial.

Stripe also shows us, in its dashboard and in our account pages that read from it, the card brand, the last four digits, the expiry month and year, and the billing ZIP code. We use them to show you which card is on file and to answer billing questions. Stripe sends payment receipts itself.

The 50-cent card check. A family trial starts with a 50-cent charge to your card, which Stripe refunds automatically. This checks that a real adult card holder is setting up the account. It also serves as verifiable parental consent under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), using the method the Federal Trade Commission allows for a monetary transaction with notice to the account holder.

How we use information

We use personal information only for the purposes below. We don't use it for advertising, and we don't sell it.

5.1 Purposes

• To provide the Service. Open and run your account, sign you in, set up your children's spaces, make and show books, keep reading records, run classes, and give you progress reports.
• To bill you. Start trials, run the card check, charge for plans and book packs, handle refunds and failed payments, and stop one card from starting repeat trials.
• To communicate with you. Send sign-in links and codes, receipts and billing notices, consent confirmations, safety notices, changes to our terms or policies, the optional weekly note, optional text tips, and replies to your questions.
• To keep TaleTykes safe and secure. Protect accounts, limit requests, spot misuse and fraud, check generated books before a child sees them, review reports, and keep an audit log.
• To meet legal obligations. Keep records of parental consent, keep tax and billing records, answer valid legal requests, and honor your privacy rights.
• To improve the Service. Fix problems, see which help articles answer questions, and measure in aggregate how well lessons and books teach. When we compare two lesson or book settings, we only compare settings we would defend either way, and only with a parent's separate research opt-in or under a school's agreement.
• To enforce our agreements. Apply our Terms of service, Acceptable use policy and School terms, and protect the rights, property and safety of children, users, TaleTykes and others.

5.2 Legal bases

TaleTykes is built for the United States, and US law doesn't require a single "legal basis" for each use. For clarity, we rely on these grounds:

5.3 What we never do

• We never sell personal information, and we never share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
• We never show ads, and we never let advertising networks, data brokers or social networks collect data on TaleTykes.
• We never use your information or your child's to train AI models, ours or anyone else's.
• We never send a child's name or other identifying details to an AI vendor.
• We never use children's information to market to them, and we never send notifications or texts to children.
• We never make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects based only on automated processing.

5.4 Aggregate information

We may produce counts and rates that describe how TaleTykes is used, such as the share of children who completed a skill check in a week, or how often a help article was marked helpful. These figures contain no names or ids, and small groups are left out so no one can be picked out. We use them to improve lessons and books.

AI processing

TaleTykes uses AI models from outside vendors to write and check book text and to draw book pictures. Our AI transparency page explains this in detail. In short:

• Book text is written and checked with Anthropic's Claude models. Book pictures are drawn with Google's Gemini models, with xAI as a fallback when Google is unavailable.
• What we send is a set of book settings: the reading band and level, the sounds and words to practice, topics picked from a menu, and topics a parent has blocked. For writing feedback, we may send tile-built writing with no name attached. Picture requests contain picture descriptions written by our own system.
• We never send a child's name, a parent's name, an email address, a school name, or any other identifier. Every prompt passes through a check that stops it if it contains personal details. Names are added after generation, on our server or on the device.
• AI vendors operate under terms that bar them from training on what we send and limit retention.
• Nothing an AI model writes reaches a child until our own validators pass it: decodability, readability, safety and format. A person reviews safety concerns; AI never decides on its own whether a child is safe.
• Read-aloud ("Listen") uses your device's built-in speech voice. The text is spoken on the device, and no vendor receives it.
• If a parent turns on read-aloud recording, the child's recording is scored on the device. The audio stays on the device for one replay and is never uploaded. Only the scores are stored.

Sharing information

We share personal information only in the ways described here. We list the specific companies that process data for us on the Subprocessors page and update it before we add a new one.

7.1 Service providers

We use service providers to host and run TaleTykes. Each one works under a contract that limits it to providing its service to us, requires it to protect the data, and bars it from using the data for its own purposes. By category, they are:

The only child information an email or text can contain is a child's first name, in a message to that child's own parent, and only if the parent allowed names.

7.2 Your school

If you are a teacher, your school or district can see your classes and your activity in TaleTykes for that school. If your child is linked to a class, the teacher sees the child's school reading record, and you choose whether a summary of home reading is shared with the teacher. See the School terms.

7.3 Other adults in your family

Grown-ups in the same family account can see the family's children and their progress. Only a parent can download or delete the family's data, change billing, or give or withdraw consent.

7.4 Integrations you choose

If you, your school or your district turn on an integration, we send that service what it needs to work. See Integrations you choose.

7.5 Legal and safety reasons

We may disclose information if we believe in good faith that it is required by law, a court order or other valid legal process; that it is needed to protect a child or anyone else from serious harm; or that it is needed to protect the rights, property or safety of TaleTykes, our users or the public. See Legal requests.

7.6 Business transfers

If TaleTykes is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization or sale of assets, personal information may be transferred as part of that deal. See Business transfers.

7.7 With your permission

We may share information for other reasons if you ask us to or agree to it.

7.8 What we never share

We never share personal information with advertisers, ad networks, data brokers or social networks. We don't sell personal information, and we don't share it for targeted advertising.

Integrations you choose

Some features connect TaleTykes to another company's service. These services are not our subprocessors. They are independent companies that you, your school or your district chooses to use, and their own terms and privacy policies govern what they do with information they receive.

You or your school can turn off an integration at any time. When you do, we stop sending to it and delete the stored tokens. Information already sent to that service stays there under its own terms.

Email and texts

9.1 Email

We send email only to adults. We send:

• Service emails that you need to use TaleTykes: sign-in links and codes, consent confirmations, receipts and billing notices, trial reminders, safety notices, notices of changes to our terms or policies, and replies to your questions. You can't opt out of these while you hold an account, because they are part of the Service.
• The weekly note, a short Monday email about each child's reading last week. It is on by default for parents, and you can switch it off on the Notifications page in your family settings.

We don't send marketing email for other companies. Our emails have no tracking pixels, and we have turned off open tracking and click tracking at our email provider, so links in our emails go straight to TaleTykes. Our email provider, Twilio SendGrid, keeps its own delivery records (for example, whether a message was delivered or bounced).

9.2 Texts

Text tips are optional and for parents only. They work like this:

• You opt in on the Notifications page and confirm a US mobile number with a 6-digit code.
• We send at most three tips a week, on set days, never during quiet hours.
• A tip may include your child's first name only if you allowed it.
• Every text says how to stop. Reply STOP at any time; reply HELP for help.
• Message and data rates may apply. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

We send texts through Twilio. Your number is stored in your family settings and goes only to Twilio. We never send texts to children, and we never use your number for marketing. The full terms are on the Text message terms page.

Cookies

We use only first-party cookies that TaleTykes needs to work: to keep you signed in, to remember that a grown-up trusted a device for children's sign-in, to keep a child signed in on that device, and a few short-lived cookies that remember a step you were in the middle of. We use two small local storage keys on the child's device, and the iPhone and iPad app keeps its sign-in tokens in the device Keychain. We don't use advertising, analytics or third-party cookies, so there is no cookie banner. The full list, with names and lifetimes, is on the Cookies page.

Retention

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes in this policy, then delete it. The full schedule is on the Data retention schedule page. The main points:

When you delete a child or close your account, we take the information out of use at once and delete it within 30 days. Backups roll over within 30 days, so deleted information leaves backups in that time too. We may keep a specific record longer only when the law requires it, or to resolve a dispute or a safety matter, and only for as long as that need lasts.

Security

We protect personal information with technical and organizational measures suited to a service used by children. The Security overview describes them. They include:

• Encryption in transit (TLS 1.2 or higher, with HSTS) and at rest for our database and file storage.
• A strict Content Security Policy that allows no third-party scripts.
• Database row-level security on every table, so each query can reach only the rows its user is allowed to see. The roles our application runs as cannot bypass it.
• Integration tokens encrypted with our own application keys; sign-in codes, device tokens and children's sign-in secrets stored only as hashes.
• Staff access by named role and least privilege, with two-person approval for staff role grants, 30-minute time-boxed access windows that need a reason, and every access to a child's information written to a hash-chained audit log.
• Rate limits on sign-in and forms, lockouts after repeated wrong picture passwords, and an extra two-step check before sensitive account changes.
• A written information security program and a written incident response plan.

No system is perfectly secure. If we learn of a security breach that affects your personal information, we will tell you, and regulators where required, without undue delay and within the time the law requires. We will tell an affected school within 72 hours of confirming a breach that affects its students.

If you find a security problem, email security@taletykes.com. We reply within 2 business days, and we won't take legal action against good-faith research that follows our disclosure policy.

Children

This section is a short summary. The Notice for parents about children's information sets out the full details and controls.

13.1 Parental consent

TaleTykes is for children, and we comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Children can't open accounts. A parent or legal guardian sets up each child's space and gives verifiable consent, using the 50-cent card check, or a school gives consent for school use. We record each consent per child, with the version of the notice the parent saw. A child without the parent's (or the school's) core consent can't sign in.

Consent has separate parts, called scopes:

• Core (required): the reading space itself.
• Voice (optional): read-aloud recording and scoring.
• Name in books and messages (optional): putting the child's first name in books and in emails and texts to the parent.
• Research (optional, off by default): including the child in comparisons of two lesson or book settings.

Saying no to an optional part never stops a child from using the core reading space.

13.2 What we collect about children

For each child, we keep a nickname or first name (letters only, up to 20 characters), grade and reading band, an optional birth year, one of 12 animal pictures, how the child signs in (with the secret stored only as a hash), interests picked from a menu, the reading and learning record (books read, words tapped for help, answers, skill estimates, lessons), tile-built writing, and, with voice consent, oral reading scores. We never collect a child's last name (except a last initial from a school roster), photo, email address, phone number, home address, precise location, contacts, gender, or advertising id.

13.3 How children's information is protected

• Children never type to an AI model, and no child's identifying details reach any AI vendor.
• Nothing generated reaches a child until our validators pass it.
• There are no ads, no infinite feeds, no streak penalties, no loot boxes, and no notifications or texts to children.
• Only the child's parent, other grown-ups in the family, and (for school use) the child's teachers can see the child's information. TaleTykes staff can open it only for a reason, in a time-limited window, and every access is logged.

13.4 Parents' rights

A parent can review the child's information, download it, stop further collection, withdraw consent, and have it deleted, at any time, from the Privacy & data page in family settings or by emailing privacy@taletykes.com. Withdrawing core consent stops collection at once and starts deletion within 30 days.

13.5 If we learn we have a child's information without consent

If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child without the consent COPPA requires, we will delete it. If you think this has happened, email privacy@taletykes.com.

13.6 Teens

TaleTykes is for learners through grade 8, some of whom are 13 or older. We handle every learner's information under the children's notice whatever their age. We don't sell any learner's information or use it for targeted advertising, and we don't knowingly do either for anyone under 18.

Schools and FERPA

When a school, district or teacher uses TaleTykes under the School terms, we handle student information on the school's behalf.

14.1 Our role

• Student information from a school is an education record under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The school stays in control of it.
• We act as a "school official" with a legitimate educational interest, under the school's direct control as to the use and maintenance of education records.
• We use student information only to provide TaleTykes to that school, as the school directs, and as the school agreement and any data protection agreement say.
• We don't use student information to advertise or market to students or families, to build profiles for non-educational purposes, or to sell.
• We follow state student privacy laws that apply to us as an education service provider, and we sign data protection agreements with schools, including state and consortium forms where we can.

14.2 Consent for school use

Under COPPA, a school may consent on a parent's behalf when TaleTykes is used only for the school's educational purpose. The school is responsible for giving parents notice. If a family account is also linked to the child, the parent's own consent and choices govern the family side.

14.3 Parents of students

If your child uses TaleTykes through school and you want to see, correct or delete their school records, please ask the school first. We will help the school answer your request. If you email us directly, we will pass your request to the school and tell you we have done so.

14.4 When a school leaves

When a school's agreement ends, or a school asks us to, we delete its student information within 30 days, unless the school asks us to return it first or the law requires us to keep something. When a Classroom plan ends without a renewal, the teacher gets a reminder on day 23, and the class's student records are erased on day 30. Students withdrawn from a district's roster are kept for the retention period the district sets (365 days unless the district chooses between 30 and 3,650 days) and then deleted, unless the school asks sooner.

Your choices and rights

15.1 Choices you can make at any time

• See and download. On the Privacy & data page in your family settings, download a file (JSON) of your family's information, or a report for each child.
• Correct. Change your name, email address, time zone and settings, and each child's details, in your settings.
• Delete. Delete a child, or close the whole family account, from the Privacy & data page. Teachers and school staff can email privacy@taletykes.com, or ask their school administrator.
• Withdraw consent. Withdraw any part of a child's consent from that child's page.
• Emails. Switch the weekly note off on the Notifications page.
• Texts. Reply STOP, or switch text tips off on the Notifications page and remove your number.
• Sessions and devices. See and sign out of your sessions in Account → Security, and remove trusted devices from your family settings.
• Linked sign-ins. Remove a Google or Apple sign-in in Account → Security.
• Billing. Cancel in Account → Billing.

15.2 Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

• Know what personal information we have collected about you, where we got it, why we use it, and who we disclose it to.
• Get a copy of your personal information in a portable format.
• Correct inaccurate personal information.
• Delete personal information.
• Opt out of the sale of personal information, of targeted advertising, and of profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects. We don't do any of these, so there is nothing to opt out of, but you may still ask, and we will confirm it.
• Not be treated differently for using your rights.

We give the rights to know, get a copy, correct and delete to every account holder in the United States, whether or not their state's law requires it. The US state privacy notice sets out the rights in each state that has a privacy law.

15.3 How to make a request

You can make a request in either of two ways:

• From the Privacy & data page in your family settings, or the relevant page in your settings, while signed in.
• By email to privacy@taletykes.com, from the email address on your account if you can.

Tell us what you are asking for, and which account it concerns. We confirm we have received a request within 10 business days and answer within 45 days. If we need more time, up to another 45 days, we will tell you why.

15.4 Verifying your identity

We need to make sure a request comes from the right person, because the information may be about a child.

• If you make a request while signed in, your signed-in session (with any two-step check we ask for) verifies you.
• If you email us, we will send a code or link to the email address on the account and ask you to confirm it. For a request to delete or to get a copy of a child's information, we may also ask you to sign in.
• We use the information you give us for verification only to verify you, and we delete it once we no longer need it for that.
• If we can't verify you, we will tell you why and what you can do.

15.5 Authorized agents

You can ask someone to make a request for you. The agent must show us your signed permission, or a valid power of attorney. Unless the agent has a power of attorney, we may also ask you to verify your own identity with us directly or confirm that you gave the agent permission. We don't accept requests about a child's information from an agent unless the agent shows the parent's or legal guardian's authority.

15.6 Appeals

If we decline your request, in whole or in part, we will explain why. You can appeal by replying to our answer or by emailing privacy@taletykes.com with "Appeal" in the subject line, within 60 days of our answer. Someone who was not involved in the first decision will review it. We will answer your appeal in writing within 60 days (45 days where state law requires), explaining what we decided and why. If we deny your appeal, you can contact your state attorney general; the US state privacy notice explains how.

15.7 Requests we may decline

We may decline or limit a request where the law allows, for example where we can't verify the requester, where the information is needed to complete a transaction, to keep the Service secure, to meet a legal obligation such as keeping tax records or consent records, or to defend a legal claim, or where answering would reveal another person's personal information. If we keep something, we will tell you what and why, and we will delete it as soon as the reason ends.

US state privacy rights

Several US states give their residents privacy rights, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Our US state privacy notice is part of this policy and contains:

• The California notice at collection, listing each category of personal information we collect, its sources, purposes, who receives it, and how long we keep it.
• Our statement that we don't sell or share personal information, including for anyone under 16.
• How we handle sensitive personal information, and why there is no "limit" link.
• The rights each state gives, and where states differ.
• How to make a request, verify, use an agent, and appeal.
• Our Washington My Health My Data statement and our Nevada statement.

In short: we collect the categories described in this policy, for the purposes described here. We don't sell personal information, we don't share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, we don't use it for targeted advertising, and we don't use it for profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects. We use sensitive personal information only to provide the Service and keep it secure.

California Shine the Light

California Civil Code section 1798.83 lets California residents ask for a list of the third parties to whom a business disclosed their personal information for those third parties' own direct marketing in the past year. We don't disclose personal information to third parties for their direct marketing. If you have questions, email privacy@taletykes.com.

Nevada

Nevada law lets Nevada residents opt out of the sale of certain personal information. We don't sell personal information as Nevada law defines it. You can still send an opt-out request to privacy@taletykes.com, and we will record it in case our practices ever change.

Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control

Global Privacy Control (GPC). GPC is a signal some browsers and extensions send to say you want to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information. We treat a GPC signal as a valid opt-out request for that browser, and for your account if you are signed in. Because we don't sell or share personal information, or use it for targeted advertising, nothing about how we handle your information changes when we receive it. We will keep honoring it if our practices ever change.

Do Not Track (DNT). Some browsers send a "Do Not Track" signal. There is no common standard for responding to it. We don't track you across other websites or apps, and we don't allow third parties to do so on TaleTykes, so receiving a DNT signal doesn't change anything.

Users outside the US

TaleTykes is built for families and schools in the United States, and we offer it only in the United States. Our servers and our service providers' servers are in the United States. If you use TaleTykes from another country, your information is sent to, stored and processed in the United States, where privacy laws may differ from those where you live. We don't market TaleTykes outside the United States, and our school terms are written for US schools.

Business transfers

If TaleTykes is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, bankruptcy, or sale of all or part of its assets, personal information may be transferred to the other party as part of that deal. If that happens:

• The new owner will have to protect personal information as this policy describes, unless you agree to something else.
• Children's information will stay under the children's notice, and students' information will stay under the school agreements, which also bind the new owner.
• We will tell account holders before personal information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
• In a bankruptcy, we will ask the court to keep these promises in place.

During the deal, we will share only what is reasonably needed for the other party to evaluate it, under confidentiality terms, and with children's and students' information left out wherever possible.

Legal requests

23.1 Our approach

We disclose personal information to government agencies, courts or other parties only when we believe in good faith that the law requires it, or to prevent serious harm. Our policy is:

• We require valid legal process, such as a subpoena, court order or search warrant, that fits the information asked for. We ask for a warrant before we disclose the content of anything a user stores with us, except in an emergency.
• We read each request carefully and push back on requests that are too broad, unclear or not legally valid.
• We disclose only what the request requires.
• We tell the affected account holder (or, for student information, the school) before we disclose, so they can object, unless the law forbids it, a court orders us not to, or telling them would put a child or someone else at risk. If we can't tell them first, we will tell them when the reason ends.
• Requests for student education records follow FERPA, including its notice rules.

23.2 Emergencies

If we believe in good faith that a child or anyone else is in danger of death or serious physical harm, we may disclose the information needed to prevent it, without waiting for legal process. We record what we disclosed and why in the audit log.

23.3 Child safety

If we become aware of apparent child sexual abuse material or a child in danger, we report it as the law requires, including to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

23.4 Other legal reasons

We may also use or disclose information as needed to enforce our terms, to establish, exercise or defend legal claims, and to protect the rights, property and safety of TaleTykes, our users and others.

Legal process should be sent to legal@taletykes.com.

Changes and versioning

We may update this policy as TaleTykes changes or as the law changes. Every version is numbered and dated, and we keep every past version.

• When we make a change, we post the new version here with its version number and date.
• If a change matters, for example a new kind of information, a new purpose, or a new kind of recipient, we email account holders and show a notice in the Service at least 30 days before it takes effect, unless the law requires it sooner.
• We will not use information we already have in a materially different way without your consent.
• A change to how we handle children's information needs fresh parental consent before it applies to a child. A change to how we handle student information follows the school agreement.

Contact

• Privacy questions and requests: privacy@taletykes.com
• Requests about a child's information: privacy@taletykes.com, or the Privacy & data page in your family settings
• Schools and data protection agreements: schools@taletykes.com
• Legal process and notices: legal@taletykes.com
• Security problems: security@taletykes.com
• Book reports and safety: safety@taletykes.com
• Everything else: Help

TaleTykes, Inc., a Delaware corporation. Our mailing address is available on request from legal@taletykes.com and is given in full in every school agreement.