Privacy Policy

SemesterQuest ("SemesterQuest," "we," "us," or "our") is an educational technology platform operated by TeachArgument LLC, a New Jersey limited liability company, doing business as SemesterQuest.

SemesterQuest is designed to support teaching and learning for K–12, higher education, and adult learners. We take student privacy seriously and design our systems to minimize data collection and use.

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and protect information when you access or use SemesterQuest.com and related services (the "Services").

This Policy is designed to align with applicable privacy laws, including:

• The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
• The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
• The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), where applicable

1. Who We Are

2. Scope of This Policy

This Policy applies to:

• Teachers, professors, and instructors
• Students, including minors using the Services through a school or teacher
• Schools and educational institutions

SemesterQuest may be used directly by educators or through institutional arrangements.

3. Information We Collect

A. Information You Provide

Account Information

Collected through Google or Microsoft authentication:

• Name
• Email address
• Profile information provided by the identity provider

Student Educational Records

When used in an educational context, we may process:

• Class enrollment
• Assignments and submissions
• Quiz responses
• Participation records
• Points, grades, feedback, and progress indicators

User-Generated Content

• Class discussion posts
• Assignment submissions
• Teacher feedback and comments

We do not collect IEPs, 504 plans, medical information, biometric data, or behavioral health records.

B. Automatically Collected Information

We may automatically collect:

• IP address
• Device type, browser, and operating system
• Usage and interaction data
• Approximate location derived from IP address
• Cookies and similar technologies

This data supports security, reliability, and basic analytics.

4. Children's Privacy (COPPA)

SemesterQuest may be used by students under 13 only in an educational context and only with authorization from a teacher or school.

Schools and teachers act as the parent's agent for providing consent under COPPA, solely for educational use.

Parents may review or request deletion of their child's information by contacting the school or emailing us directly.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children outside this framework.

5. FERPA

When used by a school for educational purposes, TeachArgument LLC acts as a school official with a legitimate educational interest under FERPA.

We:

• Use student data only to provide educational services
• Do not sell student data or use it for advertising
• Allow schools and teachers to access, correct, export, or delete student records
• Delete student data upon authorized request

Deleted data is removed from active systems and securely purged from backups within a reasonable period.

6. AI-Powered Features

SemesterQuest offers optional, teacher-controlled AI features that are:

• Disabled by default
• Clearly disclosed before activation

When enabled:

• Student names are replaced with anonymized identifiers
• Data is processed through third-party AI providers via API
• Data is not used to train general-purpose AI models

Teachers may disable AI features at any time. AI outputs are intended to support instruction and do not replace teacher judgment.

7. How We Use Information

We use information to:

• Provide and operate the Services
• Authenticate users
• Support teaching and learning activities
• Maintain security and reliability
• Improve functionality
• Communicate with users
• Comply with legal obligations

8. Legal Bases for Processing (GDPR)

Where GDPR applies, we process personal data based on:

• Performance of a contract
• Compliance with legal obligations
• Legitimate interests (such as security and service improvement)
• Consent, where required

9. Data Sharing

We do not sell personal data.

We may share data with:

• Infrastructure and hosting providers
• Analytics and communication providers
• Payment processors (educators only)
• AI service providers (anonymized data only)
• Legal authorities when required by law

Service providers are required to protect data consistent with this Policy.

10. Data Retention

We retain data only as long as necessary to provide the Services or comply with legal obligations. Authorized users may request deletion at any time.

11. Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards to protect information. No system is completely secure, but we work to reduce risk.

12. Data Breach Notification

If we become aware of a data breach involving personal information, we will notify affected schools or users without undue delay, consistent with applicable law.

13. International Users

SemesterQuest is operated from the United States. Where required for international users, we may rely on legally recognized safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission.

14. Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or restrict processing of your data. Requests may be sent to info@semesterquest.com.

15. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by an updated effective date.