This Privacy Policy explains how StudyScope (“StudyScope,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) collects, uses, shares, and protects information when teachers, schools, and students use our digital-microscope platform at thestudyscope.com (the “Service”). We built the Service for science education, and we designed it from the start to collect as little personal information as possible — especially from students. This policy is effective as of the “Last updated” date above.
Students do not create accounts, and we never ask students for personal information. Students join a live or shared lesson through a room code or link — no name, email, login, or other identifying detail is requested or stored. Only teachers (and school or district staff who administer licenses) hold accounts.
What we never do
These commitments apply to everyone who uses the Service, students and teachers alike:
- We do not sell personal information — not student information, not teacher information, not to anyone.
- We do not show advertising in the Service, and we do not use any information to target or personalize ads (no behavioral or interest-based advertising).
- We do not build advertising or marketing profiles of students or teachers.
- We do not track you across other websites or apps, and we do not allow advertising networks, data brokers, social-media trackers, or any other third-party cookies or trackers that collect information for a third party’s own advertising or marketing purposes.
- We do not share personal information with third parties for their own marketing, and we do not send you third-party marketing.
- We do not use information from students for any purpose other than showing them the lesson their teacher is presenting.
Who this policy is for
The Service is intended primarily for teachers and schools serving students in grades 6–12, and college and university instructors may use it as well. Teachers and administrators are the only people who register for accounts, and they must be adults (18 or older) or otherwise authorized staff acting on behalf of a school. See our Terms of Service for eligibility details.
Information we collect
Teacher and administrator account information
When you create an account or use the Service, we collect:
- Account details — your name (or display name) and email address, and a password, which our authentication provider stores only in hashed form.
- Content you create — lessons, sections, steps, notes, annotations, folders, and the slides you save to your library.
- License and organization data — if you activate a school or district license, information about your organization, seats, invite codes, and role.
- Billing information — if you subscribe, your billing contact details and subscription status. Payment card details are collected and held by our payment processor, not by us.
- Account activity records — a security and audit log of notable account actions (such as signing in, creating or deleting content, license and billing changes), recording the time, your email address and name, your organization, and the IP address the request came from.
- Support communications — messages you send us and any access or purchasing requests you submit.
We do not collect precise location, contacts, photos, audio, video, or biometric or health information from anyone. The Service does not request access to your camera, microphone, or location.
Email list and inquiries
If you choose to join our email list (or tell us you are interested in working with us), we store your email address and which form you used. We use it only to send StudyScope product and new-slide updates, or to follow up on your inquiry. You can ask to be removed at any time by emailing support@thestudyscope.com.
Information collected automatically
Like most web services, our infrastructure providers record basic technical data needed to deliver and secure the Service — such as IP address, browser type, the page or file requested, and request timestamps in server logs. We also use Cloudflare Web Analytics, a privacy-friendly traffic measurement tool that does not use cookies, does not fingerprint devices, and does not track visitors across sites, to understand overall usage such as page views and page load speed. We use a small amount of browser storage to keep you signed in and to remember display preferences (see below).
Student information
When a student joins a lesson, their browser connects using a room code or share link and receives the slide and annotations the teacher is presenting. Students only view; they do not submit answers, upload files, or create content in the Service. We do not ask students to sign in and we do not store student names, emails, or other identifying information. A transient connection count (how many viewers are watching) is shown to the teacher during a live session and is not tied to any identity. As with any website, the standard technical logs and traffic measurement described above also apply to student devices (for example, a device’s IP address in a server log); we use that data only to deliver and secure the Service, and we never use it to identify, profile, or contact a student.
The Service has no chat, messaging, comments, or public profiles. Students cannot communicate with each other, with their teacher, or with anyone else through it, and nothing about a student is ever made public.
How we use information
- To provide, maintain, and improve the Service;
- To authenticate teachers and keep accounts and content secure;
- To administer school and district licenses and seats;
- To process subscriptions and payments;
- To send account-related email (such as sign-up confirmation and password reset);
- To send product and new-slide updates to people who opted in to our email list;
- To respond to support requests; and
- To detect, prevent, and address abuse, security incidents, and technical problems.
We use aggregate statistics that do not identify anyone (for example, how many teachers have saved a given slide) to order and improve the slide catalog. We do not share aggregate or de-identified data with third parties, and we do not attempt to re-identify it.
Cookies and browser storage
We do not set advertising or third-party marketing cookies, and we do not use any cross-site tracking technology. We use your browser’s local storage for:
- Your sign-in session — so you stay signed in. This is strictly necessary for teacher accounts.
- Display preferences — for example, whether a side panel is collapsed, the last guide you read, and whether you have already joined our email list or dismissed its prompt.
None of these values identify a student or are shared with anyone. We keep our website host’s bot-detection cookies turned off; Cloudflare may set a strictly necessary security cookie only if it needs to challenge a suspicious request. You can clear browser storage at any time in your browser settings; doing so signs you out.
How we share information
We share information only with the service providers that help us run the Service. They may use it only to provide their services to us, under their data-protection terms, and not for their own marketing or advertising:
- Supabase — authentication and database hosting; stores account, lesson, license, and activity-log data.
- Resend — delivers account email such as sign-up confirmation and password reset.
- Cloudflare — website hosting, content delivery, security, and Cloudflare Web Analytics.
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure — the servers that store and serve our microscope-slide imagery and relay live sessions.
- Stripe — subscription billing and payments. Card details are entered with and held by Stripe; we do not see or store full card numbers.
Within the Service, information is shown only to the people it is meant for: content you present is visible to viewers who have your room code or share link, and if you join a school or district license, that organization’s administrators can see your name and seat status. We will update the list of service providers in this policy before adding a new provider that receives personal information.
We may also disclose information if required by law, to enforce our terms, or to protect the rights, safety, and security of our users or the public.
If StudyScope is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction, but it will remain subject to this Privacy Policy, and any successor must honor these commitments. We will notify account holders before their information becomes subject to a different privacy policy, and they may delete their account before the transfer.
Children’s privacy (COPPA)
Some students in grades 6–12 are under 13. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) governs the online collection of personal information from children under 13. Because students do not create accounts and we do not ask for or store personal information from students of any age, the Service is designed to avoid collecting the kinds of information that require parental consent under COPPA; the only student-device data we handle is the technical data described above, used solely to deliver and secure the Service. Where a school directs teachers to use the Service as part of classroom instruction, the school may provide consent on behalf of parents consistent with COPPA’s school-consent provisions. Teacher and administrator accounts are for adults only.
If you believe a child has provided us personal information, please contact us at privacy@thestudyscope.com and we will delete it. Parents with questions about how their child’s school uses the Service may contact the school or us.
Student data and schools (FERPA and state student-privacy laws)
For education records governed by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), StudyScope acts as a service provider to the school. Because the Service does not collect student names, logins, grades, or other student-identifying records, it is not designed to create or store FERPA-protected education records. Any content a teacher creates (such as lessons) belongs to the teacher or their school, and we process it only to provide the Service. To the extent a school discloses education records to us, we receive them as a “school official” with a legitimate educational interest under FERPA, under the school’s direct control with respect to the use and maintenance of those records, and we use them only for the school’s educational purposes.
Consistent with state student-privacy laws such as California’s Student Online Personal Information Protection Act (SOPIPA), we do not use any information from the Service for targeted advertising, we do not build profiles of students, and we do not sell student information. Schools that require a data protection agreement or student-data-privacy addendum may contact us at privacy@thestudyscope.com.
Data retention and deletion
- Account and content — kept for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Service. When your account is deleted, your profile, lessons, library, folders, and billing link are deleted with it.
- Account activity records — automatically deleted after one year, including entries about accounts that have since been deleted.
- Live sessions — the live relay holds a session’s annotations only in memory while it runs; nothing about the students watching is saved.
- School and district licenses — when a license ends, we delete or de-identify the organization’s data within 30 days of a written request from the school or district, and in any case within 180 days after the license ends. Teachers who keep their own StudyScope accounts keep their own lessons and library.
- Email list — kept until you ask to be removed.
- Server logs — retained only for a limited operational window.
If you close your account or request deletion, we will delete or de-identify your personal information within a reasonable period, except where we must retain it to comply with legal obligations (such as tax and payment records), resolve disputes, or enforce our agreements.
Security
We protect information with safeguards that include:
- Encryption in transit: the Service is served only over HTTPS (TLS), including live-session connections;
- Encryption at rest of our database by our database provider, and hashed (never plain-text) password storage;
- Teacher passwords of at least 16 characters;
- Database access controls that isolate each account’s data, so one teacher cannot read another’s;
- Access to production systems and personal information limited to StudyScope personnel who need it to operate and support the Service, who are bound by confidentiality obligations;
- Role-restricted administrative tools, authenticated teacher connections to live sessions, and room-code checks for student connections; and
- Payment card handling by Stripe, a PCI-certified payment processor.
No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and to promptly address issues that arise. If we learn of a security breach that affects your personal information, we will notify affected account holders and, where applicable, their school without unreasonable delay, and in any event within 72 hours of confirming the breach, and we will cooperate with the school’s response.
Your rights and choices
You can view your account email and name on your Account page, and you can edit or delete your lessons, folders, and saved slides at any time. You may also request to access, correct, export, or delete your personal information, and, depending on where you live, you may have the right to object to or restrict certain processing. To exercise these rights — including requesting a copy of your data or deleting your account — email privacy@thestudyscope.com. We may ask you to confirm the request from the email address on your account. We will respond consistent with applicable law. Schools and districts may make these requests on behalf of their staff.
Third-party sites
Links to other sites (such as our social-media pages) are plain links; we do not embed social-media widgets or trackers. If a teacher embeds a StudyScope slide on another site, such as a learning-management system, that site’s own privacy policy applies to the page around the slide.
International users
The Service is operated from the United States, and account and lesson data is stored in the United States. Our content delivery network may serve cached pages and images from locations closer to you. If you access the Service from outside the United States, you understand your information will be processed in the United States.
Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time and will update the “Last updated” date above when we do. When we make material changes, we will email account holders at least 30 days before the changes take effect, unless a change is required sooner by law or to protect the security of the Service. We will not make material changes to how we handle student information without notifying schools first. Your continued use of the Service after an update takes effect means you accept the revised policy.
Contact us
Questions about this policy or your data? Email privacy@thestudyscope.com.