Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Launch (“we,” “us,” or “the Platform”) is a coding learning platform designed for students ages 8–13. This Privacy Policy describes what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices available to teachers, parents/guardians, and students.

Launch is operated by Launch Platform Inc. You can contact us at any time:

• Email: lars@austinchristianu.org
• Mailing Address: 601 Westinghouse Rd, Georgetown, TX 78626

By using Launch you agree to the practices described in this policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Platform.

2. Our Core Privacy Principle: No Child Data Collection

Launch is architected so that no personally identifiable information (“PII”) is collected from students. Students access the Platform by entering a short team code provided by their teacher. They are never asked for—and we never store—a student’s real name, email address, home address, phone number, date of birth, photograph, or any other personal identifier.

Because no child PII is collected, stored, or shared, there is nothing for a parent or guardian to consent to under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”). Our compliance strategy is data minimization by design, not reliance on consent mechanisms.

3. Information We Collect

3.1 Teacher/Educator Accounts

Teachers create accounts so they can manage teams and review student projects. We collect:

• Email address — used for authentication and account recovery.
• Password — salted and hashed by our authentication provider (Supabase Auth). We never store or have access to plaintext passwords for teacher accounts.
• First and last name — displayed on the teacher dashboard for personalization.

Teacher information is stored in our database (hosted by Supabase) and is protected by row-level security policies.

3.2 Student Sessions

Students join the Platform by entering a team code. No account is created. The following non-personal, session-level data is set:

• Team code & team ID — stored in httpOnly, secure cookies that expire after 24 hours. These identify the team, not the individual student.
• Age group — derived from the team’s configuration (e.g. “elementary” or “middle”). Used solely to adapt the user-interface complexity and AI communication style. Stored in an httpOnly cookie that expires after 24 hours.
• Codename & avatar — chosen by the student and stored exclusively in the browser’s local storage on the student’s own device. This data never leaves the device and is never transmitted to our servers.
• Progress data (XP, coins, level, streaks, animal cards) — stored exclusively in the browser’s local storage on the student’s own device. This data never leaves the device.

3.3 Student Coding Projects

When a student creates or saves a coding project, the project files, title, and description are stored in our database associated with the team ID—not with any individual student identity. There is no way for us to attribute a specific project to a specific child.

Text submitted to the AI assistant is passed through our PII scrubber, which automatically detects and redacts email addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, and first-person name disclosures (e.g. “my name is …”). We are actively extending this scrubbing to project titles and descriptions as well.

3.4 AI Chat Messages

Students interact with an AI coding assistant. Messages sent to the AI are:

1. Scrubbed of PII before leaving our server, using both deterministic regex patterns and an LLM-based name classifier.
2. Sent to our AI provider (OpenRouter) for processing. OpenRouter routes requests to third-party language models (currently Google Gemini, DeepSeek, and MiniMax).
3. Not stored by us or our AI providers. All providers operate under Zero Data Retention (“ZDR”) agreements. Messages are processed in real time and discarded immediately.

We do not use student chat messages to train, fine-tune, or improve any AI model.

3.5 Voice Input

Students may optionally use voice input to dictate messages to the AI assistant. When a student uses this feature:

1. Audio is recorded temporarily in the browser and sent to OpenAI’s transcription API (gpt-4o-mini-transcribe).
2. The audio is converted to text and the audio data is immediately discarded. We do not store audio files. OpenAI does not store audio files. The transcription endpoint operates under Zero Data Retention.
3. The resulting text transcript is then PII-scrubbed before being sent to the AI assistant, following the same process described in Section 3.4.

No audio recording of any student is ever stored, retained, or used for any purpose other than real-time transcription.

3.6 Automatically Collected Technical Data

We do not use analytics services, advertising pixels, fingerprinting libraries, or any third-party tracking technology.

Our hosting infrastructure (Vercel) may collect standard server logs (IP addresses, request timestamps, user-agent strings) as part of normal web-server operations. These logs are used solely for security monitoring and abuse prevention, are not linked to any student identity, and are automatically purged per Vercel’s retention policies.

4. How We Use Information

5. Third-Party Service Providers

We use the following third-party services to operate the Platform. Each operates under a Data Processing Agreement (“DPA”) with us and is contractually prohibited from using any data received for model training, profiling, or any purpose other than providing the contracted service.

No third-party provider receives student PII. All student-originated text is PII-scrubbed before transmission. All AI providers operate under Zero Data Retention and are contractually prohibited from using any data for model training or improvement.

6. COPPA Compliance

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) requires operators of websites and online services directed at children under 13 to obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information from children.

Launch does not collect personal information from children. Our compliance approach is architectural data minimization:

• Students authenticate with a shared team code—no individual accounts, usernames, emails, or passwords are created for students.
• Student-chosen codenames and avatars are stored only in the browser’s local storage on the student’s own device and are never transmitted to our servers.
• All text sent to third-party AI services is PII-scrubbed before transmission.
• Voice audio is processed in real time for transcription only and immediately discarded; it is never stored.
• We use no analytics, advertising, or tracking technologies.
• Projects are associated with teams, not individual students, making it impossible to attribute work to a specific child.

Because no personal information is collected from children, parental consent under COPPA is not triggered. We have eliminated the data—not just the risk.

Teachers who create teams and invite students are encouraged to inform parents/guardians that their child will be using Launch and to share this Privacy Policy. We provide a downloadable parent notification letter on the teacher dashboard for this purpose.

7. FERPA Compliance

When Launch is used by a school or school district, student coding projects may constitute education records under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”). In such cases:

• Launch acts as a “school official” with a “legitimate educational interest” in student work solely to provide the coding education service.
• We do not disclose education records to any third party except as required to operate the service (see Section 5) or as required by law.
• Because projects are associated with teams rather than individual student identities, our data minimization architecture also reduces FERPA exposure.
• Schools may request a FERPA-specific data processing addendum by contacting us at lars@austinchristianu.org.

8. Data Security

We protect information through multiple layers of defense:

• Content Security Policy (CSP) — HTTP headers restrict which domains the browser may communicate with, preventing data exfiltration by malicious code.
• Row-Level Security (RLS) — database-level access controls ensure teachers can only access their own teams and projects.
• PII Scrubbing — automated, multi-layer redaction of personal information from all text before it reaches AI services.
• httpOnly Cookies — session cookies cannot be accessed by client-side JavaScript, preventing cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks from reading session data.
• Rate Limiting — API endpoints are rate-limited to prevent abuse.
• Sandboxed Code Execution — student code runs inside WebContainers in the browser, isolated from the server and from other students.
• Cross-Origin Isolation — COOP/COEP headers are enforced for additional browser-level security.
• Output Sanitization — student-generated project output is sanitized to prevent attempts to access cookies, localStorage, or sessionStorage from within project previews.

9. Data Retention & Deletion

9.1 Student Data

• Session cookies (team code, team ID, age group) automatically expire after 24 hours.
• Local storage data (codename, avatar, progress) persists on the student’s device until the browser data is cleared. We have no access to or control over this data.
• Projects associated with a team are retained until the teacher deletes them or the teacher deletes the team.
• AI chat messages are processed in real time and not retained by any party.
• Voice audio is processed in real time and immediately discarded by all parties.

9.2 Teacher Data

Teacher accounts (email, name, authentication credentials) are retained for as long as the teacher maintains an active account. Teachers may request account deletion at any time by contacting lars@austinchristianu.org. Upon deletion:

• The teacher’s profile and authentication data are permanently deleted.
• All teams created by the teacher are deleted.
• All projects associated with those teams are permanently deleted.

9.3 Inactive Accounts

Teacher accounts that have been inactive for more than 12 months may be flagged for deletion. We will send a notification to the teacher’s email address 30 days before deletion. If no action is taken, the account and all associated data will be permanently deleted.

10. Rights of Teachers, Parents & Guardians

10.1 Teachers

Teachers may at any time:

• Access and update their account information via the teacher dashboard.
• Delete individual student projects from their teams.
• Delete entire teams and all associated projects.
• Request a complete export of all data associated with their account.
• Request permanent deletion of their account and all associated data.

10.2 Parents & Guardians

Because Launch does not collect personal information from students, there is no child-specific data for us to provide, correct, or delete. However, parents and guardians may:

• Review this Privacy Policy at any time at launchcoding.com/privacy.
• Contact us at lars@austinchristianu.org with any questions or concerns.
• Request that the teacher remove their child’s team access (since we cannot identify individual students, the teacher is the appropriate contact for team-level changes).
• Clear locally stored data (codename, avatar, progress) by clearing the browser’s site data for Launch.

If a parent believes that their child has somehow provided personal information to us despite our safeguards, please contact us immediately at lars@austinchristianu.org and we will investigate and delete any such information.

11. Absolute Prohibitions

We will never:

• Collect or store student names, email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, or other personal identifiers.
• Use student data—in any form—for marketing, advertising, commercial profiling, or behavioral targeting.
• Use student data (text or voice) to train, fine-tune, or improve any AI model, whether our own or any third party’s.
• Store audio recordings of student voices. Voice input is transcribed in real time and the audio is immediately and permanently discarded.
• Sell, rent, lease, or trade student data to any third party for any purpose.
• Use student data to create individual behavioral or academic profiles.
• Allow third-party advertising or tracking technologies on the Platform.

12. International Data Transfers

Our AI provider (OpenRouter) may route requests to language model providers operating in various jurisdictions. All such providers operate under Zero Data Retention agreements and Data Processing Agreements that contractually prohibit data retention, training use, and re-identification. Because all student text is PII-scrubbed before transmission and no personal information is included, the data transferred internationally is not personal data.

13. State Privacy Law Compliance

In addition to federal COPPA and FERPA compliance, Launch is designed to comply with state student privacy laws, including but not limited to:

• California (SOPIPA, CalOPPA, CCPA/CPRA) — We do not use student data for non-educational purposes, do not sell personal information, and do not engage in targeted advertising.
• New York (Education Law § 2-d) — We maintain data security protections and do not sell or release student data.
• Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Virginia, and other state student privacy laws — Our data minimization architecture is designed to meet or exceed the requirements of all current state student privacy legislation.

School districts requiring state-specific data processing agreements may contact us at lars@austinchristianu.org.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will:

• Post the updated policy on this page with a new “Last Updated” date.
• Notify teachers via email at least 30 days before the changes take effect.
• If any change would result in the collection of personal information from students, we will obtain verifiable parental consent as required by COPPA before implementing such a change.

15. Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us:

• Email: lars@austinchristianu.org
• Mailing Address: 601 Westinghouse Rd, Georgetown, TX 78626

We will respond to all privacy-related inquiries within 30 days.