Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) describes how Soft Serv, LLC and its subsidiaries and affiliates (“Soft Serv”, “we”, “us” or “our”) collect, use, store, and share your information when: (1) you access or use our websites, software platform, mobile applications, or other digital properties we own and operate (“Websites”); (2) you use our products and services (“Services”); (3) you communicate with us by email, direct messaging, telephone, or in person (“Communications”); and (4) we interact with certain third-party partners.

Please note the following sections that include important disclosures related to our Websites and Services:

• Cookies and Tracking Technology Disclosures: To learn more about how our Websites, Services, and Communications use cookies and related technologies (including from third parties), see Automatic Information Collection Technologies below.
• Your Choices Disclosures: To learn more about your choices concerning your information, see Your Choices below.

2. What Type Of Information Do We Collect?

Depending on how you interact with our Websites and Services, the nature of our Communications, and how we may interact with certain third-party partners, we may collect the following pieces of your information:

• Basic Identifying Information. Information you provide when you sign up for an account, such as your full name, email address, account name, username, password, university course identifiers, and other similar identifiers.
• Device Identifier and other Unique Identifiers. Information such as your device identifier, internet protocol (IP) address, cookies, beacons, pixel tags, and other unique identifiers.
• Internet or Other Network Activity. Information such as your browsing or search history, and other information regarding your interactions with our Websites, emails, notifications, and advertisements.
• Geolocation Data. Imprecise location data (such as location derived from an IP address or data indicating a city or postal code level).
• Commercial Information. Information such as the products and services and courses you have subscribed to and considered.
• Demographic Information. Demographic information that you share via our platform or Websites.
• User Content. Information such as your Communications with us and any other content you provide, such as student files, student generated content, student ID number, password, and related professors, course identifiers, and instructors. A university or other educational institution may elect to provide additional information about students, such as course enrollment and roster information provided through the school’s learning management system.
• Audio and Visual Information. Information such as photographs, images, your likeness, videos, and recordings. When you participate in a roleplay exercise, your microphone and webcam are recorded; the recording, a transcript, voice-delivery metrics (such as pace and pauses), and AI-generated feedback and scores are stored and made available to you and your instructor.
• Inferences. Information such as inferences drawn from or created based on the information identified above.

You may also voluntarily provide other information that we do not request, and in such instances, we cannot guarantee that other, unrequested information will be protected.

3. How Do We Collect Your Information?

We collect your information in three ways: (1) directly from you when you use our Websites, Services, and Communications; (2) automatically using online technologies when you engage with our Websites, Services, and Communications; and (3) from our third-party partners.

• Directly from you. We collect information directly from you when you enter information on our Websites, create an account, update your profile, access our content, participate in our programs, take a survey or poll, upload content or recordings, use our Websites and Services, engage in Communications with us, or sign up to receive emails, text messages, or other Communications from us.
• Automatically Using Online Technologies. When you visit our Websites, open or click on emails we send you or related Communications, or interact with our advertisements, we or other third parties may automatically collect certain information about you using online tracking technologies such as cookies, pixels, web beacons, software developer kits, and related technologies. For more information, see Automatic Information Collection Technologies below.
• From Our Partners. We collect information from our third-party partners, such as your school or institution and its learning management system (e.g., Canvas), data analytics providers, marketing or advertising providers, fraud prevention service providers, and vendors that provide services.

4. Automatic Information Collection Technologies

A.Technologies Used

• Cookies. Cookies are small bits of data cached or stored on your computer based on Internet activity. Information collected through cookies may be obtained directly by or shared with third parties so that those third parties can provide analytics and advertising services to us. We use first-party and third-party cookies and other tools to monitor individual activity and in aggregate to improve the Website and our Services. The information we gather includes IP address, user language, the operating system, browser type, the presence/absence of “flash” plug-ins, screen resolution, connection type, browsing behavior, and information that identifies the cookie.
• Pixels: Pixels (also known as web beacons) are types of code embedded in a website, video, email, or advertisement that sends information about your use to a server. When you access a website, video, email, or advertisement that contains a pixel, the pixel may permit us or a separate entity to drop or read cookies on your browser.
• Analytic Tools: Analytic tools include technologies or software services that collect, measure, and analyze data about how users interact with our Websites and Services. These tools often use cookies, pixels, AI APIs, and similar technologies to gather information such as page views, clicks, and user behavior, which is then used to improve site functionality and user experience.

B.Purpose For Using Automatic Information Collection Technologies

• Functionality, Support and Security: Some online tracking technologies, like cookies, serve functionality and support purposes, such as recognizing your device, facilitating navigation, displaying information effectively, personalizing your experience (including recognizing you when you leave or return to our Website), maintaining security, managing your account, preventing crashes, fixing bugs, saving your preferences, and assisting with basic Website functions.

  • Turnstile: We use Cloudflare Turnstile on certain parts of our Website to help protect against spam, abuse, and fraudulent activity. Turnstile analyzes interactions with the Website to determine whether an action is being performed by a human or an automated process. This service may collect information such as your IP address, browser details, and user behavior data, which is transmitted to and processed by Cloudflare in accordance with Cloudflare's Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

• Targeted Advertising, Marketing Measurements: Pixel tags may be used to market our services to you, measure the success of our marketing campaigns, and compile statistics about Website usage and response rates. In addition, we may use the information we have collected from you to enable us to display targeted third-party advertisements on our Website. Some advertisements on this Website are served by third-party advertisers, ad networks, and ad servers. These third parties may use cookies, alone or in conjunction with web beacons or other tracking technologies, to collect information about you.

  Some of these tracking technologies may track your activities across time and services for purposes of associating the different devices you use and delivering relevant ads and/or other content to you (“Interest-based Advertising”).

  We also use audience matching services to reach people (or people similar to people) who have visited our Service or are identified in one or more of our databases (“Matched Ads”). This is done by us uploading a customer list to a technology service or incorporating a pixel from a technology service into our own Service, and the technology service matching common factors between our data and their data.

Third-party technologies we have implemented on our Websites and through our Services include the following:

• Behavioral Analytics: We also use pixels in combination with cookies to track activity by a particular browser on a particular device. These pixels are provided by a third party and certain information may be shared back with such provider. In addition, we may use technologies included in applications (that are not browser-based like cookies and cannot be controlled by browser settings), such as SDKs, to track our communications, bring you advertising, and provide you with additional functionality, such as the ability to connect your account on our Websites with other third-party services. For more information about Advertising, please see Analytics and Interest-Based Advertising below.

• Website Analytics: We use service providers for Website analytic services to best understand how our Website is being used and to make improvements to our Website, including the following Services:

  • Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics to help us understand how users access and use the Websites through the use and sharing of cookies. You can learn about Google’s practices by going to www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

For information about your choices related to automatic data collection technologies and your ability to opt out of certain sharing of information, please see Your Choices below.

5. How Do We Use Your Information?

We use your information for a variety of purposes, including to:

• Provide our Websites and Services to You. We use your information to provide our Websites and Services to you, including to: (1) create and manage your account when you sign up to use our Services; (2) facilitate your access and use of our Websites; (3) process your feedback on products to facilitate your participation in the Services; (4) send you notifications relating to your account and participation in our Services; (5) answer your Communications; and (6) perform other related business functions.
• Communicate with You. We use your information to engage in Communications with you, such as to respond to your requests, inquiries, issues, feedback, and to provide customer service.
• Market and Advertise. We use your information for marketing and advertising purposes, including sending marketing, advertising, and promotional communications to you by email, text message, or postal mail. We also use your information to show you advertisements for Services and to administer our sweepstakes and other contests. We do not use students’ personal information or education records for marketing, advertising, or targeted advertising purposes.
• Conduct Analytics and Personalization. We use your information to conduct research and analytics, including to improve our Websites and Services. We also use your information to understand your interaction with our Websites, advertisements, Services, and our Communications with you. We also use your information to personalize your experience, to save you time when you visit our Websites and use our Services, to better understand your needs, and to provide personalized recommendations for our Services.
• Security and Fraud Prevention. We use your information to detect, investigate, prevent, or take action regarding possible malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, including fraudulent transactions. We also use your information to enforce our terms and procedures, prevent security incidents, and prevent harm to other users of our Services.
• Legal Obligations. We use your information to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, to establish and exercise our rights, and to defend against legal claims.
• Business Functions. We use your information to support our core business functions, including to maintain records related to business management, loss prevention, and identifying and repairing errors or problems in the Websites and improving the Websites and Services.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI). Soft Serv may use artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, models, and algorithms (collectively, “AI”) to process data provided by clients, students, professors, affiliated individuals, or otherwise generated in the course of providing our Services. AI tools may be used, for example, to refine Services, evaluate student and participant input, generate response options, generate and summarize transcripts of recordings, evaluate student input and work product, automate data analysis, and generate and improve software code. Soft Serv may use AI to generate outputs and may combine or aggregate such AI-generated outputs with other data to improve our Services and software. Any use of data to train or improve Soft Serv’s internal AI tools is limited to de-identified data from which personal identifiers have been removed and does not include raw audio or video recordings.
• Ownership of Data and AI Outputs. As between Soft Serv and its clients or users, each client or user retains ownership of the original data they provide to Soft Serv. Soft Serv owns all modifications and improvements to Soft Serv’s software, AI, products, and services. Where a written agreement between Soft Serv and a client addresses ownership of data or AI outputs, that agreement controls in the event of any conflict with this section.
• Third-Party AI Service Providers. Data may be provided to a third-party AI API service provider in order to provide Services. Soft Serv may provide Customer Data to its third-party AI service provider in order to process such data, but the AI Service provider is permitted to access and use such data only on an ephemeral basis; i.e., only for as long as is needed to run the specific process being requested. Soft Serv will not permit its AI service providers to retain data beyond the limited retention period described below, or to use Customer Data for training its AI large language models. AI providers will also be required to enter into an agreement with Soft Serv to protect Customer Data consistent with this Privacy Policy prior to being given access to any Customer Data. Soft Serv does not permit any third-party AI service provider to permanently store such data (other than temporarily as needed for the particular service being provided). In addition, if you use voice input in text-based exercises, speech-to-text may be performed by your web browser’s built-in speech recognition service (provided by your browser vendor, such as Google or Microsoft), which processes your voice audio in accordance with that vendor’s privacy policy.
• Ethical AI Commitment. Soft Serv commits to using AI in an ethical manner and maintains policies and practices designed to ensure the lawful and fair use of AI and to reduce the risk of discrimination, bias, or unfair treatment of individuals.

6. How Do We Disclose Your Information?

We do not sell your personal information. We also do not sell or share students’ personal information with others to use for their own marketing or advertising purposes, and we do not use students’ personal information or education records for targeted advertising. We may disclose or share your information with affiliated and non-affiliated third parties, including in the following scenarios:

• With your Consent. We may disclose or share your information with your consent, which may be obtained in writing; online, through “click-through” agreements; when you accept the terms of use on our Websites; orally, either in person or on the phone; or by other means.
• For School Purposes. We will disclose students’ personal information: (1) to each student’s individual professor and instructor associated with a particular course; and (2) as directed by the student’s school. In addition, the student’s professor(s) and instructor(s) and school administrators can see the student’s profile and work. Professors may share assignments with other students and with other teachers or administrators.
• In a Business Transfer. We may disclose or share your information as part of a corporate business transaction, such as a merger or acquisition, joint venture, corporate reorganization, financing, or sale of company assets, or in the unlikely event of insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership, in which such information could be transferred to third parties as a business asset in the transaction.
• To Non-Affiliated Third Parties. We may disclose or share your information with certain non-affiliated third parties to facilitate your access and use of our Websites and Services, and to provide us with certain business functions, including sharing your information with internet service providers, data analytics providers, governmental entities, operating systems and platforms, AI API providers (currently the OpenAI API and Google Gemini API), and other service providers (e.g., customer service, auditing, debugging to identify and repair errors, and protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity). The API models used will not use your data to train or improve their public models and will retain information for only 30 days for abuse monitoring and debugging before permanently deleting it.
• For Legal Process And Protection. We may disclose or share your information to satisfy any law, regulation, legal process, governmental request, or where we have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation, or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to: (1) enforce or apply our agreements; (2) protect our interests, property, or safety of others; (3) in connection with claims, disputes, or litigation; and (4) to protect our Websites.

7. How Do We Protect Your Information?

Although no system can guarantee the complete security of your information, we take commercially reasonable steps to ensure your information is protected in alignment with all applicable laws and regulations, as appropriate to the sensitivity of your information. We store your information only on systems located in the United States.

8. How Long Do We Keep Your Information?

We keep your information for as long as is necessary in accordance with the purpose for which it was collected, our business needs, and our legal and regulatory obligations. If we dispose of your information, we will do so in a way that is secure and appropriate to the nature of the information subject to disposal.

9. Links To Third Party Sites

Our Websites and Services may contain links to third-party websites and services. These links are provided for your convenience and information, and these websites and services generally operate independently from us and have their own privacy policies or notices, which we strongly suggest you review.

10. Your Choices

A.Account

You may access, update, or remove certain information that you have provided to us through your account by sending an email to the email address set out in the Contact Us section below. We may require additional information from you to allow us to confirm your identity.

Please note that we will retain and use information about you as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

B.Communications

The following is information about how to opt out of receiving certain communications from us, depending on means of delivery:

• E-mails. You can opt out of receiving promotional emails at any time by following the instructions in emails to click the unsubscribe link, or by emailing us at the address in the Contact Us section below with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject field. Please note that you cannot opt out of non-promotional emails, such as those about your account, transactions, servicing, or our ongoing business relations.

C.Cookies and Tracking Technologies

The following disclosures relate to your choices in connection with cookies and other tracking technologies:

• Do Not Track. Your browser settings may allow you to automatically transmit a “Do Not Track” signal to online services you visit. We do not currently monitor or take action with respect to “Do Not Track” signals. For more information on “Do Not Track,” visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com.

• Cookies and Pixels. Most browsers accept cookies by default. You can instruct your browser, by changing its settings, to decline or delete cookies. If you use multiple browsers on your device, you will need to instruct each browser separately. Your ability to limit cookies is subject to your browser settings and limitations. Below are links to instructions for managing cookies on commonly used browsers:

  • Google Chrome: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647
  • Microsoft Edge: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/delete-cookies-in-microsoft-edge-63947406-40ac-c3b8-57b9-2a946a29ae09
  • Mozilla Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/clear-cookies-and-site-data-firefox
  • Safari (macOS): https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/manage-cookies-sfri11471/mac

Please be aware that if you disable or remove tracking technologies, some parts of the Website may not function correctly.

D.Analytics and Interest-Based Advertising.

Google provides tools to allow you to opt out of the use of certain information collected by Google Analytics at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout and by Google Analytics for Display Advertising or the Google Display Network at https://www.google.com/settings/ads/onweb/.

The companies we work with to provide you with targeted ads are required by us to give you the choice to opt out of receiving targeted ads. Most of these companies are participants of the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”) and/or the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”). To learn more about the targeted ads provided by these companies, and how to opt out of receiving certain targeted ads from them, please visit: (i) for website targeted ads from DAA participants, https://www.aboutads.info/choices; (ii) for app targeted ads from DAA participants, https://www.aboutads.info/appchoices; and (iii) for targeted ads from NAI participants, https://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/. Opting out only means that the selected participants should no longer deliver certain targeted ads to you, but does not mean you will no longer receive any targeted content and/or ads (e.g., in connection with the participants’ other customers or from other technology services).

To opt out of us using your data for Matched Ads, please contact us as set forth in the Contact Us section below and specify that you wish to opt out of Matched Ads. We will request that the applicable technology service not serve you Matched Ads based on information we provide to it. Alternatively, you may directly contact the applicable technology service to opt out.

Google Ads: Users can opt out of Google's use of cookies for advertising, including DoubleClick cookies, by visiting Google’s Ads Settings page.

Twitter Ads: You can opt out of Twitter’s interest-based advertising by using the methods described in Twitter’s Privacy Controls.

Facebook Audience: You may opt out of the collection and use of your data for Facebook Custom Audiences at any time by:

• Adjusting your ad preferences in your Facebook settings
• Using the opt-out tools provided by the DAA or NAI.

Please note that if you opt out using any of these methods, the opt out will only apply to the specific browser or device from which you opt out. We are not responsible for the effectiveness of, or compliance with, any opt out options or programs, or the accuracy of any other entities’ statements regarding their opt out options or programs.

11. Children

Our Websites and Services are not intended for children under the age of 13. This includes any links to other websites that we provide for your convenience. We do not knowingly collect the information of children under 13.

12. FERPA

Soft Serv is committed to safeguarding the privacy and security of student education records in full compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99).

Employee Training: All Soft Serv employees receive FERPA training so that they are knowledgeable about handling student data appropriately and securely during the normal course of business.

School Official Exemption: In accordance with FERPA, Soft Serv operates under the "school official exemption," which permits the sharing of student Personally Identifiable Information (PII) under the conditions that Soft Serv:

1. Performs an institutional service or function for which the school would otherwise use employees.
2. Has a legitimate educational interest in the education records.
3. Is under the direct control of the school with respect to the use and maintenance of education records.
4. Ensures the education records are used only for authorized purposes and does not disclose PII from education records to other parties without consent.

Soft Serv adheres strictly to these guidelines, affirming our role as a trusted partner to educational institutions, providing services essential for educational purposes, and maintaining the confidentiality and security of student information.

13. Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We may change this Policy from time to time. Any and all changes will be reflected on this page, and where appropriate provided in person or by another electronic method. The effective date will be stated at the top of this Policy. You should regularly check this page for any changes to this Policy.

14. Accessibility

To print a copy of this Privacy Policy, please click here.

If you require a copy of this Privacy Policy in an alternative format, please Contact Us.

15. Contact Us

If you have any comments or questions, please contact us through the following methods: