PRIVACY POLICY AND CHILDREN’S PRIVACY POLICY

Updated February 20, 2024

OVERVIEW

Your privacy and the privacy of the students we serve are important to us at DroneBlocks, LLC (“DroneBlocks,” “we,” “us,” or “our”).  This Privacy Policy describes the information we collect through our interactions with you and through our Services and how the information will be used and protected.

This Privacy Policy applies when anyone uses our Services, including our Website and/or our App and any other online services or connected products we may make available. Our Website and App are also subject to our TERMS OF USE. Additional terms, end-user license agreements, or additional rules may be disclosed to you when you purchase and/or use other DroneBlocks products. You do not have to share any Personal Information to access and view our Website or to download and use our App.  By choosing to use our Services you are agreeing to the collection and use of information as set forth in this Policy. We will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy.  If you don’t agree with all the terms of this Policy, please do not use our Services.

While the DroneBlocks Services are intended to be used and enjoyed by children, teenagers, and adults of all ages, our Website and its purchase functions, are solely directed and intended for use by education professionals and other adults. For this reason, we avoid and strictly limit the collection of Personal Information from Classroom Users and particularly Child Users. For more details on our practices related to children, including how we comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)  please see the section on Children’s Privacy below.

DEFINITIONS

• “App” means any DroneBlocks software application, including, but not limited to, the DroneBlocks iPad and/or iPhone and/or web browser and/or Android software application.

• “Browsing Information” means information about your use of our Services or your device’s interaction with our Website and/or App. Browsing Information also includes certain information described in the “Information Collected Automatically” section below. This information is linked to a device identifier, such as the Internet Protocol (IP) address of your computer or device.

• “Children” or “Child User” means an individual who is not of legal age to consent to the collection and processing of their personal information, specifically individuals under the age of 13.

• “Classroom User” means any student using our Services as part of their classroom learning at and provided by an Educational Institution.

• “Customer” means the person or entity that has contracted with DroneBlocks for the Services.

• “DroneBlocks Technology” means DroneBlocks’ proprietary software, including the Website, the DroneBlocks App, technology, frameworks, platforms, methodologies, facilitation guides, questionnaires, techniques, general-purpose consulting and related know-how, logic, coherence, and methods of operation of systems, user interfaces, screen designs, presentation materials, and best-practices documentation, including any enhancements, modifications or derivatives thereof, including the DroneBlocks mobile application.

• “Drone(s)” means any programmable drone which can connect to our App and be used with the Services.

• “Educational Institution” means a school, school district, licensed childcare facility, or other licensed educational institution or program

• “Personal Information” under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. § 1232g.  means information that can directly identify an individual, such as full name, physical address (home, mailing, shipping, and/or billing address), email address, phone number, and/or credit card information. Under COPPA, Personal Information may also include a child’s precise geo-location, school name/address, a photo, video, or audio file that contains the child’s image or voice, and/or a persistent identifier (such as an IP Address or device ID) when such information is not used for internal support purposes.

• “Product Use Information” means information related to the use of our Services such as the “activities coded” such as drone missions if you choose to save your work.

• “Services” means the DroneBlocks STEM drone curriculum, which includes over 150 cloud-based lessons for teachers to choose from, and a suite of software to enable educators to teach students about computer science using drones. It includes all services offered or provided by DroneBlocks, including access to DroneBlocks Technology, as well as access to Lesson Plans, Training Materials, Webinars, and Training. DroneBlocks Services include ongoing upgrading of the product and related technology, communications with educators in support of their use of the Services, as well as the benefits of related research and development, improvements, and supplements supporting the DroneBlocks offerings, the Website, and/or the App.

• “Website” means the DroneBlocks customer portal at droneblocks.io and any related sites and/or subsites.

WHAT TYPE OF INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT AND WHY?

Collection of Information as a part of Customer Subscriptions:

All Customers:

During the registration process for any of our subscriptions, we may ask the Customer to provide us with a Customer name, email address, school or district affiliation (when applicable), phone number, and billing information. We use the information to create and service the account, fulfill the subscription and send service-related announcements. For instance, we may send emails about routine maintenance, new feature launches, or product recommendations related to a Customer’s subscription. We may also use this contact information to request feedback on our products and services, to inform future customer service and product improvements. A Customer may opt out of promotional email messages at any time as described in the Opt-Out section below.

Educators:

To create educator accounts, we require an educator’s full name, email address, school name, and app login provided by DroneBlocks. We may use the email address to send product updates and use recommendations, password recovery information, effectiveness and efficacy data, invitations to participate in surveys and research, and more. Educators may opt-out of promotional email messages at any time as described in the Opt-Out section below.

Students:

DroneBlocks does not require the submission of any student Personal Information in order for a student to make use of our Services.  If (and only if)  a student wants to save the “flight plans” they have created, they will be asked to submit an email for authentication purposes. That email would be submitted to Google’s Firebase Authentication service and not to DroneBlocks and handled under Google’s stringent security regimen.  Firebase’s Privacy Policy is linked here:  https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy  However, that email need not be a personal email and is not linked to a student’s name or other personally identifying information of the student.   A school or district customer can either obtain parental permission for the student to supply such an email if required or direct students to refrain from supplying their email.  Neither Firebase nor DroneBlocks shares or sells those emails uses them to contact students directly, or for any purpose other than for this single authentication purpose, and no other personally identifiable information is or can be provided by a student.

Other Information Collection:

Contact information for newsletter and surveys: The Website is intended for, and directed toward, adult users, including those supervising students’ use of the Services.  You may choose to sign up on the Website for newsletters, register for events, or participate in surveys, all of which require contact information. The submitted contact information will be used for promotional purposes, and you may opt out at any time. An opt-out link or instructions on how to opt-out will be included at the bottom of such messages. Registration for newsletters, events, and survey participation is not directed toward nor intended for minors.

Information we collect when you contact us: When you send us messages through our system or by email or through other online platforms, we collect the information you provide, including your message and any contact information you include. We use and retain such information to respond to your request, facilitate support to you in the future, and optimize our support services.

Feedback: Certain features we offer include an option to provide us with feedback. The feedback feature does not identify the user submitting it. If we receive Personal Information through a feedback form we take steps to immediately delete that information. We reserve the right to use feedback for any purpose with no obligation to you.

Applying for a job:  We will only use the information for the application process.

Children under 13:  If for any reason we receive a message from an individual who we determine to be under age 13 we will, in compliance with COPPA, respond once and then delete those messages and any Personal Information contained in them.

Information Collected Automatically

We automatically receive and record information on our server logs from a user’s browser. When you visit the Website, this may include the Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, pages of DroneBlocks visited, the time spent on those pages, and access times and dates. Log data from your use of our App may include information such as your device IP address, device name, operating system version, the configuration of the app when utilizing our Service, the time and date of your use of the Service, and other statistics.  We use this information to improve the display and/or functionality of our Services and to better tailor our Services to your needs.

How Information Is Collected

To collect this information, we use technological tools including:

Cookies. A cookie is a small data file sent from a website or application and stored on your computer or device. Cookies allow us to recognize your browser when you return to the Website, remember your login information, and monitor potential account misuse. Cookies also allow us to better understand how you interact with DroneBlocks and to monitor aggregated usage. You can set your browser to detect some cookies, to stop accepting cookies, or to prompt you before accepting a cookie. Disabling our cookies will limit some of the functionalities within our Services. To learn more about browser cookies, including how to manage or delete them, look in the Tools, Help, or similar section of your web browser, or visit allaboutcookies.org.

Pixel Tags. A pixel tag (also known as a “clear GIF” or “web beacon”) is a tiny image – typically just one pixel – that we place in our marketing emails, newsletters, promotional offerings, and surveys. We use pixel tags and line tracking to analyze the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns.

We use Google Analytics to assist us in collecting and assessing automatically-collected information. For more information about Google Analytics, see Google Analytics Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy. You can prevent Google Analytics from collecting information about you and recognizing you on return visits to our Services by disabling cookies on your browser or by installing the Google Analytics opt-out plug-in. Note that we are not responsible for Google’s opt-out tools.

Tracking Technologies

DroneBlocks does not track users across unaffiliated sites and services. 

However, you should be aware that when you use the Internet, parties that have no connection to DroneBlocks such as ad networks, web analytics companies, and social networking platforms may collect information about your online activities over time, which could include your activity on various websites, including ours. This information may be used by third parties to provide advertisements for products and services that may interest you, and those companies may use cookies, clear GIFs, and other tracking technologies. However, that activity is neither at the direction, nor under the control, of DroneBlocks.

In addition, we may also use this information to serve advertising via GoogleAds  https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en. Any such advertising is intended for adult users and we do not use student Personal Information for advertising purposes, including targeted advertising.

For general information about internet-based advertising and opt-out capabilities, you may wish to visit the following resources:

• Network Advertising Initiative’s online resources, at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices,

• Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) resources at http://www.aboutads.info/choices

• Your Online Choices at http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/.

• http://youradchoices.com/appchoices and downloading the mobile AppChoices app.

You may also be able to limit interest-based advertising through the settings on your mobile device by selecting “limit ad tracking” (iOS) or “opt-out of interest-based ads” (Android).

How Long We Retain Personal Information:

When your Personal Information is no longer needed for the purpose for which we collected it we take measures to delete your Personal Information or keep it in a form that does not allow you to be identified, unless we are required by law or the statute of limitations to keep this information for a longer period. When determining the retention period, we take into account various criteria, such as the type of services requested by or provided to you, the nature and length of our relationship with you, possible re-enrollment with our services, the impact on the services we provide to you if we delete some information from or about you.

You may request copies of your Personal Information, which can be supplied within a reasonable time of your written request.  If you require the deletion of Personal Information at any time or within a predetermined time period, you are required to specify that time frame to us in writing.  Once that information is deleted, it is deleted from our servers and can not be restored

We may retain, use and share anonymous or aggregated and de-identified information for lawfully permissible purposes, including developing and improving educational products and services, educational research purposes, evaluating, informing, and demonstrating the effectiveness and efficacy of our products and services.

How We Share Your Information

We may share Customer Personal Information with third-party service providers. These may include hosting, streaming, credit card processing services, and companies that provide marketing emails on our behalf. A current list of these third parties service providers may be provided to you upon written request. These third parties service providers are bound contractually to practice commercially reasonable security measures and to use your Personal Information solely for the provision of their services. They do not have the right to further share your Personal Information or use it for any unauthorized purpose.

We reserve the right to disclose Personal Information if we are required to do so by law, or if we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or others’ safety, investigate fraud, and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, subpoena, or legal process.

We also reserve the right to transfer your Personal Information in case of a corporate restructuring (such as a merger, acquisition, or other disposition of our business), as long as the receiving entity adopts this (or a more stringent) Privacy Policy regarding your information.

HOW WE PROTECT THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT: SECURITY

DroneBlocks maintains commercially reasonable physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards designed to protect Personal Information.

Your Personal Information may be stored on our behalf on third-party cloud infrastructure provider Firebase, a service provided by Google. Firebase’s Privacy Policy is linked here:  https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy .

We apply a Secure Sockets Layer (HTTPS) encrypting technology to encrypt data in transit.

Some of the precautions we take include (a) limiting employee access to Personal Information to only those employees with a need to such access to fulfill their job responsibilities; (b) requiring employees to sign confidentiality agreements and undergo security training; and (c) protecting Personal Information with technical, contractual, administrative, and physical security safeguards.

While we strive to maintain industry-standard privacy and security practices and we have in place technical and organizational means to protect your Personal Information, it should be noted that no industry system which includes data transmission over the Internet or data storage can be guaranteed to be 100% effective, and DroneBlocks is not responsible for security incidents not reasonably foreseeable or reasonably within our control. In the event of unauthorized access to Personal Information, we will promptly notify the affected Customer(s) in accordance with applicable law, and as appropriate, coordinate with the Customer to support notification of affected individuals.

CHILDREN’S PRIVACY/CLASSROOM PRIVACY

We will only access, collect, record, organize, use, or disclose (collectively, “process”) student Personal Information as permitted by the Educational Institution and this Privacy Policy. We will process the data consistent with all applicable laws, including, but not limited to, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”).

We are committed to complying with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).  Parents and guardians of children under 13 who use any of the DroneBlocks products have certain rights under COPPA and DroneBlocks recognizes those rights.

Please note that DroneBlocks does not require the submission of any student Personal Information in order for a student to make use of our Services.  If (and only if)  a student wants to save the “flight plans” they have created, they will be prompted to submit an email for authentication purposes. That email would be submitted to Google’s Firebase Authentication service and not to DroneBlocks and handled under Google’s stringent security regimen.  Firebase’s Privacy Policy is linked here:  https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy  However, that email need not be a personal email and is not linked to a student’s name or other personally identifying information in Firebase’s database or anywhere else.   A school or district Customer can either obtain required parental permission for the student to supply such an email or direct students to refrain from supplying an email address.  Neither Firebase nor DroneBlocks shares or sells those optionally-provided email addresses uses them to contact students directly, or for any purpose other than for this single authentication purpose, and no other personally identifiable information is or can be provided by a student.

At any time, parents/guardians may request to review any Personal Information we collected regarding their child, request that we make no further use of that information, or request that we delete it. To exercise that right to delete information, please contact your school to exercise your rights and we will work with the parent/guardian and school together to facilitate those requests.

In some instances, we may collect a limited amount of Personal Information from a parent or educator, or Child User (such as an email address) and use such information for a one-time event or communication (e.g., one-time contest, share your code submission, etc.) or for multiple ongoing communications to a Child User (e.g., email alerts, push notifications). For these types of activities, we may rely on exceptions to the parental consent requirement under COPPA or follow other procedures to ensure compliance (e.g., removal of Personal Information prior to collection or immediately after use, a parental notification with opt-out mechanism, local storage of the information with no uploading to the web, etc.).

Students cannot interact with other users using our Services, including our Website and/or App.

Some features of our Services may allow the local storage of information on your device, without the uploading of such information to the web or our servers.

We may collect and process Product Use Information and Browsing Information from a Child User through the use of our App, but only for purposes of supporting our internal operations, such as to help us:

• Maintain or analyze the functioning of our DroneBlocks Technology;

• Perform network communications;

• Authenticate users of, or personalize the content on, our Website and/or App; and

• Track usage.

We will not use Product Use Information or Browsing Information, collected through the use of our DroneBlocks Technology, for behavioral or re-targeted advertising purposes or allow third parties to track the activity of a Child User for such purposes.

LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

We are not responsible for the practices employed by websites or services that choose to link to our Website, including the information or content contained therein. We encourage our users to familiarize themselves with the privacy statements of all websites and apps that they visit and interact with.

NEW YORK PRIVACY RIGHTS

DroneBlocks operates in compliance with New York Education Law § 2-d with respect to its collection, storage, use and deletion of student Personal Information, as set forth in detail herein.

CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS

As a California resident, you have certain rights regarding your personal information. These rights include:

• Right to Know and Access Information: You may request access to the Personal Information we maintain about you in the ordinary course of business. This may include what Personal Information we collect, use, or disclose about you. We may not fulfill some or all of your requests to access as permitted by applicable law.

• Right to Deletion: You may request that we delete your Personal Information. Depending on the scope of your request, we may refrain from granting your request, as permitted by applicable law. For example, we may be legally required to retain your Personal Information in our business records.

• Right to Opt-Out of the Sale of Your Personal Information: California law considers certain uses of personal information, such as sharing your personal information with a third party in order to serve ads to you to be a “sale.” We do not sell the personal information of children or students.

In order to prevent unauthorized access to your information, we are required by law to verify your identity before we may address your request.

To Exercise Your Rights

DroneBlocks is used in schools at the direction of our Customers. In addition, we are obligated under FERPA to remain under the direct control of our Customers with respect to our use and maintenance of student Personal Information that is part of the education record. As such, if you use DroneBlocks through a school account and wish to exercise your rights in respect to student Personal Information, please contact your Education Institution and we will work with them to facilitate your request.  All other DroneBlocks users and visitors may exercise these rights by contacting us directly.

Your exercise of the above rights is subject to certain exemptions to safeguard the public interest and our interests. Requests to exercise these rights may be granted in whole, in part, or not at all, depending on the scope and nature of the request and applicable law. Where required by applicable law, we will notify you if and why we are unable to fulfill your request.

Non-discrimination: We shall not discriminate or otherwise penalize anyone for exercising their rights.

Categories of Personal Information we may collect

• Identifiers such as a real name, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, billing address, and phone number. Your name, address, phone number and billing information may also be considered personal information under subdivision (e) of California Business and Professions Code Section 1798.80

• Geolocation information regarding your country

• Commercial information, including records of products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.

• Internet or other electronic network activity information, including, but not limited to, browsing history, search history, and information regarding a User’s interaction with DroneBlocks.

Categories of sources from which the Personal Information is collected

• We may collect Personal Information directly from the Customer, school, and/or teacher.

• We may collect Personal Information directly from you, from our business partners and affiliates, from your browser or device when you visit our websites, or from third parties that you permit to share information with us.

Purpose for collection of Personal Information

We collect Personal Information so that we can:

• Perform the Services in accordance with our contract with the Customer and the terms of use including maintaining or servicing accounts, providing customer service, processing or fulfilling orders and transactions, verifying customer information, and processing payments.

• Detect security incidents, protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, and prosecuting those responsible for that activity.

• Debug to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.

• Send product communications to Customers.

We solely share Personal Information with service providers who support us in delivering the Services as described above and are bound by contractual obligations of privacy and security no less stringent than our own.

Specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected

Customers: 

• Identifiers such as a real name, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, billing address, and phone number. Your name, address, phone number, and billing information may also be considered personal information under subdivision (e) of California Business and Professions Code Section 1798.80

• Internet or other electronic network activity information, including, but not limited to, browsing history, search history, and information regarding a consumer’s interaction with DroneBlocks.

• Geolocation information regarding your country

• Commercial information, including records of products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.

Educators: full name, email address, phone number, username, password, school, school address, classes associated with the account, IP address

Students: IP address, email (if provided)

Website visitors: IP address, pseudonymous end user identifiers

If you contact DroneBlocks: name, email address, other contact information, IP address

Authorized Agent: California residents may use an authorized agent on their behalf to exercise a privacy right discussed above. If you are an authorized agent acting on behalf of a California resident to communicate with us or to exercise a privacy right discussed above, you must be able to demonstrate that you have the requisite authorization to act on behalf of the resident and have sufficient access to their laptop, desktop, or mobile device to exercise these rights digitally. If you are an authorized agent trying to exercise rights on behalf of an DroneBlocks user, please contact the user’s school or district with supporting verification information, which includes a valid Power of Attorney in the State of California, proof that you have access to the user’s device, and proof of your own identity.

Users who are California residents may request in writing and obtain from us once a year, free of charge, certain information about the Personal Information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year. If applicable, this information would include a list of the categories of Personal Information that was shared and the names and addresses of all third parties with whom we shared information in the immediately preceding calendar year.

VISITORS RESIDING OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES

DroneBlocks and its Services are based in the U.S., and DroneBlocks’ offices are headquartered in the U.S. Please be aware that the information you provide to DroneBlocks or that it obtains as a result of your use of our Services may be processed and transferred to the U.S. and be subject to U.S. law. The privacy and data protection laws in the U.S. may not be equivalent to such laws in your country of residence and may not offer the same privacy protections your local laws provide. By using our Services, including our Website, App, or otherwise providing DroneBlocks with your information, you (or a parent/guardian on your behalf) consent to this collection, transfer, storage, and processing of information to and in the U.S. DroneBlocks will take commercially reasonable steps to safeguard your data in accordance with this Privacy Policy, but is not responsible for the privacy and security practices of third-parties.

WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP PROTECT MY PRIVACY?

Please do not share personal contact information (such as your name, physical address, email address, or phone number) in projects, comments, profiles, or forum posts. Please let us know if you see this kind of information . It is also important that you maintain the security and control of your account credentials, and not share your password with anyone outside of your school or organization.

OPT-OUT

If you have subscribed to receive marketing messaging from us, or if you receive an unwanted email from us, you can opt-out of receiving future emails by following the instructions in the email. We will process your request within a reasonable time after receipt. Note that you will continue to receive operational emails regarding the products or services you are subscribed to.

UPDATES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

We reserve the right to update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will post them here and revise the date at the top of this Privacy Policy. We encourage you to check this page periodically for any updates. If you continue to use our Services following the posting of an updated version of this Privacy Policy, we will treat your continued use as acceptance of the updated version.

If we make a material change in the way we handle previously collected Personal Information of our users, we will notify you more prominently and request your consent or the consent of a parent or legal guardian, as applicable and legally required.

CONTACTING US

If you have any remaining questions about how we treat your privacy, just let us know. You can contact us by writing to us at support@droneblocks.io.

DroneBlocks, LLC

PO Box 1036 

Dripping Springs, TX 78620