At Bloomz, we take your privacy very seriously and we have taken every measure so you rest assured your information and your experience at Bloomz stays safe and private.
As with previous versions of our policy, we include a small summary to the right of the text, so you can easily browse and learn about our commitment to your privacy and security.
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Bloomz is a proud signatory of the Student Privacy Pledge. Bloomz also counts with iKeepSafe’s COPPA, FERPA and CSPC certifications.
Like many other internet-based services, Bloomz needs to collect some information from our users and their usage so we can provide you with the high-quality experience you expect from us. Rest assured, we make every reasonable effort to ensure that our app(s) and service(s) are secure and private in accordance with our promise and our policies. The information we collect (whether through our own means or through trusted third parties, as explained below) can be in the form of:
Personal Information
We collect personal information when you register through any of our platforms: website, mobile, or tablet applications (collectively, our "service(s)”, or our “app(s)”). Personal information is any information about you that is personally identifiable—such as your name, address, email address or phone number.
If you send email invitations to friends or family to join your Bloomz network, those email addresses are, in some instances, also collected.
Other information that is stored in our service when either parents or teachers use our apps, includes but is not limited to: School and class information, including name and address, the student(s) name(s) or age(s), as well as the information sent over the service, including messages, announcements, alerts, images, events, portfolio items, behavior points or similar.
Some states or local school districts may require administrator approval and access to the data for services teachers or students use. It is the obligation of the teacher signing up for an individual account to obtain those permissions/authorizations. Bloomz can provide access to administrators through a school account which they can contact us to create.
Automatically Collected Information
When you use any of our services and apps (web, mobile or other, including when you open our email notifications) we, or our authorized third party service providers (explained below), may also collect information relating to your devices—including your device type and model, operating system, browser type, unique device identifier, IP address, device address or ID, mobile phone number, mobile network carrier, location, event information (such as application installations), and/or the web pages or sites that you visit just before or just after the service, the pages you view on the service, and the dates and times that you visit, access, or use the service.
We may also automatically record certain information from your web browser by using different types of technology, including "clear gifs", “cookies” or "web beacons." This information is gathered for all users.
Information from Other Sources:
We may also obtain information, including personally identifiable information, from third parties and sources other than the service, such as our partners or other service providers, according to their own policies and terms of use.
We may also, at your direction, source information from third party Student Information Systems, Learning Management Services or associated 3rd party connectors (e.g. Clever, Google Classroom, others) and/or other services you connect to our service (e.g. Facebook Connect, Twitter, others). that provide a mechanism to expose information you or the school have provided to such third parties through the use of an application program interface (API), At your request, we may also source personal information from third-party, including information that may not otherwise be publicly available.
If we combine or associate information from other sources with personally identifiable information that we collect through the service, we will treat the combined information as personally identifiable information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Cookies and Similar Technologies
We use cookies (pixel tags, and/or other similar technologies) to collect visitor information. Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we send to your computer's hard drive through your web browser. We may use both session cookies and persistent cookies. A session cookie disappears after you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains after you close your browser and may be used by your browser on subsequent visits. Like many services, we use these technologies to tailor the Apps for you, and to help the Apps work better for you - for example, for authentication, security and site integrity, localization, performance analytics, and other features and services. It is possible to delete cookies or prevent cookies from being used in your browser by turning the feature off. If you do so, you may not be able to use features of our service to their full potential.
We need some information to provide you with the best experience possible, and we will make every reasonable effort to keep that information private and secure. There are three types of information we collect: Personal information you submit; automatically collected information; and, information from other sources.
We collect the information you submit while registering for a Bloomz account or through its use, including your school information, posts and messages sent through Bloomz.
We collect information using our own or third-party technology (including cookies) to provide you with the best experience possible.
We may use other sources (third party) to complement the information you provide to us to better serve your needs.
We offer a range of features that use technologies like cookies, pixel tags ("pixels"), device or other identifiers and local storage to provide a seamless and safe experience.
Providing a great experience is our outmost priority. To do so, we work with third-party vendors, service providers, and other partners to help us provide the service by performing tasks on our behalf. We may need to share or provide information (including personal information) to them to help them perform these functions, for example: sending emails on our behalf, database management services, database hosting, providing customer support software, and security. These service providers do not have the right to use your personal information we share with them beyond what is necessary to assist us with our business functions. Additionally, these service providers must adhere to confidentiality and security obligations in a way that is consistent with this Privacy Policy.
We may also work with third-party service providers to monitor certain pages of our apps for such purposes as reporting activity in our app. Where authorized by us, these third-party providers may use cookies and/or other monitoring technologies to compile anonymous statistics about our users. No personally identifiable information is transferred to these third-party service providers. While this information may be collected directly by the third party, Bloomz ensures it will do so in a manner that is consistent with this privacy policy and our terms of service.
A list of our authorized third party providers and their specific activity as it relates to our service is provided here. This list is updated as needed without prior notice, but always in compliance with this policy.
Sometimes we need a little help from our friends (and partners). But rest assured we are only sharing information needed to provide our core services, and our partners will not use the data for any other purpose.
We use your information for the following general purposes: to operate, maintain, and improve our services and apps, to contact you, for internal business purposes.
We use third-party information you provide to us solely to provide services you specifically request.
We also use the information that you provide and that we collect to understand and analyze the usage trends and preferences of our users, to improve our product, and to create new features and functionality. Some reports about usage by the members of a group are also displayed to teachers and school or group administrators to provide them with analytics they can use for decision making.
We may use your information to personalize our services, such as remembering your information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you visit the apps and serve you relevant content, and information; monitor and analyze the effectiveness of our services; monitor aggregate site usage metrics such as total number of visitors and pages viewed; and track your entries, submissions, and status in any promotions or other activities.
We will never use students’ personally identifiable information, or collect, use, or share such information for any purposes beyond the authorized educational or school purposes, or as explicitly authorized by the student or parent. We will never target advertisements to students or sell students’ personally identifiable information to third parties for any purpose.
We do not sell or disclose personally identifiable information to nonaffiliated parties except in connection with our services and the operation of our business as explained in this policy and our terms of service.
When you invite recipients to join our service, we may contact them regarding our product and service, using an appropriate form of communication. If they would prefer not to receive our communications, they may opt-out using the "Unsubscribe" or "STOP" instructions contained in those communications. We will not use the email addresses that you enter through email invitations, or your address books through any of our apps to send marketing communications to your friends and family, unless they sign up for an account on their own and accept our terms and services.
When a teacher invites parents to join their classroom on Bloomz via our SmartInvite feature in our apps, the emails entered in the invitation will automatically be opted-in to classroom communications via email. We do this to ensure parents who do not want or know how to create an account do not miss important updates from the teacher. Recipients can always opt-out by using the "Unsubscribe" instructions in those communications.
When a teacher, parent or student signs up for our service as part of a classroom or school, some information might be displayed to others in the classroom and/or the school (such as your name and your belonging to a class, as well as anything you post as part of your public profile, but not your email addresses or phone number, except to the teacher or administrator of the school/classroom).
Your accounts also contain a calendar where you can store events and other key dates and details about friends and family. We may send you email reminders of the personalized dates you have entered in this calendar.
You may decline to share certain personally identifiable information with us, in which case we may not be able to provide to you some of the features and functionality of the service. You may update or correct your profile information and preferences at any time by accessing your account preferences page through the service. Please note that while your changes are reflected promptly in active user databases, we may retain all information you submit for a variety of purposes, including backups and archiving, prevention of fraud and abuse, and analytics.
You may, at your discretion, provide suggestions, comments or other feedback to us with respect to our products and services. We have no obligation to pay you for your use of any hardware, software or services, or for any feedback you provide, and we may use, share and commercialize your feedback for any and all purposes, at no charge.
The information we collect helps us run our business and better tailor the experience for you. Emails of parents invited to join a classroom in Bloomz are automatically opted-in to classroom communications so parents don't miss out on important updates. Any person can opt-out of Bloomz communications following instructions included in those, or by adjusting your notification preferences in the App. Bloomz does NOT serve ads to students or use students’ personally identifiable information for any other purpose than the stated here.
We do not sell or disclose your personally identifiable information to nonaffiliated parties except in connection with our services and the operation of our business as explained in this policy and our terms of service.
We may disclose your personal information in the following ways:
We do not sell your personal information to third parties and will not share information other than as established in this policy.
With the addition of student accounts, our service is expanding to serve all school and classroom communication, whether it’s parents, students or staff. We believe it’s of paramount importance that parents and guardians know how their students’ information is used, and that they have the ability to consent to the use of that information.
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) protects the online privacy of children under the age of 13 and requires Bloomz to obtain parental consent or notice prior to the collection, use, and disclosure of that child's personal information. Due to these regulations, we require that teachers or schools get parental consent before using our service with children who are under the age of 13. Parents can withdraw consent for the further collection of their child(ren)’s information at any time. If you are aware that Bloomz is collecting information from a student without parental consent, please contact us immediately at support@bloomz.com and we will take action according to this policy and our terms of service.
There are a number of ways in which teachers or schools can obtain parental consent:
Bloomz obtains parental consent directly from a child’s parent if the parent (and not the teacher) sets up their child’s account, or if a student creates his or her own account on Bloomz, after receiving an invitation from their teacher.
NOTE: Schools in different countries and communities have different regulations and approaches, and Bloomz cannot advise you on compliance with the laws applicable to your school. You should obtain any parental consent that may be required by your school (including for COPPA and FERPA) in a manner that complies with the laws of your jurisdiction.
By requiring educators and/or parents to provide consent to the use of student information, Bloomz is COPPA compliant.
We will only retain your information for as long as it is necessary for educational purposes or legal obligations, or to provide the Service for which we receive or collect such information. Unless required by law, our data retention policies include:
Bloomz will only keep your information for as long as it’s necessary for educational purposes and to comply with our contractual or legal obligations. Data from inactive accounts is automatically purged after 12 or 24 months depending on your type of account.
When you visit our website, we may collect additional information, whether automatically or entered by you, that is not regularly collected or part of our regular practices in our applications. This section only applies to our marketing website and pages including the bloomz.com website, and does not apply to our applications, whether it is the browser version (app.bloomz.net) or our native mobile applications.
We will use the information you provide to us to provide you with the information you request, send you updated information about our platform and to offer you our free and service. You always have the ability to opt out of these communications by clicking in the provided links or by letting us know directly (you can also send us an email to support@bloomz.com).
As specified above, when you visit our website we use certain technologies to track your visits and activity in our website. We may use these and other technologies and third-party service providers to serve ads on our behalf across the internet. They may collect anonymous information about your visits to our website and your interaction with our services. They may also use information about your visits to our website and other sites and mobile applications to target ads for our products and services. For instance, they may collect web log data from you (such as IP address and information about your browser or operating system) or place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser to enable you to receive customized ads from us. Through this process, demographic or other interest data may be associated with your browser or device in a non-personally identifiable manner. No personally identifiable information is collected in this process. One common example of this is, you visit our website but don’t immediately create an account. Next time you visit a website like Facebook, we’ll serve an ad to remind you about your visit and invite you to create an account with us. We also work with third-party service providers to monitor our website for marketing and reporting purposes. Where authorized by us, these third-party providers may use cookies and/or other monitoring technologies to compile anonymous statistics about our users. No personally identifiable information is automatically transferred to these third-party service providers. While this information is collected directly by the third party, Bloomz ensures it is collected in a manner that is consistent with this privacy policy and our terms of service.
In our website, different than in our web or mobile apps, we may track your visits and interactions with our pages so we can follow up with you later via ad or any other contact information we have of you.
At Bloomz, we want all teachers and parents to have better communication without exception. This is why we provide a free alternative for teachers to create a classroom and start communicating with parents and students. Because of the large cost associated with these accounts (the majority of our users) we work with third party brands to sponsor these classrooms and help cover those costs. To be clear:
Sponsorship of free accounts or “ads” are from family-friendly brands and sponsors that help cover the costs to support these classrooms. No personally identifiable information is shared with sponsors. Only aggregated, non-personally identifiable information like number of impressions and clicks is sent back for tracking. These sponsorships are only offered based on grade level and geographic area. No advertising from sponsors will be shown to students in our apps — only to parents, teachers and administrators, if at all.
In addition to the uses specified above in the Privacy Policy, we may use your information to customize content and advertising you may see in our service.
In order to support all teachers, free accounts are available in our platform. These sponsorships are safe for your parents and never shown to students. No personally identifiable information is shared with sponsors.
We use certain physical, managerial, and technical safeguards that are designed to improve the integrity and security of your information. As is the case with other online services, however, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or store on the apps and you do so at your own risk. We also cannot guarantee that such information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards. If we learn of a security systems breach, then we will attempt to notify you electronically and post a notice in our app so that you can take appropriate protective steps.
Similarly, although we may allow you to adjust your privacy settings to limit access to your information, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other users with whom you may choose to share your information. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that information you post on the apps will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the service. You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of information that you have posted may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other users have copied or stored such information.
In our Privacy and security pledge, you can find our general practices related to data security and integrity. In addition to these, we have established a comprehensive data security program with recurring internal and external audits to ensure the confidentiality, security, and integrity of all personal information collected, including that from school personnel as well as parents and their students.
We take serious efforts to protect your information and the data in our service. As with any other online service, it is important you take personal measures to protect your information (like safeguarding your password).
We may modify this Privacy Policy from time to time by posting updates on this page. In the event that the modifications materially alter your rights or obligations hereunder, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you of these changes, at least 30 days in advanced, via email, if we have one on file, or through our apps (example, a pop-up or similar notification when you access the Bloomz App for the first time after such changes are announced). Our amended Privacy Policy will automatically take effect at the announced effective date. If you do not agree with any changes to the Privacy Policy, you may terminate your account and stop using the apps. Your continued use of the Apps after the revised Privacy Policy has become effective indicates that you have read, understood and agreed to the current version of the Privacy Policy.
We will always let you know either by email or through our apps when we make significant changes to our Privacy Policy.
If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, you can contact us at privacy@bloomz.net or through the feedback link on our Apps. You can also send an email to the iKeepSafe Safe Harbor program dedicated consumer complaint email address as follows: COPPA@ikeepsafe.org
Bloomz
PO Box 6
Redmond, WA 98074
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