Privacy Policy
AskNaro ("AskNaro", "we", "us") provides a course-grounded study assistant that instructors set up for their own courses and students use on the web at asknaro.com and in the AskNaro app for iPhone. This policy explains what information we collect, why, how it is protected, and the choices you have. It is written for students, instructors, and the institutions they belong to.
1. Who we are and how to reach us
AskNaro is operated by AskNaro, based in Houston, Texas, USA. Questions about this policy, requests about your data, and privacy concerns can be sent to privacy@asknaro.com. We answer within ten business days.
2. The short version
We collect only what the service needs to work. We do not sell personal information. We do not show advertising. We do not use your questions, chats, or course materials to train artificial intelligence models. Student education records are handled under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) on behalf of the institution and the instructor. You can delete your account and its data yourself at any time.
3. Information we collect
Account information. When you create an account we collect your name, email address, and a password, which we store only in a protected form that cannot be read back. Instructors may also provide a display name, a short profile, and an avatar. Signing up requires an invitation code so that only people affiliated with a participating course or institution can join.
Course membership. When a student joins a course with a course code, we record the link between that student and that course, the date they joined, and whether they later left or were removed.
Content you provide. Students type or dictate questions and receive answers. Instructors upload teaching materials such as lecture notes, slides, and readings, and may review and approve practice questions the service drafts from those materials. Students may ask the service to save a transcript of a conversation as a PDF.
Where conversations are stored. By default a student's conversation history is stored on the student's own device, in the browser or in the app, and is not kept on our servers beyond what is needed to produce the answer. Where an institution or instructor enables server-side conversation storage, conversations are kept on our servers for the course term plus thirty days unless a shorter period is chosen, and are covered by the FERPA commitments below.
Microphone and speech. In the iPhone app, dictation runs only while you press the microphone button. Speech is converted to text by the speech recognition service built into the device operating system, and only the resulting text reaches AskNaro. The app asks for microphone and speech recognition permission before the first use and you can withdraw it at any time in the device settings.
Technical and usage information. Like most online services, we receive the IP address, browser or app version, device type, and time of each request, and we keep security and error logs. We use this to keep the service running, to detect abuse, and to understand which features are used. These logs are kept for ninety days.
Cookies. We use a single session cookie to keep you signed in. We do not use advertising cookies or third-party tracking cookies.
4. How we use information
To operate the service, which means signing you in, showing you your courses, answering your questions from the materials your instructor provided, and producing practice material the instructor has approved. To support instructors and institutions, which includes showing an instructor who is enrolled in their course and giving them aggregate, de-identified insight into how the course materials are used. To keep the service secure and reliable, to prevent abuse, and to comply with legal obligations. To communicate with you about the service, such as password resets, important changes, or answers to your support requests. We do not send marketing email to students.
5. Students, education records, and FERPA
When AskNaro is used in a course at a school, college, or university, the information about students that is created in the service is an education record belonging to that institution. In that setting AskNaro acts as a school official with a legitimate educational interest, under the direct control of the institution, and uses student information only for the purpose the institution and instructor have authorized, which is supporting instruction in that course.
We do not use student information to build profiles for any purpose other than the course, we do not sell it, we do not use it for advertising, and we do not use it to train artificial intelligence models. We disclose student information only to the instructor of record, to the institution, to service providers acting on our behalf under contract, or where the law requires it. The institution and its students retain their FERPA rights, including the right to review and correct records. Requests from an institution to return or delete student records are honored within thirty days.
Instructors act as the controller of the teaching materials they upload and of their course roster. AskNaro processes that information on their behalf.
6. Artificial intelligence
Answers are generated by a large language model that reads passages from the instructor's course materials together with the student's question. To do this, the question and the relevant passages are sent to a model hosting provider located in the United States that is bound by contract to process the data only to produce the response, not to retain it beyond the request, and not to use it to train models. AskNaro does not train its own models on user content. Answers can be wrong, and the service labels answers that go beyond the course materials so that students can tell the difference.
7. Who we share information with
Service providers. We use a small number of providers to run the service, all under written agreements that limit what they may do with the data. They include a cloud infrastructure provider for hosting, storage, and model inference in the United States, and an email delivery provider for transactional email such as password resets. A current list is available on request.
Institutions and instructors. Instructors see the names and email addresses of students enrolled in their course. Institutions can request information about their own students as described in section 5.
Legal reasons. We may disclose information if required by law, subpoena, or court order, or to protect the rights, safety, and security of users, the public, or AskNaro. Where the law allows, we notify the affected institution before responding to a request for student records.
Business transfers. If AskNaro is acquired or merges with another organization, personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction, under this policy, and users will be notified. We do not sell personal information and we have not sold it in the past.
8. Where data is stored
AskNaro stores and processes data in data centers located in the United States. If we ever process data in another country, we will say so here and apply safeguards recognized under applicable law.
9. How long we keep information
Account information is kept for as long as the account exists. Course membership records are kept for the life of the course and for thirty days after a student leaves or is removed, so that an instructor can correct a mistake, and are then deleted. Server-side conversation storage, where enabled, follows the period in section 3. Uploaded course materials are kept until the instructor deletes the course, and for thirty days after that in case the deletion was accidental. Security and error logs are kept for ninety days. Backups are kept for thirty days and are then overwritten. De-identified statistics that cannot be linked to a person may be kept indefinitely.
10. How we protect information
All traffic between your device and AskNaro is encrypted in transit. Data is encrypted at rest on our servers and in backups. Passwords are stored using a one-way hashing function. Access to production systems is limited to authorized personnel, requires multi-factor authentication, and is logged. We separate identifying data from analytics data by removing names, emails, and other identifiers before analysis. We review our security practices regularly, keep dependencies current, and apply security updates promptly.
If we discover a breach of security that affects personal information, we will notify affected institutions and users without undue delay and no later than seventy-two hours after we confirm it, and we will cooperate with the institution's own notification obligations. No system is perfectly secure, so we ask you to use a strong, unique password and to keep it private.
11. Your choices and rights
You can see and update your name, email, and avatar in the service. You can delete your account, along with your enrollments and personal information, from the app under Settings or by emailing privacy@asknaro.com, and the deletion takes effect immediately. You can leave a course at any time. You can export a conversation as a PDF at any time. You can withdraw microphone and speech permission in your device settings.
Depending on where you live you may have additional rights, such as the right to access the personal information we hold about you, to correct it, to receive a copy in a portable form, to object to or restrict certain processing, or to complain to a supervisory authority. Residents of California may exercise the rights provided under California law, including the right to know, the right to delete, and the right to non-discrimination for exercising those rights. To exercise any right, contact privacy@asknaro.com. We will verify your identity before acting and respond within the time the law requires.
12. Children
AskNaro is designed for college and university courses and for older secondary students. It is not directed to children under thirteen, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under thirteen. If a school uses AskNaro with students under thirteen, the school provides consent on behalf of parents as permitted by law, and we act under the school's direction. If you believe a child under thirteen has provided personal information to us outside of that arrangement, contact us and we will delete it.
13. The iPhone app
The AskNaro app for iPhone offers the same service as the website. It stores your session, your text-size preference, your archived-course choices, and your conversation history on the device. It uses the microphone and speech recognition only for dictation as described in section 3. The app does not track you across other apps or websites and does not contain advertising.
14. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the service changes or as the law requires. We will post the new version here with a new effective date and, for material changes, we will notify instructors and institutions by email and show a notice in the service before the change takes effect.
15. Contact
AskNaro, Houston, Texas, USA. privacy@asknaro.com
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