Children and Student
Privacy Policy

Effective Date: June 12, 2026

About This Policy

This Children & Student Privacy Policy explains how BrainPOP and its affiliates (“BrainPOP,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) collect, use, and protect information from children and students who use our educational products, including BrainPOP (3-8), BrainPOP Jr., BrainPOP ELL, BrainPOP Science, BrainPOP Espanol/Francais, and BrainPOP at Home (collectively, the “Services”).

This policy is written for parents, guardians, and school administrators. If you have questions after reading it, please reach out to us at privacy@brainpop.com — we’re happy to help.

This policy should be read together with our Product Privacy Policy, which contains additional detail about our data practices for all users of the educational products. For information about brainpop.com and our marketing website, see our Website Privacy Policy.

Our Commitments to You

Here's what you should know up front about how we treat children's and students' data:

We don’t advertise to kids. We do not use student or children’s data for advertising of any kind, including targeted advertising.
We don’t sell student records.
We treat children’s data as sensitive. This is consistent with COPPA, FERPA, and state privacy laws that classify children’s data as sensitive personal information.
We collect only what we need. We limit the data we collect from children to what is reasonably necessary to provide the educational service.
Kids can’t contact strangers. Students cannot interact with anyone outside their school, classroom, or family account. There is no direct messaging between students.
Schools and parents stay in control. Administrators can view, update, and delete student records at any time through the dashboard. Parents can request access to or deletion of their child’s data.
We follow the law. We comply with COPPA (including the updated COPPA Rule effective June 23, 2025), FERPA, and applicable state privacy laws.

What Information We Collect from Children and Students

The specific information we collect depends on how a child accesses BrainPOP — through a school account or a family (home) subscription.

Through School Accounts

When a school or district sets up BrainPOP, the school’s Administrator creates student accounts. We collect:

Student’s full name
Class and graduation year or grade
Username and password
School email address (only when the school uses single sign-on)
Student and teacher unique identifiers (only when the school uses single sign-on)

Once students are using BrainPOP, we also collect:

Answers to quizzes and assignments
Activities, projects, and movies students create
Messages between a student and their teacher within the platform
Voice recordings (when students use recording features like Make-a-Movie®)
IP address (collected automatically)
Pages visited and features used within the product (collected automatically)

Through Family (Home) Subscriptions

When a parent or guardian creates a BrainPOP at Home account, we collect:

Child’s name (first or full, depending on the product)
Graduation year or grade
Username, password, and security question
Avatar image (when applicable)

Children using home subscriptions can store activities, quizzes, movies, projects, and badges. The Homeschool subscription also lets children correspond with the parent or guardian within the platform.

What We Don't Collect from Children

We do not collect the following from children:

Biometric identifiers (other than voice recordings as described above)
Government-issued identification numbers
Health or medical information
Precise geolocation data
Financial information

How We Use Children's and Students' Data

We use the information we collect from children and students for the following purposes — and only these purposes:

Providing the educational service: Creating and maintaining accounts, delivering content, enabling quizzes, assignments, and projects, and facilitating teacher-student communication.
AI-assisted grading (BrainPOP Science only): Student responses to certain assignments are analyzed by our AI Grading Tool to provide scoring suggestions to teachers. See the AI section below for full details.
Improving the product: We use de-identified and aggregated data (data from which all identifying information has been removed) to improve our educational products and evaluate their effectiveness. This data cannot be traced back to any individual student.
Keeping the service secure: We use automatically collected information (like IP addresses) for security monitoring, fraud prevention, and maintaining the service.

We do not use children’s or students’ data for any other purpose. We do not use it for marketing, advertising, profiling, or building user profiles for non-educational purposes.

How the AI Grading Tool Uses Student Records

BrainPOP Science includes an AI-assisted grading tool for Claims, Evidence, Reasoning (CER) assignments. Here’s how it works and how student records are involved.

What Happens When the Tool Is Active

When a teacher has the AI Grading Tool enabled, student answers to CER assignments are sent to our AI model. The model analyzes the response and provides a suggested score and explanation to the teacher. The teacher reviews, modifies, or approves the score before it is shared with the student. Students only see the final, teacher-approved result.

What Data Is Used

The student’s written response to the assignment
The response is linked to the student’s identity within the teacher’s classroom (so the teacher can see whose work it is)
This data is used only to provide the scoring service — it is not used for advertising, profiling, or any purpose unrelated to education

How We Improve the AI

We may use de-identified and aggregated student response data to improve the AI Grading Tool’s accuracy. Before any data is used for this purpose, all personal information (student name, account identifiers, school, class) is removed, and we apply technical safeguards to prevent re-identification.

We Don't Share Student Records with AI Providers

We do not share students’ Personal Information with third-party AI companies. We do not use Student Records to train third-party AI models.

How to Opt Out

Teachers can hide the results of the AI Grading Tool on their accounts if they do not want input from the AI Grading Tool. For complete disabling of the feature for all student written work, please contact legal@brainpop.com.

Who We Share Children's Data With

Service Providers

We share children’s data with a limited number of service providers who help us operate the platform — for example, companies that provide hosting, streaming, and security services. These providers are contractually required to use the data only to provide services to BrainPOP and to maintain appropriate security measures. A current list is available at brainpop.com/discover/third-party-service-providers.

What We Don't Do

We do not sell children’s or students’ data.
We do not share children’s data for advertising or marketing purposes.
We do not share children’s data with third parties for purposes unrelated to the educational service.

Legal Requirements

We may disclose children’s data if required by law — for example, in response to a valid court order or subpoena.

Categories of Personal Information Collected from Children

We collect the following categories of Personal Information from children under 13 through our Services:

Full name, username, and password
Class, graduation year/grade
School email address (for SSO integrations only)
Voice recordings (when using recording features such as Make-a-Movie)
Student responses to assignments and quizzes
IP address (collected automatically)

We do not collect biometric identifiers (beyond voice recordings as described above), government-issued identifiers, or health data from children.

How We Get Permission to Collect Children's Data

School Accounts (COPPA School Consent)

When a school or district uses BrainPOP, the school may provide consent on behalf of parents for the collection of student records for educational purposes. This is consistent with FTC guidance under COPPA, which allows schools to act as the parent’s agent in the school context.

Schools are responsible for ensuring that parents have been appropriately notified. We encourage schools to share this policy with parents and guardians.

Home Accounts (Parental Consent)

For BrainPOP at Home subscriptions, the parent or guardian provides consent by creating the account and setting up child profiles. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent.

What If a Child Provides Information Without Consent?

If we learn that we have collected Personal Information from a child under 13 without appropriate consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe this has happened, please contact us at privacy@brainpop.com.

Your Rights as a Parent or School

For Parents and Guardians

As a parent or guardian, you have the right to:

Review the Personal Information we have collected from your child
Request changes to inaccurate information
Request deletion of your child’s Personal Information
Refuse further collection — you can ask us to stop collecting data from your child (note: this may affect your child’s ability to use certain features)
Receive a copy of your child’s data in a portable format

If Your Child Uses BrainPOP Through a School

Because the school manages student accounts and is the custodian of Student Records under FERPA, requests to access, correct, or delete your child’s data should be directed to your child’s school or district. The school’s Administrator can review, modify, and delete student records directly through the BrainPOP dashboard.

Once we receive a request from the school, we will assist the school in completing it. If the school directs us to delete your child’s data, we will do so in accordance with the deletion schedule described in this policy. If you have difficulty reaching your school or need additional help, you are welcome to contact us at privacy@brainpop.com and we will work with you and the school together to resolve your request.

If Your Child Uses BrainPOP at Home

You can exercise these rights by contacting us directly at privacy@brainpop.com or by calling 866-54-BRAIN (866-542-7246). You may also delete your child’s account and data through the parent dashboard at any time.

For Schools and Districts

School and district Administrators can:

View all student accounts and data through the Administrator dashboard
Create, update, and delete individual student accounts at any time
Export student records (including names, classes, and quiz scores) by submitting a written request
Disable the AI Grading Tool at the school or district level

BrainPOP operates as a “school official” under FERPA and processes Student Records under the direct control of our school and district customers.

A Note About Data Minimization

Under COPPA, a child’s participation in any activity on BrainPOP cannot be conditioned on the child providing more Personal Information than is reasonably necessary for that activity. We follow this principle across all of our products.

How Long We Keep Children's Data

We keep children’s data only as long as needed to provide the educational service. Here are the specific timeframes:

Scenario	What Happens	Timeline
Home subscription expires	Account and data are automatically deleted	3 months after expiration
Subscription expires (school didn't delete)	Data retained, then deleted	6 months after expiration
2 years of inactivity	Student account and data are automatically deleted	Immediate + 14 days for backups
Student removed by Administrator	Account and data are deleted	7 days
Administrator deletes a student	Data removed from our servers; purged from backups	Immediate + 14 days for backups
Active subscription	Data is retained for the duration of the subscription	Ongoing

Once data is removed from our production servers and purged from backup servers, it cannot be restored.

Jurisdictional note: If your state or jurisdiction requires deletion within a shorter period, please use the Administrator dashboard to delete student records or contact us at legal@brainpop.com.

How We Protect Children's Data

We maintain a written information security program with administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect children’s Personal Information. Key measures include:

Encryption of data in transit (SSL/TLS) and at rest
Servers in secured, monitored U.S. data centers with daily backups
Access controls that limit who can see student records to authorized personnel on a need-to-know basis
Background checks and periodic privacy training for personnel with access to Student Records
Annual third-party security audits, including SOC 2 Type II certification

No system is completely secure. If we become aware of unauthorized access to children’s Personal Information, we will notify affected schools and families in accordance with applicable law.

Laws That Protect Children's and Students' Data

BrainPOP's data practices comply with the following federal and state laws:

Federal

COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), including the updated COPPA Rule effective June 23, 2025 — requires verifiable parental consent before collecting Personal Information from children under 13, limits data collection to what’s necessary, and gives parents the right to review and delete their child’s data.
FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) — protects the privacy of student education records and gives parents the right to access and correct their child’s records. BrainPOP operates under the “school official” exception and remains under the direct control of our school and district customers.

State Laws

In addition to federal law, we monitor and comply with applicable state privacy laws where our users are located. As new state laws are enacted or existing laws are amended, we update our practices accordingly.

International Users

BrainPOP’s servers are in the United States. All student and teacher data is stored and processed in the U.S. If you are outside the United States, please refer to our standalone GDPR Privacy Notice for information about how we comply with EU and UK data protection requirements.

Changes to This Policy

If we make material changes to how we collect, use, or share children’s or students’ data, we will notify school and district Administrators in advance by email. Where required by law, we will seek renewed consent before the changes take effect. If you do not consent to the changes, you may discontinue use of the services before the changes take effect.

We will not make retroactive material changes to how we handle previously collected student records without providing notice and obtaining appropriate consent.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this policy or how we handle your child's data, we'd like to hear from you:

Email: privacy@brainpop.com
Mail: BrainPOP, Attn: Legal Department, 71 W 23rd Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10010
Phone: 866-54-BRAIN (866-542-7246)
Help Center: help.brainpop.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
Security concerns: security@brainpop.com

This policy is also available in Spanish and French. In the event of any conflict, the English version shall prevail.

Children and Student Privacy Policy