Privacy Policy — Grade Lens

Plain-language summary: Grade Lens helps teachers digitize paper grade sheets. We collect only what's necessary to operate the product. We do not sell your data or your students' data. Images you upload are used solely to extract grading information and are never shared with third parties for advertising or profiling purposes.

Grade Lens ("we," "us," or "our") is a product operated by Grade Lens, Inc. This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, store, and protect information when you use our website at gradelens.com and our web, desktop, and mobile applications (collectively, the "Service").

By using Grade Lens, you agree to the practices described in this policy. If you are using Grade Lens on behalf of a school or district, the terms of any applicable Data Processing Agreement or school contract supplement this policy.

1 Information We Collect

Account information. When you sign up, we collect your name, email address, and password (stored as a secure hash). If you sign in via Google, we receive your name and email from Google's OAuth service.

Usage data. We collect information about how you use the Service — pages visited, features used, grade sheets created, and actions taken — to understand product performance and improve your experience.

Payment information. Billing and payment card details are handled entirely by our payment processor (Stripe). Grade Lens never stores your full card number. We retain transaction records such as plan type, billing dates, and invoice amounts.

Device and technical data. We automatically collect browser type, operating system, IP address, and session identifiers to operate and secure the Service.

Communications. If you contact support or send us feedback, we retain those communications to resolve issues and improve the product.

Category	Examples	Collected
Account	Name, email, hashed password, Google OAuth token	At sign-up / sign-in
Grade sheet data	Uploaded images, extracted scores, column names, class names, folder names	When you use the product
Usage	Feature interactions, page views, error logs	Automatically
Payment	Plan type, billing history (card data held by Stripe)	On subscription
Device	IP address, browser, OS, session ID	Automatically
Communications	Support emails, feedback submissions	When you contact us

2 How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

Provide, operate, and improve the Grade Lens Service
Process grade sheet images and return extracted data to you
Manage your account, subscription, and billing
Send transactional emails (receipts, password resets, service alerts)
Respond to support requests and resolve technical issues
Monitor for fraud, abuse, and security threats
Comply with legal obligations
With your consent, send product news and feature announcements (you can unsubscribe at any time)

We do not use your data for advertising. We do not sell, rent, or trade personal information to third parties for marketing purposes, and we do not allow advertisers to target you based on your use of Grade Lens.

3 Student Data & FERPA

Grade Lens is designed for use by teachers and education institutions. When teachers upload grade sheets, the resulting data may constitute education records as defined by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

Teacher responsibility. As the educator using Grade Lens, you are responsible for ensuring that your use of the Service complies with applicable laws, including FERPA, your school's data governance policies, and any applicable state privacy laws.

Our role. Grade Lens acts as a "school official" or "service provider" under FERPA when operating under a contract with a school or district. In that capacity, we:

Use student data only to provide the contracted educational service
Do not disclose student data to third parties without authorization
Do not use student data to build profiles for advertising or non-educational purposes
Support schools' rights to access, correct, and delete student records upon request

Minimization by design. Grade Lens is built to minimize the student data it touches. Student names and identifiers on grade sheets are processed only as needed to structure the resulting grade table and are not indexed, searched, or retained beyond your active account.

Schools and districts: If your institution requires a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) or a Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) agreement, please contact us at privacy@gradelens.com.

4 Image & Grade Data

When you photograph and upload a grade sheet or student worksheet, the image is transmitted securely to our servers and processed to extract tabular grade data. Here is how that data is handled:

Storage: Uploaded images are stored in encrypted cloud storage (Amazon S3) and are associated only with your account.
Processing: Images are analyzed using machine learning tools to identify rows, columns, and scores. This processing occurs within our controlled infrastructure.
Access: Only you (and, if applicable, members of your school or district account) can access your uploaded images and extracted data. Grade Lens staff may access images only for troubleshooting with your permission.
No third-party training: Your images and grade data are never used to train third-party AI models or shared with AI vendors for model improvement.
Deletion: When you delete a grade sheet, the source image and extracted data are removed from active storage. Deletion from backups occurs within 30 days.

5 Sharing & Disclosure

We do not sell your personal information. We share data only in the following limited circumstances:

Service providers. We work with a small number of trusted vendors to operate Grade Lens, including cloud infrastructure (AWS), payment processing (Stripe), error monitoring, and email delivery. These vendors are contractually bound to process data only as directed by us and may not use it for their own purposes.

School or district administrators. If your account is part of an Enterprise plan managed by your school or district, designated administrators may have access to account-level information such as usage statistics, seat counts, and grade sheet names (not contents) as permitted by your institution's agreement with us.

Legal requirements. We may disclose information if required to do so by law, court order, or valid legal process, or when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Grade Lens, our users, or the public.

Business transfers. If Grade Lens is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, user data may be transferred. We will notify you via email and/or a prominent notice on our website before your data is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Summary: Your data goes to you, your school if applicable, and the infrastructure vendors we need to run the service. That's it.

6 Data Retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Service. Specific retention practices:

Grade sheets and images: Retained until you delete them or close your account.
Account information: Retained until you request account deletion. After deletion, we remove personal identifiers within 30 days, except where we are required to retain records for legal or financial compliance (e.g., billing records retained for 7 years per tax law).
Usage logs: Aggregated and anonymized within 90 days; raw logs purged within 12 months.
Support communications: Retained for up to 3 years to support follow-up and quality assurance.

When an account is on the Free plan and has been inactive for 24 consecutive months, we may send a notice and delete the account and associated data if no response is received within 30 days of that notice.

7 Security

We take the security of your data seriously and employ industry-standard practices, including:

TLS encryption in transit for all data sent to and from Grade Lens
AES-256 encryption at rest for stored images and grade data
Role-based access controls limiting internal access to user data
Regular security reviews and dependency audits
Secure, hashed storage of passwords (we never store plain-text passwords)

No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure. If you believe your account has been compromised, please contact us immediately at security@gradelens.com.

8 Your Rights & Choices

Depending on your location, you may have rights with respect to your personal data. Regardless of location, we honor the following requests:

Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Correction: Update or correct inaccurate personal information (most account fields are editable directly in Settings).
Deletion: Request deletion of your account and associated personal data.
Portability: Export your grade sheets and data at any time via our CSV, XLSX, or PDF export features. You may also request a full data export by contacting us.
Opt-out of marketing: Unsubscribe from marketing emails at any time using the link in any such email, or by updating your notification preferences in Settings.

California residents (CCPA/CPRA): You have the right to know what personal information we collect, to delete it, to correct it, and to opt out of any sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell or share personal information as defined under the CCPA.

EEA/UK residents (GDPR/UK GDPR): In addition to the above, you have the right to restrict or object to certain processing, and to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. Our legal basis for processing your data is performance of a contract (providing the Service), legitimate interests (security, fraud prevention, product improvement), and in some cases, your consent.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at privacy@gradelens.com. We will respond within 30 days.

9 Children's Privacy

Grade Lens is a tool for teachers and education professionals. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13.

Student data processed through Grade Lens is submitted by teachers, not by students themselves. Students do not create Grade Lens accounts and do not interact with the Grade Lens interface. If you believe we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child under 13 in a way that violates COPPA, please contact us and we will promptly delete it.

10 Cookies & Tracking

We use a limited set of cookies and similar technologies:

Essential cookies: Required to operate the Service, maintain your session, and authenticate you. These cannot be disabled without breaking the product.
Analytics cookies: We use privacy-respecting analytics (with IP anonymization) to understand how teachers use the Service in aggregate. No cross-site tracking is used.
No advertising cookies: We do not use advertising cookies, retargeting pixels, or behavioral tracking technologies.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Disabling essential cookies will prevent you from signing in to Grade Lens.

11 Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will:

Update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page
Send an email notice to registered users

Continued use of Grade Lens after any changes constitutes your acceptance of the revised policy. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.

12 Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal data, please reach out:

Privacy inquiries

Contact form — privacy concern

We respond to all privacy requests within 30 days.