Effective starting: August 4, 2022
The following policy applies to the MyOnlineIPT® website together with our services (hereinafter referred as "Site" or "Services") operated by Ballard & Tighe, Publishers, a division of Educational IDEAS, Inc., (hereinafter referred as "B&T" or "We"). Your privacy is important to us and so is being transparent about how we collect, store, use, and share information about you. It is important to note that our services are intended for use by organizations, making you an end user. This means that the privacy policies of the organization that tests you also influence your data privacy.
This Privacy Policy governs our storage and use of Your Personal Data in our database. Personal Data includes information that can identify you as a specific individual, such as your name. Personal Data does not include aggregate or statistical information. If you do not agree with this policy, do not access or use our Services.
We store information about you when your school or educational institution provides it to us so that a test can be assigned to you and when you use our services by taking an IPT test.
Personal information about students is entered into the B&T database by districts, schools, or educational institutions that use the OnlineIPT when assessing their students’ language proficiency. Such information includes the student’s name, student ID, birthdate, grade, gender, ethnicity, country of birth, primary language, and school. It may also include indicators for native English speaker, native Spanish speaker, economically disadvantaged, migrant, and limited English proficient status if the institution decides to use these variables.
During testing and scoring, B&T collects and stores the student’s test responses and scores.
Server Logs
When you visit the Site, like most websites, our servers automatically record the page requests made when you visit our sites. These “server logs” typically include your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser. This information is analyzed in an anonymous form. It is used solely for the purpose of improving the attractiveness, content, and functionality of our website.
Internet Cookies
When you visit the Site, our servers send a cookie to your computer or device. Standing alone, cookies do not personally identify you; they merely recognize your Web browser. Our website needs you to enable cookies in order for it to work.
For test administration and score reporting
We use student demographic information and test responses to properly score the student, create score reports, provide diagnostic information on strengths and weaknesses, and report scores in groups by demographic characteristics. Without reference to information related to student names, we may also use the same data for scaling and norming purposes and improving the quality of the test.
For research and development
We are always looking for ways to make our Services smarter, faster, more secure, integrated, and useful to you. B&T uses this assessment data for internal business purposes. Student information in an aggregated and anonymous form may be used for statistical analysis purposes and research aimed at improving the quality of the test.
- We need it to provide you or your educational institution our Services, such as testing and score reporting;
- It satisfies a legitimate interest (which is not overridden by your data protection interests), such as for research and development, and to protect our legal rights and interests; or
- We need to process your data to comply with a legal obligation.
If you have consented to our use of information about you for a specific purpose, you have the right to change your mind at any time, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place. Where we are using your information because we or a third party (i.e., your educational institution) have a legitimate interest to do so, you have the right to object to that use though, in some cases, this may mean no longer using our Services.
We store your information in a secure data center located in the United States. Our Site is configured with data encryption, or scrambling technologies and scalable, high-performance firewalls. We also use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology that protects the data you send over the Internet.
While we implement safeguards designed to protect your information, no security system is impenetrable and due to the inherent nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee that data, during transmission through the Internet or while stored on our systems or otherwise in our care, is absolutely safe from intrusion by others. We have taken several steps to safeguard the integrity of the data and prevent unauthorized access to information maintained by us. These measures are designed and intended to prevent corruption of data, block unknown or unauthorized access to our systems and information, and to provide reasonable protection of private information.
Protecting Your Privacy
We take every step possible to protect your privacy. We also employ security measures to protect personal information in storage. The data will always remain protected. We will not provide any personal information to other companies or individuals without your permission and we will not sell your personal information to anyone.
B&T may disclose to authorized law enforcement personnel the personal data from anyone who poses a threat. This might include those that are attempting to commit fraud or those who conduct activities that could bring harm to others.
B&T does not sell information about you to advertisers or other third parties.
Student information is accessible to authorized users within the educational institution that assigned the student’s test. Score reports may be shared within the educational institution according to the institution’s assessment and reporting policies. Student information is not shared between school accounts unless the account administrator or examiner is assigned the same role for both schools in question. Within a district account, student information from all schools is shared with the district account owner and district-level examiners.
We will retain your Personal Data for as long as the information is needed by the educational institution that assigned your test and as described in the Terms and Conditions of Use. You may request to delete your Personal Data by first contacting your educational institution. The institution will resolve any reporting obligations that it has and may then forward the request to us. Unless otherwise required by law, we will then delete the personal data within 30 days of receiving your request.
We will not, without your prior consent, disclose Personal Information we store about you to any other party than your educational institution. Further, we do not sell, rent, or trade your Personal Information to any other third parties except as required by law or permitted under the Privacy Act.
When collecting your information, your data is encrypted before it is stored in our cloud services located in the United States. The encryption is used to protect the data that you don’t want anyone else to have access to. Thus, cross-border data flows cannot take place without collecting and sending personal data across borders.
You have the right to control our use of your personal information. You have the right to request a copy of your personal information, to object to our use of your information, to request the deletion or restriction of your information, or to request your information in a structured, electronic format. However, our products are intended for use by organizations, making you an end user. This means that the privacy policies of the organization that tests you also influence your data privacy. Please contact your educational institution to assist with your requests. We are not responsible for the privacy or security practices of our client organizations, which may be different than this policy.
B&T reserves the right to modify this privacy statement at any time. In the event that any changes are made, we will promptly update this Privacy Policy. Please check the latest information posted in this Site to inform yourself of any changes. Your continued use of the Web site following changes to this policy will indicate that you accept the changes.
Questions regarding this Privacy Policy or the information practices of the Services should be directed to OnlineIPT Privacy by e-mailing or by mailing us at:
Ballard & Tighe, Publishers
Re: OnlineIPT Privacy
471 Atlas Street
Brea, Ca 92821
(800) 321-4332/ (714) 990-4332
feedback@ballard-tighe.com