Why we publish these
For ten years, school software companies signed an industry Student Privacy Pledge. That program was retired in April 2025 and takes no new signatories. The commitments were good ones, so we make the same twelve here in our own words, as a public statement about how Evident treats student personal information.
A public commitment like this is not a certification and does not replace the agreement we sign with each school. It is a representation to the teachers, families and schools who rely on us, and representations of this kind are enforceable by the consumer-protection and data-protection authorities in the places we operate. That is the point of writing them down.
What we commit to
1. We collect, keep, use and share student personal information only as needed to provide the service the school asked for, or as the school or family authorizes.
Evident has no field for a Social Security number, date of birth, home address, financial information, biometric data or device location, and recommends display names over full names. The data elements we hold are listed in the privacy policy and in the data-elements exhibit of our agreement with each school. What we collect.
2. We never sell student personal information.
Not to anyone, not in any form, and not as part of a change of ownership except to a successor bound by these same commitments. Our agreement with each school says so in writing. Data processing agreement.
3. We never use student information, personal or otherwise, to target advertising to students or families, and Evident shows no advertising at all.
There are no advertising cookies, pixels or ad networks anywhere in the product, the extension or the mobile app. Product analytics are pseudonymous, masked on student-data screens, and switched off entirely on the pages families open. How analytics are limited.
4. We do not build a profile of a student for any purpose other than the educational work the school authorized.
Progress charts and narratives exist only inside the record the teacher keeps for the school. AI assistance drafts a single document on request, with the student's name removed first, is reviewed by a teacher before it can be shared, and is never used to train a model or to infer anything about a student beyond that document. How AI assistance is bounded.
5. We do not make material changes to how student information is handled without telling the school first and giving it a choice.
Schools receive 30 days' written notice of any material change to the privacy policy, to how student data is used, or to the list of sub-processors, and may end the agreement without penalty on a reasonable objection. The privacy policy carries a version date and a public changelog. Privacy policy and its version.
6. We do not knowingly keep student personal information longer than the school's purpose requires.
Deleted notes are purged after 30 days. Audit entries lose IP and browser details after 90 days and are deleted after 24 months. A deleted account is removed from backups within 30 days. At the end of an agreement every student record the school holds with us is disposed of within 60 days, with written confirmation. Retention schedule.
8. We say clearly, in language a parent or teacher can understand, what student information we collect, why, and who else touches it.
The privacy policy lists the data we hold and what each piece is for. The sub-processor list names every company that can touch student data, what it does, and where it operates, for each deployment. Both are public and linked from every page. Sub-processor list.
9. We support a student's or family's right to see and correct their information, by helping the school meet its obligations.
Teachers and school administrators can view, edit, export (JSON and PDF) and delete any student record at any time, without asking us. A family that contacts us directly is referred to the school, which holds the record, and we help the school respond within 30 days. Access, export and deletion.
10. We maintain a security program designed to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of student personal information, appropriate to how sensitive it is.
Encryption at rest and in transit, row-level security on every table that holds student data, multi-factor authentication, an insert-only audit log, automated tests on every change, an annual security assessment, a published vulnerability disclosure policy, and a commitment to notify the school within 24 hours of becoming aware of a breach. Security overview.
11. We require every vendor that handles student personal information on our behalf to meet these same commitments.
Each sub-processor is bound by a written agreement that it may not sell student data and must protect it no less strictly than we do. The list is public, per deployment, and schools get 30 days' notice before any addition. Sub-processors.
12. If Evident is ever acquired or merged, the successor will be bound by these same commitments for the information already collected.
Our agreements with schools bind any successor in interest, require written notice to the school within 60 days of a change of control, and let the school end the agreement and have its data disposed of if it is not satisfied. Our exit plan describes how a school gets its data out at any time. Compliance center.
What these words mean
- Student personal information is any information that identifies a student, or that is linked to an identifiable student, in Evident: names, goals, progress and behavior entries, notes, and anything a family writes back through a shared link.
- The school is the educational institution or agency, and its staff, that uses Evident to support a student. Where a teacher uses Evident without a school-wide agreement, the teacher stands in for the school in these commitments and remains bound by their own school's policies.
- Authorized purposes are the educational and school-operations purposes the school, the teacher or the family asked Evident to support. Nothing here prevents a teacher from using what they recorded to help the student in front of them; everything here prevents us from using it for anything else.
- These commitments apply to both Evident deployments, the United States one and the European one, and to the web application, the browser extension and the mobile app.
If these commitments change
We will only ever change this page to make a commitment stronger or clearer, or to describe a control more accurately. Any change that would weaken a commitment counts as a material change to how student information is handled, and schools receive 30 days' written notice before it takes effect, with the right to end their agreement instead. The date at the top of the page is the date of the last change.
Hold us to it
If you believe Evident has fallen short of any of these commitments, tell us. We read every message and respond within ten business days.