Formative allows teachers to create assignments for students and receive personalized feedback on learning outcomes in real time. The terms of Formative state they provide certain features that may allow users to share information with other users. For example, a teacher may choose to populate their profile with their name, school, and the grades and subjects that they teach. The terms of Formative state they collect “personally identifiable information” or “personal data” from users such as their full name, or email address that can be used to identify a user. Formative's terms state that to protect users' privacy and security, they take reasonable steps to verify a user's identity before granting them account access or making corrections to their information. Lastly, the terms of Formative state that if a user registers for the service and provides their personal information, they can update their account and information at any time by reviewing, modifying, or deleting their profile information.

Formative can be accessed through its website. The Privacy Policy, Data Processing Agreement, and Terms of Use used for this evaluation can be found on Formative's website. This evaluation only considers policies that have been made publicly available prior to an individual using the application or service.

Safety

The terms of Formative state they provide certain features that may allow users to share information with other Users. For example, a teacher may choose to populate their profile with their name, school, and the grades and subjects that they teach. Or teachers may ask questions that are visible to other users of Formative. The terms specify that Formative contains user-generated content, and also may contain message boards, personal web pages, forums or other interactive features. However, the terms state that student Uuers cannot post to public discussion forums and their profile is not shared publicly, and only the parent and other permitted teachers can see the student user’s profile. Lastly, the terms state that parents and teachers should be aware that a student user may enter free-form text which could include personal information that would be visible to other Users.

Privacy

The terms of Formative state they collect “personally identifiable information” or “personal data” from users such as their full name, email address, or a photograph that can be used to identify a user. Formative's terms also specify that in order to provide a personalized learning and high-quality experience for their users, they may use various technologies that automatically collect certain non-personal information from their browser or device. In addition, the terms state that Formative may work with business partners to improve their services or offerings and may disclose automatically collected and other information to authorized business partners to conduct research on online education or assist in understanding the usage, viewing, and demographic patterns for certain programs, content, services, promotions, and/or functionality.

Formative's terms also state they will never provide behaviorally-targeted ads to students and will not rent or sell personal information that they collect from users with third parties. Lastly, Formative's terms state they will not share personal information or other non-personal technical information with other third-party organizations for their marketing or promotional use without users' consent or except as part of a specific program or feature for which users will have the ability to opt-in.

Security

Formative's terms state that to protect users' privacy and security, they take reasonable steps to verify a user's identity before granting them account access or making corrections to their information. In addition, Formative's terms specify they use certain physical, managerial, and technical safeguards designed to preserve the integrity and security of users' personal information. Formative's terms state that it is operated and managed on servers located within the United States.

The terms also specify when users enter sensitive information, they encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL) or similar technologies, but do not disclose whether users' information is also encrypted while at rest. Formative's terms state that if they learn of a data security incident that compromises or appears to compromise users' Personal Information, then they will attempt to notify users electronically so that they can take appropriate protective steps. In addition, Formative may also post a notice on their service if a data security incident occurs.

Compliance

The terms of Formative state that if a user registers for the service and provides personal information, they can update their account and information at any time by reviewing, modifying, or deleting their profile information. In addition, the terms state a parent can modify or delete student user accounts or remove student users from view of a teacher. Formative's terms specify they also take measures to restrict any collection or disclosure of personal information from children less than 13 years of age. A student can be registered to use the service through his or her school, or through an integration with the service that is supported by the student’s school, or by teachers, tutors and other similar adults who assist in the educational process who have taken steps to obtain parental consent.

In addition, Formative's terms state that in compliance with COPPA and FERPA, parents have the ability to control information about their student user and can refuse future collection or use of their child’s personal information, or they can delete their student user’s account or contact Formative to do so on their behalf.