Privacy notice
Effective October 29, 2026. This is our notice about children's information under the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and our privacy notice for everyone else. Plain words first. Questions? Write to andilata04@gmail.com.
The short version
- Kids never sign up on their own. A grown-up makes their account: a teacher, a parent or guardian, or a program leader.
- For a child, we keep only the name the grown-up types, a picture or word login secret, and their work in the lab.
- We never ask a child for an email, phone number, address, photo, voice recording, birthday or location.
- No ads. No trackers. No analytics. We never sell or rent anyone's information, and we don't use it to train AI.
- Nothing a child makes is public, and there's no chat.
- Grown-ups can delete a child's account at any time, and it's gone right away. Parents can ask us to see or delete their child's information.
Who runs ND Code
ND Code is made and run by Andi Lata, an independent developer. No school, district or company runs it, and no other operator collects information through it.
Andi Lata, operator of ND Code
Email: andilata04@gmail.com
Who it's for, and how consent works
ND Code is a coding lab for kids in kindergarten through 12th grade. Kids use it through an account that a grown-up 18 or older makes. When someone makes a grown-up account, we ask the year they were born. We check it and don't keep it, and anyone under 18 is turned away. There are three kinds of grown-up accounts:
| Account | Who gives consent for the kids |
|---|---|
| Teacher at a school | The school, in place of parents, for school use only. This is allowed under COPPA when information is used only for the school's educational purpose and never for anything commercial. Teachers confirm their school allows them to use ND Code. We use students' information only to provide the lab to the school. |
| Parent or guardian | The parent, before adding any children. We email a notice and a consent link. After the parent says yes, we email a confirmation about 24 hours later with a link to take consent back. This is the "email plus" method, which COPPA allows because we don't disclose children's information to third parties. |
| Program leader (tutors, clubs, camps, libraries) | Each child's parent. The leader gives us a parent's email for each child. We email that parent a notice and ask for consent. The child can't log in until the parent says yes, and the parent gets the same confirmation email. If the parent says no, or doesn't answer within 14 days, we delete the child's name and the parent's email. |
Anyone can try the first level without an account. Work on that free level stays in the visitor's own browser. We don't receive it.
What we collect
From and about children
| What | Where it comes from | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The child's name, as the grown-up typed it. A first name and last initial is enough. | The grown-up | So the child can find their name on the login screen, and the grown-up can see who's who. |
| A login secret: two or three pictures, or two words and a number. | We make it | So the child can log in without an email or password. It's stored encrypted. |
| Work in the lab: levels finished, the code the child writes, points, streak days, stickers, practice results, and the name and hat the child picks for their robot. | The child | To save progress, give rewards, and show the grown-up how the child is doing. Code can include words a child types, like what the robot says. |
| Settings, like text size, reading font, read aloud or calm mode, including supports a grown-up turns on. | The child or grown-up | So the lab looks and works the way that helps the child. We store the setting only, never the reason for it. |
| Learning signals: how many times code was run, hints opened, steps broken down, and time to the first block. | The lab, as the child works | So the grown-up can see who might need a check-in. |
| A session cookie and the device's IP address. | The browser | To keep the child logged in for one school day and to keep the site secure. See internal operations below. |
Read aloud uses the voice built into the child's device. No audio is recorded or sent to us. The study room, if a grown-up turns it on, shows a child that others in their group are coding. It shows no names, no code and no messages, and it's kept in memory for a few minutes only.
What we never collect from children
Email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, photos, video, voice recordings, birthdays, location, contacts, or anything from the child's other apps. There is no chat, no public profile, and no way for a child to post anything publicly.
From grown-ups
Your name, email, password (stored only as a scrambled hash), the kind of account, your school or program name if you give one, and your class names. For program accounts, the parent emails you give us. We keep a record of each consent: who gave it, when, and which version of this notice they saw. We also keep a security log of account actions, like logins and deletes.
If you choose Sign up with Google or Log in with Google, Google tells us your name, your email address, whether Google has confirmed that address, and an ID number for your Google account. We use them only to make your account and log you in, and we keep the ID number so you can log in with Google next time. We never get your Google password, and we don't keep Google's access token. Nothing from Google loads on our pages: Google only hears from you after you press the button and go to Google's own sign-in page, where Google's privacy policy applies. Kids can't use Google to log in.
How we use information
- To run the coding lab, save and sync progress, and give kids feedback and rewards.
- To show a child's grown-up their progress and who might need help.
- To send grown-ups the emails their account needs: confirming an email, asking for or confirming consent, and resetting a password. We never email children.
- To keep the site secure and working, and to fix problems.
We don't show ads, including targeted ads. We don't sell, rent or trade information. We don't build profiles of children for anything except running the lab for them. We don't use children's information to train AI models. We don't use analytics services or third-party cookies, and our fonts load from our own server.
Internal operations
The session cookie and IP addresses are used only to support the site's internal operations: keeping people logged in, limiting repeated login attempts, protecting against fraud and abuse, and keeping the site running. They're never used to contact a child, to build a profile, or for advertising. The cookie holds a random code; our database stores only a scrambled version of it.
Who sees it
- The child's grown-up (teacher, parent or program leader) sees the child's name, login card, progress and settings.
- Render hosts the site and stores the database, in Virginia, United States. It stores the information for us and can't use it for its own purposes.
- Google, only for grown-ups who choose to sign in with Google: Google confirms who you are and tells us your name and email. We send Google nothing about children.
- Resend sends our emails. It receives the grown-up's email address and the email's words. In a consent request, those words include the child's name. It can't use them for its own purposes.
- The law: we'd share information only if the law requires it, or to protect a child's safety.
That's everyone. We don't disclose children's information to any other third party. If ND Code ever moved to a new owner, we'd tell grown-ups first, and the new owner would have to follow this notice or ask for new consent.
How long we keep it: our data retention policy
We keep children's information only as long as it's needed to run the lab for that child. These rules run automatically every hour. The numbers below come straight from the settings the code uses.
| Information | Deleted when |
|---|---|
| A child's account and all its work | Right away when a grown-up deletes it, when a parent takes back consent, or when the grown-up's account is deleted. Automatically after 1 year without a login. |
| A child waiting for a parent's consent, and that parent's email | Right away if the parent says no. Automatically after 14 days with no answer. |
| A family or program account that never confirmed its email | After 7 days. |
| A grown-up's account, with its classes and children's accounts | Right away when they delete it. Automatically after 2 years without a login. |
| Consent records | With the account they belong to. |
| Email links | They stop working after 1 hour (password reset) up to 400 days (taking back consent). Removed 7 days after they expire or are used. |
| Login sessions | Kids: after 8 hours. Grown-ups: after 14 days without use, or at log out. |
| Security log of account actions | After 400 days. It doesn't contain children's work. |
| Daily backup copies of the database | After 7 days, so deleted information is gone from backups within 7 days too. |
| Web server logs, including IP addresses | Kept by Render for a limited time set by its plan, then deleted. |
| Year of birth on sign-up | Never stored. |
| A sign-in with Google that's in progress | After 10 minutes, or as soon as it finishes. |
| Free-level work by visitors | Never sent to us. It stays in the visitor's browser until they clear it. |
Parents' rights
If you're a child's parent or guardian, you can at any time:
- See the information we hold about your child, and get a copy as a file.
- Have it deleted.
- Refuse to let us collect or use any more of it. That ends your child's account.
- Take back your consent. The link in your confirmation email does this instantly.
Family accounts can do all of this from their own dashboard. Otherwise, write to andilata04@gmail.com, or ask the teacher or program leader, who can download or delete a child's information right away. Before we share a child's information with someone who writes to us, we take reasonable steps to make sure they're the child's parent, for example by checking with the teacher or the parent email on file. We answer within 10 business days, and usually much sooner.
For schools
When a teacher uses ND Code for school, we act for the school. Student information is used only for the school's educational purpose. We don't use it for advertising, sell it, or build profiles for anything outside the lab, in line with state student privacy laws like California's SOPIPA. If a school treats ND Code as a school official under FERPA, we use student records only as the school directs. Teachers can export or delete any student's information right away. Schools that need a data privacy agreement can write to andilata04@gmail.com.
Schools should decide which tools teachers use, and we encourage telling families. Each class has a printable letter for families that explains ND Code in plain words.
How we protect it
- Every connection uses HTTPS.
- Passwords are stored only as scrypt hashes. Kids' login secrets are encrypted. Login sessions are stored as hashes.
- Repeated wrong logins lock an account for a while. A strict content security policy blocks code from other sites.
- The database is backed up daily, and old backups are deleted on schedule.
- We follow a written information security program. Andi Lata is responsible for it, and it's reviewed at least once a year.
No system is perfect. If something ever went wrong with children's information, we'd tell the affected schools and families quickly and do what the law requires.
Information is stored in the United States. ND Code is meant for people in the United States.
Cookies and browser storage
We use one cookie, to keep you logged in. It isn't used for tracking. If you sign in with Google, a second cookie holds a random code for up to 10 minutes, to make sure the sign-in finishes in the same browser that started it. The lab also saves settings and progress in the browser's own storage, so it loads fast and works through short internet drops.
Changes to this notice
If we change this notice, we'll update the date at the top. If a change affects how we collect, use or share children's information, we'll email the grown-ups who have accounts first, and ask parents for new consent where the law requires it.
Contact
Andi Lata, andilata04@gmail.com.