Privacy Notice

Overview

e4usa recognizes and values the privacy of the community members and its guests and strives to be leaders and set the standard in which we manage personal information.

In principle, e4usa strives to:

Collect, store, and use the minimum amount of personal information necessary for its legitimate business purposes, and to comply with legal obligations.
Take reasonable steps to ensure the personal information managed is accurate and up-to-date.
Limit who has access to personal information in our possession to only those who need it for a legitimate, specific purpose.
Protect personal information through appropriate physical and technical security measures tailored to the sensitivity of the personal data we hold.
Communicate with our students, faculty, employees, suppliers, partners, and others about how we use personal information in our day-to-day operations.
Transparency is one of our core principles for using personal information for the purposes for which it was collected.
Provide opportunities to control personal information, as permitted by applicable United States and other laws.
Integrate privacy in the design of our activities when that involves the use of personal data.

Our Accountability

At e4usa, we strive to appropriately manage, secure, and keep private and confidential the personal data entrusted to us. We do not share your personal information without affirmative consent. We never sell your personal information.

With specific regards to mobile phone numbers, no mobile phone number information will be shared with third parties/affiliates for marketing/promotional purposes. All other categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.

MyDesign Learning Management System

e4usa operates MyDesign, a web-based learning management system (LMS) purpose-built to support engineering design education in participating school districts. MyDesign enables students and educators to collaborate on design projects through features such as project teams, virtual collaboration spaces, ePortfolios, scoring rubrics, and student-teacher communication tools. MyDesign can operate as a standalone platform or integrate with existing district LMS platforms (such as Canvas or Blackboard) using standard protocols like LTI, JWT, and OIDC.

We recognize that school districts entrust us with student and educator data, and we take that responsibility seriously. This section describes how we collect, use, store, and protect personal information within MyDesign.

Data We Collect

MyDesign collects the following categories of information from students and educators:

Account information: Names, email addresses, school affiliation, and role (student or educator).
Student work and coursework: Design projects, assignments, submissions, ePortfolio content, and related materials that students create or upload within the platform.
Usage data: Information about how users interact with MyDesign, including pages visited, features used, and time spent on activities. This data helps us improve the platform and support teaching and learning.

How We Use This Data

We use the personal information collected through MyDesign solely for the following purposes:

Providing and operating the MyDesign learning platform for participating school districts.
Supporting instruction, coursework, and assessment within e4usa programs.
Improving the platform's functionality, performance, and educational effectiveness.
Communicating with educators and district administrators about their accounts and the platform.
Complying with applicable legal obligations.

We do not use student personal information for advertising or marketing purposes. We do not sell student personal information. We do not build profiles of students for purposes unrelated to their education.

FERPA Compliance

MyDesign operates in compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). When a school district partners with e4usa and uses MyDesign, e4usa functions as a "school official" with a "legitimate educational interest" under FERPA, as defined in the district's annual FERPA notification or as specified in our agreement with the district.

Under this relationship:

Education records within MyDesign remain under the control of the school district.
e4usa accesses and uses student education records only for the purposes authorized by the district.
Parents and eligible students retain all rights under FERPA, including the right to inspect, review, and request amendment of education records. These requests should be directed to the student's school district, which will coordinate with e4usa as needed.

State Student Privacy Laws

e4usa is committed to complying with applicable state student privacy laws in the jurisdictions where participating school districts are located. We work with districts to meet their obligations under state-specific requirements, including entering into data privacy agreements where required by state law.

Third-Party Services and Hosting

MyDesign is hosted entirely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure. AWS processes data on our behalf under a data processing agreement. Student data is not transmitted outside the e4usa environment except over encrypted HTTPS connections.

We do not share student personal information with any other third parties except as necessary to operate the platform, as required by law, or with the explicit consent of the school district.

Data Security

e4usa has completed a SOC 2 Type 2 audit, conducted by an independent auditor, covering the security of the MyDesign platform. School districts may request a copy of our SOC 2 report by contacting us; a non-disclosure agreement is required prior to release. We implement administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect personal information, including:

Encryption: All data is encrypted in transit and at rest.
Access controls: Role-based access following the principle of least privilege, with quarterly access reviews.
Monitoring and threat detection: Continuous monitoring of infrastructure and application security.
Vulnerability management: Regular vulnerability scanning with defined remediation timelines based on severity.
Incident response: A documented incident response plan with defined escalation procedures.
Personnel security: Background checks for employees with access to student data, along with annual security awareness training.
Risk assessments: Annual formal risk assessments to identify and address potential threats to data security.

Data Retention and Deletion

We retain student personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the educational purposes for which it was collected or as required by our agreement with the school district. When a district's participation ends or upon a district's request, we will delete or de-identify student personal information in accordance with our data retention policies and applicable law.

School districts may request the deletion of student data at any time by contacting us using the information provided in the "Contact Us" section of this notice.

District and Parent Rights

School districts partnering with e4usa may:

Request access to student education records maintained within MyDesign.
Request correction of inaccurate student information.
Request deletion of student data.
Receive information about our data collection and privacy practices.

Parents and eligible students who wish to exercise their rights under FERPA or applicable state law should contact their school district, which will work with e4usa to fulfill those requests.

Website Analytics

e4usa uses the following tools to help us understand how visitors interact with our website:

Google Tag Manager: We use Google Tag Manager to manage and deploy tracking scripts on our website. Google Tag Manager itself does not collect or store your personal data. It simply helps us manage other tools like Plausible Analytics.
Plausible Analytics: We use Plausible Analytics to collect anonymous usage statistics about our website. Plausible is a privacy-friendly analytics tool that does not use cookies and does not collect any personally identifiable information. The data collected includes anonymous information such as page views, referrer sources, and general geographic location (country level only).
PostHog: We use PostHog to help us understand user behavior and improve our website experience. PostHog collects anonymous information about how visitors interact with our site, including page views, feature usage, and user flows. This tool helps us identify areas for improvement while respecting user privacy. We've configured PostHog to minimize data collection and anonymize user information.

We use this anonymous information to improve our website's content and user experience. We do not use this data to personally identify you, and we do not combine it with other personal information. All analytics data is stored securely and is only accessible to authorized e4usa personnel.

Cookies and Similar Technologies

Our website uses only essential cookies necessary for the website to function properly. We respect your "Do Not Track" browser settings.

Through our consent management system, we ask for your permission before loading any non-essential scripts or cookies. You can change your preferences at any time by clicking on the "Privacy Preferences" link in the footer of our website.

Contact Us

If you have any inquiries or requests, please contact us here.

In order to be able to reply to requests for the exercise of rights, and if we are not certain of your identity, we may need to ask you for further identification data to be used only for the purposes of replying to your request.