Privacy Policy

StoryMaker Privacy Policy

Thank you for visiting StoryMaker, which is located at https://www.story-maker.org (the “Platform”). This Platform is provided by PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs and provides educational resources for educators and their classrooms, for use in educational settings such as schools, libraries, after school programs and home school groups, or for educational use by educators and their classes from home.

This Privacy Policy only applies to the Platform. It describes how PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs and our affiliates (defined as distribution partners that provide access to the Platform, such as your local public broadcasting station or a regional or national educational content portal) collect and use information you provide to us while using this Platform. This Privacy Policy does not pertain to information you provide to us off-line or on any other websites. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully, and if you have any questions or concerns, you may contact us at admin@story-maker.org.

As the Platform develops, we may revise this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in the law, our practices, or the features of the Platform. Such changes will be effective immediately upon posting unless stated otherwise. As a result, you should periodically review this Privacy Policy so that you are up to date on our most current policies and practices. By using this Platform (including after any changes have been made), you consent to our treating your information consistent with the most recent Privacy Policy. We will also notify you of material changes or updates to our Privacy Policy by additional means, such as posting a notice on the front page of the Site or sending an e-mail to users with a verified StoryMaker account.

Collection of Information

We may ask adult, educator visitors to the Platform to provide some or all of the following types of information when they register for access to the Platform or directly contact us with feedback or suggestions:

• Contact information, such as name and email address;
• Username and password;
• Other demographic information, such as job information and zip code;
• Information for a public profile, such as school affiliation;
• Communications preferences;
• Secret question and answer;
• Search queries;
• Photos, audio files, or videos;
• Information posted in community discussions and other interactive online features; and
• Correspondence you send to us.

We also may collect certain information automatically when you visit the Platform, including:

• Your browser type and operating system;
• Your Internet Protocol (IP) address, which is the number automatically assigned to your computer whenever you access the Internet and that can sometimes be used to derive your general geographic area;
• Web pages you view and links you click on within the Platform;
• Unique identifiers, including mobile device identification numbers that can identify the physical location of such devices in accordance with applicable law;
• Information collected through cookies, web beacons, and other technologies;
• Information about your interactions with video content, such as the type of content viewed, and information about your interactions with email messages, such as the links clicked on and whether the messages were opened or forwarded; and
• Standard server log information.

If you access third-party services through the Platform, such as accessing Facebook, Google, or Twitter through the Platform to share information about your experience on the Platform with your connections on those services, we may collect information about you from those services. In accordance with their own privacy policies, these third-party services may be able to collect information about you, including about your activity on the Platform, and they may notify your connections on the third-party services that you are a StoryMaker user or about your use of the Platform.

If you choose to engage in public activities on the Platform, you should be aware that any information you submit there can be viewed, collected, or used by other users of these areas, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the information you choose to submit in these forums and public areas.

Use of Information

We generally use the information that we collect through the Platform to:

• Fulfill your requests for services and information;
• Enable you to participate in features such as the Educator Directory;
• Analyze the use of the Platform and information about visitors to StoryMaker and to understand and improve our service offerings, such as determining which pages are most popular, which browsers are most used, how long users spend on the Platform, and which websites they have come from;
• Customize the content you see when you visit the Platform, including to direct users to resources specific to a grade band and content area and to relevant curriculum standards;
• Prevent potentially prohibited or illegal activities, and otherwise use the collected information in accordance with the Terms of Use; and
• For any other purposes disclosed to you at the time we collect your information or pursuant to your consent.

Disclosure of Information

We disclose student data as explained below in the Children’s Privacy section. We may share information that is collected from you in the following circumstances:

• Authorized third-party service providers. In certain cases, we contract with other companies to provide services on our behalf. As a registered and verified user, we may share your information with these companies that provide services to us, including companies that assist with analytics, data processing, account management, and other services. These service providers may maintain customer databases with email addresses of Platform visitors who have provided them to us by registering at our Platform or signing up for email alerts. We (along with our service providers) will use these email addresses for the general purposes for which we collected the information, to provide services, and to operate the Platform, including to respond to inquiries and for email distribution, list processing and analysis, and promotions management. Our service providers have access to your information as necessary to provide certain services on our behalf. They are required to maintain the privacy of all such information in their possession or control, and can only use the information on our behalf for the purpose that we have contracted them--for example, sending you a newsletter. They are not authorized to use your information for any other purpose. We will not share your email address with any other unaffiliated organization unless otherwise described below.
• Legal requirements, safety, and security. We, and our service providers, may disclose your information when we have a good faith belief that it is necessary to: detect, prevent, and address fraud and other illegal activity; to protect ourselves and you from violations of our Terms of Use; to prevent death or imminent bodily harm; and to otherwise protect and defend our or our users’ legal rights, interests, property, and safety.
• With your consent. We otherwise may share your information with your consent.

We also may share aggregated or anonymized information with third parties, including to help us develop content and services that we hope you will find of interest or to help these third parties develop their own products and service offerings. This sharing of anonymized or aggregated information will not include information that could be used to individually identify you. We will not attempt to use this information to re-identify individuals, and will only share this information with third parties that similarly commit not to do so.

Protection of Information

We are committed to protecting your information. We have adopted commercially reasonable technical, administrative, and physical procedures to help protect your information from loss, misuse, and alteration. Please note that no data transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. We want you to feel confident using the Site but we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us.

Children’s Privacy

We are dedicated to handling any information obtained from children with care and respect.

• Collection. Students under the age of 13 may not provide their personal information or participate in activities involving the sharing of personal information without the consent of an educator, a parent, or as otherwise permitted by law. For example, a student may provide his or her name, e-mail address, submit student created work, or content in connection with an assignment in the school context. Students also may provide videos, audio files, or photographs in connection with an assignment. As described above in the section on Collection of Information, we also may automatically collect certain anonymized information from children when they visit our Platform.
• Use and disclosure. Consistent with an educator’s or parent’s consent or applicable law, we may use and disclose the personal information of children under the age of 13 for the purposes and in the manners described above in the sections on Use of Information and Disclosure of Information.
• Access. State departments of education, school districts, homeschoolers, parents, and school teachers or administrators may request to review the personal information of their students or children who are under the age of 13, to have this information deleted, or to refuse to permit further collection or use of their students’ or children’s personal information by emailing us at admin@story-maker.org.

If you have any questions about how we handle children’s personally identifiable information, please contact us at admin@story-maker.org. In addition, our contact information is provided below under Contact Us.

Use of Cookies and Other Technologies

Cookies are small amounts of data that are stored in separate files within your computer’s Internet browser. Cookies are accessed and recorded by the websites you visit so they can recognize the same browser navigating online. We use cookies to help us recognize your browser as a previous visitor and save and remember any preferences that may have been set while your browser was visiting the Platform; to help us customize the content you are shown while visiting the Platform; and to help measure and research the effectiveness of our interactive online content, features, and other communications.

We also may use standard Internet technology, such as web beacons and similar technologies, to track your use of the Platform. Web beacons (sometimes called transparent GIFs, clear GIFs, or web bugs) are small strings of code that provide a way for us to deliver a small graphic image (usually invisible) on a web page or in an email. Web beacons can recognize certain types of information on your computer such as cookies, the time and date a page is viewed, and a description of the page where the web beacon is placed. We use these technologies to improve your experience on the Platform, including to provide you with content customized to your interests and to understand whether users read email messages and click on links contained within those messages so that we can deliver relevant content and offers.

External Links and Third-Party Content

We enable you to access third-party content through the Platform and to navigate to third-party sites and services from links on the Platform. Whether the third-party content appears within our Platform (such as in an embedded video player) or you leave our Site to view the content on another website, the third party is in control of and independently produces, maintains, and monitors the content and third-party sites. When you watch third-party content that is made available through the Platform or navigate to such third-party sites, you become subject to the third party’s terms of use and privacy policies. You should review the privacy policies of these third-party sites for their policies and practices regarding the collection and use of your information as their policies may differ from ours. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices of third parties.

Contact Us

PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs

3939 Campbell Place

Arlington, Virginia 22206

admin@story-maker.org