NovaKwest Privacy Principles
Our Privacy Policy is fueled by our commitment to these Privacy Principles:
- We’re deeply committed to creating a safe and secure online environment for you.
- We do not sell your personal information to third parties. We established NovaKwest as a nonprofit organization so that our mission of education and your trust will not be in conflict with a for-profit motive.
- We strive to provide you with access to and control over the information you give us, and we take the protection of your information very seriously.
- We take extra precautions for our younger learners as including restricting child accounts to automatically block features that would allow a child to post or disclose personal information.
- We do not display third party advertising on NovaKwest. Our mission is to provide you with a world class education, not to sell you products.
Overview
NovaKwest, Inc. (“NovaKwest”, “our”, “us”, or “we”) is a US-based charitable nonprofit organization. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, we use the information we collect to provide you with a better experience and fulfill our mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. We established ourselves as a nonprofit organization so that a for-profit motive will not interfere with our mission of providing a trusted educational resource.
We are committed to protecting your privacy. We understand how important privacy is to you, and we are committed to protecting your privacy and to creating a safer environment for learners of all ages. This Privacy Policy explains how information is collected, used, disclosed, and protected by NovaKwest when you use (or access) our website at www.novakwest.com, our mobile application, and online service (collectively, our “Service”).
Note: For each section in this Privacy Policy, you can view the general privacy practices at the beginning of the section, and see more information by reviewing “Learn More” for the relevant section.
Contact NovaKwest
Please contact NovaKwest with any questions or comments.
By email: kwestnova@gmail.com
By mail: RM 701, UNIT 127, 7/F, TWR B
NEW MANDARIN PLAZA 14 SCIENCE
MUSEUM RD TSIM SHA TSUI
HONG KONG
Collection of information
We collect information in the following ways, depending on your use of the Service and your account settings:
- We collect information from you directly, such as when you create an account, communicate with us, participate in activities, events or surveys, or otherwise provide information during your use of the Service.
- We may collect information from others, such as your parent, teacher, or School, or third parties (meaning organizations outside of NovaKwest), such as third party applications that you use to connect to the Service.
- We collect some information automatically, such as information about your use of the Service and the devices you use to access the Service. We may use cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies to collect information.
Examples of information we may collect includes:
- Account registration information (username, birthdate, and email)
- Information about your browser or device, and general location
- Information you choose to include in your profile or post in public areas of the Service
- Information you may provide in connection with specific features or special programs
- Non-personal information which may be linked to your personal information, including Information about your use of our Service
Use of information
NovaKwest uses information collected for the purposes of:
- providing the Service
- personalizing your experience
- communicating with you about your account and our Service (including responding to inquiries and sharing information about new features and offerings that may be of interest)
- enabling your participation in special programs that we may offer in partnerships with third parties (if you choose to participate in such special programs)
- understanding and improving our Service, and developing new or improved educational offerings
We may also use non-personal data elements (such as de-identified, anonymized or aggregated usage information and feedback) for product development, research, analytics and other purposes, including for the purpose of analyzing, improving or marketing our Service, for demonstrating the impact of our Service, or conducting educational research.
Disclosure of information
NovaKwest takes great care to protect the personal information you provide to us. We do not sell your personal information to third parties. This section explains circumstances in which we may disclose personal information with third parties.
We may disclose personal information:
- with other users of our Service, if you use features that enable you to share your information with (or make it accessible to) others.
- with vendors, consultants and other service providers working on our behalf
- with other users that are associated with your account, such as a parent, teacher or coach.
- with your consent (including third party applications that you choose to use, such as complementary services or an Authentication Service). If you choose to use a third party application or service, the use of your information by the third party will be governed by that party’s privacy policy.
- in connection with business transfers (due to mergers and acquisitions).
- for compliance purposes, such as when reasonably necessary to protect the security and safety of our users or Service, or when permitted by law.
We may also disclose de-identified or aggregated information that does not reasonably identify any individual.
Retention of Personal Information
Our practice is to retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to provide our services to you, including maintaining your account on NovaKwest. In determining how long we retain your personal data, we consider how keeping the information will assist the learner (or the school, in the case of school accounts), our legal requirements and other business needs. Our retention periods will vary depending on the type of data involved, but, generally, we consider these factors in determining how long we retain personal data:
- Whether the data is needed to maintain an account on NovaKwest
- Whether the data is needed to support an educational purpose
- Whether we have a contractual requirement to retain the data
- Whether we have a need to retain data for legitimate business purposes such as for recordkeeping or to prevent fraud or abuse.
- Whether the data as necessary for processing purchases and resolving matters relating to payments, subscriptions or donation
- Whether our users have the ability to access and delete their data, and
- Whether our users would reasonably expect that we would retain the data until their NovaKwest account is closed or terminated, or they request deletion.
When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal Information, our policy is to delete or de-identify the data. We may retain and use de-identified or anonymized data for longer periods for purposes such as product development, research, analytics and for demonstrating the impact of our Service.
Sponsorship and Advertising
As a nonprofit organization, NovaKwest relies on our sponsors, donors, and other contributors to provide funding necessary to provide the free Service to our users. From time to time, we permit third parties to sponsor content displayed on our Service.
- For example, for-profit organizations may wish to sponsor all content related to a particular educational topic, such as astronomy or biology.
- Sponsored content will always be labeled (e.g., “Sponsored by ___”).
- NovaKwest does not disclose any of your personal information with these sponsors without your consent. We do not provide these sponsors with the ability to track or collect information about our site visitors or users.
NovaKwest does not display third party advertisements on our Service. We may, from time to time, incorporate content or link to content provided by third parties that may be of interest to you and relevant to the educational context of our Service. Some of these materials or websites may include branding or advertisements as permitted by the third party owner or operator. We take steps to avoid the collection of information for targeted advertising purposes when we believe the Service is being used by Students or Children.
- For example, we avoid use of tracking technology on webpages with child-directed content, and we do not use tracking technology for third party advertising.
Transparency and your choice
We take privacy very seriously. We strive to put you in control of the choices and decisions regarding your personal information.
We understand that your personal information is important to you, and that is why you have choices in how your personal information is used and disclosed. We want you to have access to your personal information, so that you can help keep it as accurate as possible.
For example, you can choose whether to create an account (or use the Service without registering). If you register for an account, you can:
- Limit optional information you provide
- Choose whether you wish to disclose personal information with (and use) third party services
- Choose whether to add a coach to your account
- Choose whether you wish to receive optional email
- Update, correct, and delete your account information through your account settings
Your account settings
We want you to have access to your information, so that you can help keep it as accurate as possible. If you register and provide NovaKwest with information, you may update, correct, or delete your account and information at any time by reviewing your profile information and preferences on your account settings page.
Security of your personal information
NovaKwest is committed to securing your personal information.
Some of the ways in which we protect your personal information include:
- We encrypt your personal information when it is stored at rest
- We protect your personal information with encryption during transmission over the public Internet
- We use reasonable organizational and technical safeguards designed to help protect the privacy and security of your personal information
Some of the ways in which we encourage you to protect your personal information include:
- We encourage you to create a username that does not reveal your identity
- We encourage you to create (and keep) a strong password
- We encourage you to be thoughtful about what you post and continue to learn about online safety
We use reasonable safeguards to protect our Service and your personal information, but no security measures are perfect.
Links to Third Parties
The Service may link to and may be linked by websites operated by other entities or individuals. If we include links to third parties and you click on that link, you will be leaving NovaKwest and the privacy policy of that third party applies. Similarly, if you see a link to NovaKwest on a third party website, then the privacy policy of that third party applies.
- For example:
- If you click on a link to an educational program run by another company you will be directed to that company’s website and their privacy policy applies.
- You may choose to share information about your use of NovaKwest on social networks. If you choose to do so, the social network may use your information as described in their own privacy policies.
- If you are on the NovaKwest Instagram page, the privacy policy of Instagram applies to that NovaKwest Instagram page.
- This NovaKwest Privacy Policy does not apply to (and we cannot control the activities of) such other third party websites.
- You should consult the privacy policies of those third party websites.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
NovaKwest may modify or revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. NovaKwest will notify users of any changes to our Privacy Policy by posting the revised Privacy Policy with an updated date of revision on our Service. If we change this Policy in a material manner, we will do our best to notify you of the changes by posting a notice on our website before those changes take effect. We recommend that you review the Privacy Policy each time you visit the Service to stay informed of our privacy practices.
We will not make any material changes to our Privacy Policy that relate to the collection or use of Student Personal Data without first giving notice to the School and providing a choice before Student Personal Data are used in a materially different manner than was disclosed when the information was collected.
Schools and Student Use
This School and Student Use notice supplements our Privacy Policy in connection with school use. NovaKwest is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing free educational content. We strive to implement best practices to protect the privacy of all of our student and non-student users, alike. We have implemented additional controls and procedures for schools, school districts and teachers (collectively referred to as “Schools”) when they use the Service for educational purposes. When the Service is used as part of the School’s educational program, the personal information related to the School’s student users (“School Users”) may include information defined as “education records” by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”) or other information protected by similar state student data privacy laws. We refer to this information as “Student Personal Data”.
Our commitment:We are proud supporters of the Student Privacy Pledge. Our collection and use of Student Personal Data is governed by our contracts with Schools, by our Privacy Policy, and by applicable privacy laws. For example, we work with Schools to protect Student Personal Data consistent with FERPA. For School Users under 13, our privacy practices are informed by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”). If you have any questions about reviewing, modifying, or deleting the personal information of a School User, please contact your School directly.
Creation of School Accounts: Please note that in order for School User accounts to be associated with a School and recognized as School Accounts (as defined in our Terms of Service), the accounts must be created by or at the direction of a School, using a school email address and associated with a School’s class on the Service. For example, a School Account is created when:
- a teacher creates the user name, login and password to establish School User accounts and creates a class on the Service
- a teacher rosters a class using Google Classroom, Clever, or similar single sign-on service for School use
- an account is created by a School User at the direction of a School, using a School email address and associated with a School’s class on the Service
- accounts are created pursuant to a separate contract between NovaKwest and the school district (or educational agency) specifying that the accounts are School Accounts
In cases where we do not have a separate contract with a School district or educational agency, we may require notification that the accounts are used for school purposes in order to recognize them as School Accounts. If you are a School, please contact our School Partnerships Team to learn more about how to ensure that student accounts are set up and managed as School Accounts. Accounts that are included in a NovaKwest Districts subscription are School Accounts.
Please review “Learn More” to see more information about:
- Some of the specific ways that we use and protect Student Personal Data
- How we disclose Student Personal Data
- No Targeted Advertising
- How we retain and delete Student Personal Data
- Questions about Student Personal Data
Children’s Privacy Notice
This privacy notice supplements our Privacy Policy and provides additional information about how we collect, use and disclose personal information from children under the age of 13 (a “Child” or “Children”).
NovaKwest is committed to Children’s privacy.
Protecting the privacy of Children is especially important to NovaKwest. For that reason, we created certain features designed to help protect personal information relating to Children (“Child Users”). When a Child creates an account, we collect their information in compliance with applicable laws, including by seeking the consent of a parent or legal guardian (“Parent”) for creation of that account. When NovaKwest is used by a School in an educational setting, we rely on the School to provide the requisite consent, on behalf of the Parent, for NovaKwest to collect information from a School User under the age of 13 for educational purposes.
Please review “Learn More” for more information about:
- How Children can use and register for our Service
- Restrictions placed on Accounts for Child Users
- Information collected and how the information is used
- Information disclosed
- No Third Party Tracking and No Targeted Advertising
- Choice: Access, Modify and Delete Child Accounts
Paid Products
This paid products notice supplements our Privacy Policy in connection with paid products. If you purchase a paid subscription to a NovaKwest service, such as our course, we obtain information such as your name, email address, and mailing address, and our payment processor will also collect your credit or debit card number or other payment information. Please note that information collected by these payment processors is subject to their own privacy policy.
We may use this information to manage the services you receive and to communicate with you about your subscription.
Applicant information
This Applicant information notice supplements our Privacy Policy in connection with applicants. If you apply for a job with NovaKwest via an online application or recruiting site, we will obtain the information you choose to provide in your application for that purpose. For example, we collect professional or employment-related information that typically includes details regarding your employment history, experience, and qualifications; as well as education information, including degrees obtained and academic records.
Regional information
This Regional information notice supplements our Privacy Policy.
NovaKwest’s privacy practices are designed to support consumer privacy rights and expectations globally, including privacy rights that are common to many countries where our Services are available and which may be applicable to you. These include:
- the right to understand what personal information we collect, how we use it, how it is processed, stored and protected, who it is shared with, and whether it is sold
- the right to correct your personal information
- the right to request that your personal information be deleted or anonymized
- the right to object to how and why personal information is used or processed, including opting out of sale of personal information
- the right to withdraw consent to processing
- the right to make a complaint to the relevant supervisory authority; and
- the right to be free from discrimination based on exercising your privacy rights
Specific privacy rights and processes for exercising them vary from country to county. In certain regions, you may have certain additional rights. The description of rights and the processes and procedures to be followed in exercising the rights, varies, and in some cases, rights must be processed in accordance with specified timelines. We may require you, or your legal representative, to adequately establish your identity before we act on your request. It is imperative that you furnish all requested information in a prompt manner (as guided by your local regulations) in order to fulfill applicable requirements.
International Data Transfer: Our Service is operated and managed on servers located within the United States. If you choose to use our Service from Europe or other regions of the world with laws governing data collection and use that differ from United States law, then you acknowledge and agree that NovaKwest will transfer, store, and process your personal information to the United States for the purpose of performing the Service according to our contract