Data Rights

Your Child's Data Should Be Yours

Educational apps collect extensive data about how children learn, what they struggle with, and how they behave. Parents have the right to access this data, and the right to know when they cannot.

Why Data Transparency Matters

Every tap, every answer, every pause your child makes in an educational app becomes data. This data reveals learning patterns, struggles, interests, and behaviors: an intimate portrait of your child's mind.

Companies use this data to improve their products. Researchers use it to understand learning. Advertisers would love to use it to target your child. But what about you, the parent?

You should be able to see what your child has learned, where they struggled, and what the app knows about them. You should be able to take that data with you if you switch apps. And you should be able to delete it if you choose.

The Reality

What published policies document
Of 719 active apps with graded privacy policies, 60.6% don't document basic protections such as not selling data and letting parents delete their child's data.
Privacy policies aren't enough
Lengthy legal documents tell you data is collected, but not how to access your rights. Transparency means practical access, not just legal disclosure.
Your child deserves better
Children can't advocate for their own data rights. That's your job, and we help you understand which apps make it possible.

What We Check

We read each app's privacy policy, and the documents it points to, and check 35 specific commitments. The results place the app on three levels, each building on the one below. An app can miss one requirement and still reach Level 1 or Level 2; Level 3 needs both of its requirements.

An app meets our standard at Level 2. We grade what the policy commits to in writing: if a policy doesn't say it, parents can't hold the company to it.

Level 1

Basic protections

Does not sell data or target ads at students, limits sharing, and lets parents see and delete their child's data.

The policy must document

  • a statement that it does not sell data
  • a commitment against targeted advertising
  • limits on sharing children's data
  • contractual limits on service providers
  • a COPPA or FERPA commitment
  • parents' right to see their child's data
  • parents' right to delete their child's data
  • account deletion
Level 2 · meets the standard

Parent control

Families can get their data out, know who processes it, and know how long it is kept.

The policy must document

  • users' right to access their data
  • data export
  • a data retention timeline
  • named service providers
  • self-service deletion
Level 3

Direct data access

Families or schools can pull their own data through an API, in a stated format.

The policy must document

  • an API for retrieving their own data
  • a named export format

Where apps stand (719 graded privacy policies)

As of 2026-10-23 (UTC). Levels are computed from published policy checks.

Below Level 1
436 (60.6%)
Level 1 · Basic protections
152 (21.1%)
Level 2 · Parent control
131 (18.2%)
Level 3 · Direct data access
0 (0%)

How Apps Can Meet the Standard

We want every educational app to meet our data transparency standard. Most of the gap is in what policies leave unsaid. Here's what reaching Level 2 and beyond looks like:

State the basics plainly

Say in the policy that you don't sell student data or target ads at students, and that you follow COPPA or FERPA.

Give parents access and deletion

Document how a parent sees their child's data and how they have it deleted, including through the school.

Offer data export

Let families or schools download their data, and name the format (CSV, JSON or PDF).

Publish a retention timeline

Say how long data is kept after an account closes, not just that it is kept "as long as necessary".

Name your service providers

List the companies that process student data, and say that contracts limit what they can do with it.

Offer an API for families' own data

Level 3 needs an API that lets families or schools retrieve their own data, documented from the policy.

Know Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have legal rights to access, export, and delete your child's data. In the US, COPPA gives parents rights over children's data under 13. In Europe, GDPR provides broader data rights for everyone.

But legal rights only matter if they're practical to exercise. That's why we check whether a policy tells you how to use them, not just whether it mentions the law.

An app that requires you to email legal@company.com and wait 30 days for a response is technically compliant. We don't consider that transparent.

What Good Looks Like

  • Parent dashboard accessible from main app menu
  • One-click data export in Settings
  • Clear explanation of what each data type means
  • Data deletion available without contacting support
  • API documentation linked from privacy policy
  • Regular data reports emailed to parents

Data Transparency Is Half the Story

We evaluate apps on two standards: whether they actually teach (the Learning Standard) and whether they respect your data rights (Data Transparency). Both matter.

Read Our Full Methodology

Find apps that respect your rights

Browse our registry to see which apps meet our data transparency standard, and which ones don't.

Browse Directory