Privacy Policy

Tinkerelle is run by Tinkerelle LLC, 20 N Wacker Drive, Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, USA. Email: hello@tinkerelle.com. Phone: (312) 725-3494. We are the operator of tinkerelle.com.

• Classroom students join a teacher's class with a class code. They do not give us a name, email address, or any contact details.
• Teachers sign up with an email address and password to run classes.
• Individual learners sign up with an email address and password. They must be 13 or older. A child under 13 may use Tinkerelle outside school only through an account a parent or guardian creates with the parent's own email address.

From classroom students:

• A nickname we generate (for example "Cosmic Comet 27"), and the class they belong to.
• Their secret code, which we store only in a scrambled form (a keyed hash) that cannot be turned back into the code. Nobody at Tinkerelle can see a student's code.
• Their work: Python code, challenge progress, sticker designs, sticker sheets, and any designs they publish to the gallery, including the project names they type.
• Basic activity records, such as when they created their account, signed in, or published a design.

From teachers and individual learners: email address, password (stored only as a hash), an optional display name, the names of classes you create, your work, your plan and billing status, and a record that you agreed to these policies.

When you order printed sheets (teachers and individual learners only; students cannot order): the name, shipping address and email for delivery, and order details. Stripe also collects a phone number for delivery, which we do not store.

When a school pays by invoice: the school's name, billing email, and optionally a billing contact name and purchase order number, which we and Stripe use to send and track the invoice.

Payments: Stripe handles all card payments. We never see or store card numbers. For plans, Stripe acts as the seller of record through Stripe Managed Payments, handles sales tax, and uses your payment details under its own privacy policy.

Technical information: to keep student sign-in safe, we record failed sign-in attempts and new student accounts against a scrambled (keyed-hash) version of the network address they came from, which we can't turn back into the address. Our hosting and database providers also keep standard server logs, which include IP addresses. We use these technical details only to run, secure and support Tinkerelle, never for advertising or profiling.

We do not collect students' real names, email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, photos, voice, location, or biometric information, and we ask students not to type personal details into their code or project names.

• To run Tinkerelle: sign you in, save your work, run your class, and show the gallery.
• To print and ship sticker sheets you order, and to email order confirmations.
• To manage plans and billing.
• To keep the service secure and prevent abuse, such as guessing secret codes.
• To understand how features are used and to help with support. We record a few events (such as account created, signed in, design published, print order placed) linked to the account.

We do not sell or rent personal information. We do not use it for advertising, behavioural targeting, or building profiles of students, and we do not use children's information to train artificial-intelligence models.

• Teachers can see their students' nicknames, work, and sticker sheets, and a log of actions in their classes. Teachers never see students' secret codes; they can only issue a new one.
• Classmates see each other's nicknames and published designs in their class gallery. A classroom student's published designs are never shown outside their class (except to Tinkerelle staff), and classroom students see only their own class's gallery.
• Teachers can review their class gallery: they can require approval before classmates see a new design, and hide designs. Anyone who can see a design can report it; we keep the report and its optional reason so the teacher and Tinkerelle staff can review it, and delete it with the design.
• Other signed-in teachers and individual learners can see designs that teachers and individual learners publish, with their project names and dates, and the author shown only as "Designer". Nothing is shown to people who aren't signed in. Publishing is a choice: a design and its project name are shared only when someone publishes it. You can unpublish your own design from your Sticker Sheet page; a teacher can remove a student (and their designs), or anyone can email us to take a design down.
• Tinkerelle staff with administrator access can see account details, saved work, gallery posts, classes, activity records, and orders, so they can provide support, keep the service safe, and fulfil orders. They can't see secret codes or passwords.

When a school or teacher uses Tinkerelle with students, the school decides to use the service for an educational purpose and, consistent with the Federal Trade Commission's guidance under the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), authorizes us to collect the limited student information above in place of individual parental consent. Schools can ask us for this notice to share with parents. We use student information only to provide Tinkerelle to that school and for no other commercial purpose.

Where student work is an education record under the U.S. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), we act as a "school official" under the school's direct control: we use it only for the school's purposes and do not disclose it except as this policy and the law allow.

Parents and guardians can ask to review their child's information, have it deleted, or stop further collection. Please contact your child's teacher or school, or email us at hello@tinkerelle.com. We may need to confirm the request with the school.

We enter into student data privacy agreements with schools where the law requires them, including under the Illinois Student Online Personal Protection Act (SOPPA) and other state student-privacy laws. Email us to set one up.

We share information only with companies that help us run Tinkerelle, and only what each needs for its job:

• Supabase — database, sign-in, sign-up confirmation and password reset emails, and private file storage for print files.
• Cloudflare — hosting the website.
• Stripe — payments, and seller of record for plans. Stripe's checkout loads only when you start a purchase, and may set cookies to prevent fraud.
• Resend — sending welcome and order confirmation emails to teachers and learners (never to classroom students).
• Vimeo — plays the video on our home page, with "do not track" switched on.

We print and pack sticker sheets ourselves; no outside print company receives your designs. The shipping carrier (such as the U.S. Postal Service) receives only the delivery name and address on the package.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect the safety of our users, or as part of a sale or merger of our business, in which case this policy would continue to apply to your information.

We don't use advertising or analytics cookies. Tinkerelle keeps your sign-in session and unsaved work in your browser's local storage so the studio works. Signing out of a student account clears saved work from that browser. Stripe may set cookies when you open checkout, and Vimeo when you play the home-page video.

• Student accounts and work: kept while the student belongs to an active class, so they can keep working. Deleted right away when the teacher removes the student or the class, except print files already attached to an order (see below). If a school's Classroom plan ends and isn't renewed, we delete that class's student accounts and work within 12 months. Backups are overwritten within 30 days.
• Teacher and individual accounts: kept while the account exists. You can delete your account at any time from your Account page; this also deletes your classes and their student accounts and cancels your plan. Or email us and we'll do it within 30 days.
• Activity and usage records: kept for up to 2 years, and the link to a person is removed when their account is deleted.
• Sign-in safety records: deleted within 7 days.
• Print files (which show student nicknames): 12 months after the order.
• Order and payment records: 7 years, for tax and accounting.

We do not keep children's personal information longer than we need it.

All connections use encryption (HTTPS). Secret codes and passwords are stored only as hashes. Database access rules limit each person to their own information, and teachers to their own classes. Repeated wrong guesses of student codes are blocked. Staff access is limited to people who need it. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your information, we will notify you and, for students, their school, as the law requires.

• Teachers can remove a student or a whole class, which deletes their information.
• Teachers can download their students' sticker sheets and Python code from the Teacher page at any time.
• Teachers and individual learners can delete their own account from the Account page.
• You can unpublish your own gallery designs from your Sticker Sheet page.
• You can ask us for a copy of your information, to correct it, or to delete it, by emailing hello@tinkerelle.com.
• You can cancel a plan at any time from your account's Billing page.

Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under local law; contact us and we'll help.

If we make material changes, we'll update the date above and tell teachers and account holders by email or on the site before the change takes effect. We will not use children's information in a materially different way without the required consent.

Tinkerelle LLC, 20 N Wacker Drive, Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, USA · hello@tinkerelle.com · (312) 725-3494. See also our Terms of Service.