Privacy Policy for PLATO Learning’s Internet-Delivered Products

PLATO Learning is committed to protecting your privacy; this policy explains our collection of and use of your personally identifiable information. You should always check the privacy policy of each web site you visit.

Policy for Children Under 18

Our learning services for children are provided solely by subscription to schools, school districts, and other educational entities. PLATO Learning’s services are not available to children under age 18 except when they are enrolled for access as an authorized user by a teacher or other school administrator who has been authorized to do so by the child’s parent or guardian. Children under 18 years of age are expressly prohibited from directly registering for any of our services. PLATO Learning does not use any information about children under 18 years of age for any marketing or promotional purposes whatsoever, either inside or outside PLATO Learning. We do not provide any personally identifiable information about children, regardless of its source, to any unrelated third parties, except as expressly provided by this Privacy Policy.

Your Consent

By using PLATO Learning’s Internet-based products and/or by browsing or navigating PLATO Learning web sites you accept, and agree to be bound by, the terms of this privacy policy. Collection, use, and disclosure of personally identifiable information is governed in accordance with the terms stated in this policy.

Information Tracking

In certain instances when using PLATO Learning’s Internet-based products, users may be asked to enter a first and last name and grade level. We use this personal information only for the purpose specified at the time you input such information, including for access identity safeguards and other security purposes. PLATO Learning will not collect any information without the user’s express consent. Some usage of the web sites and services is tracked for verification purposes. For example, when a student completes an assigned learning activity, that information will be available to the teacher or administrator who assigned the activity.

PLATO Learning uses a software technology called “cookies” to create a personalized web experience. The use of cookies is common in the Internet industry; you’ll find them at many sites. A cookie is simply a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) header that consists of a text-only string that is entered into the memory of a browser. This string contains the domain, path, lifetime, and value of a variable that a web site sets. If the lifetime of this variable is longer than the time the user spends at that site, then this string is saved to file for future reference. Cookies remember your PLATO Learning Environment™ or PLATO® Web Learning Network domain upon returning to the site. We do not use cookies to retrieve any other type of information from our users. Please note: Your browser must be set to accept cookies to use PLATO Learning’s subscription–based web sites and services.

We do track certain information, such as courseware and site usage. These data are used to analyze trends and/or internal statistical purposes only. No personal information is stored or used in any way as a result of this tracking, nor is this information disseminated to any third parties.

An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a number automatically assigned to your computer whenever you use the World Wide Web. Web servers—the computers that “serve up” web pages—automatically identify your computer by its IP address. PLATO Learning collects IP addresses for system administration and also to compile aggregate information and audit the use of our site. The PLATO Learning web site logs IP addresses and browser types for systems administration purposes. These logs will be analyzed to improve the value of the materials available on the web site. A user’s session will be tracked, but the user will be anonymous.

We do not link IP addresses to any personally identifiable information. We can and will use IP addresses to identify a user when we feel it is necessary to enforce compliance with our rules or terms of service or to protect our service, site, customers, or others.

Security Measures

The importance of security for all personally identifiable information is of utmost concern to us. We exercise great care in providing secure storage of your information on private network servers not available by direct web addresses. All user information and coursework data are encoded and transmitted through session keys to insure that no one other than PLATO Learning can read the transmitted information. Please note: PLATO Learning web sites and services are password-protected, subscription-only products. Subscribers may provide certain personally identifying information about students to enroll them as individual authorized users. This information includes name, grade level, class assignment, and other identifying information that subscriber’s may deem necessary to enable the assessment, assignment, and/or reporting features of the PLATO Learning classroom product(s) used. Information provided by authorized users is not available to the general public on the Internet. PLATO Learning sites and services are password-protected so that only authorized users are permitted to access them or view the member information relevant to the accounts. We strongly recommend that you do not divulge your password to anyone. We have systems in place to provide secure transmission of your information from your computer to our servers. Only certain authorized PLATO Learning employees can access this information if it is relevant to their job duties. PLATO Learning has staff dedicated to maintaining this Privacy Policy and other privacy initiatives, periodically reviewing web security and making sure that PLATO Learning employees are aware of and comply with our security and privacy practices.

PLATO Learning periodically conducts security audits to make sure we are doing everything possible to secure this data. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100 percent secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, PLATO Learning can’t guarantee or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we use our best efforts and employ state-of-the-art technology to ensure its security on our systems, including firewalls and secure sockets layer.

Use of Your Personally Identifiable Information

In certain cases you may choose to give us personally identifiable information about yourself, such as your name, name of school, grade level, and e-mail address in response to specific requests. This information is never passed to third parties. Only user IDs may be passed to PLATO Learning’s vendors, suppliers, or subcontractors (“Contractors”) in order to seamlessly integrate their product(s) with the PLATO Learning Environment, PLATO Learning Network, or other PLATO Learning Internet-based products. PLATO Learning enters into contracts with such Contractors which contain confidentiality and non-disclosure provisions requiring that such Contractors maintain the confidentiality of any personally identifiable information which may be disclosed by PLATO Learning to the Contractor in order to utilize such Contractor’s product, and the Contractor promises not to disclose such information to any other party.

PLATO Learning is not responsible for any actions or policies of such third parties to whom you may voluntarily provide personally identifiable information, and you should check the applicable privacy policy of such party when providing personally identifiable information to them. Personally identifiable information retained by PLATO Learning will be used only for internal purposes such as ensuring web site access security and tracking site and courseware usage.

We do not allow children under 13 to provide any direct personally identifiable information (for example, name, address, or school information); all such information will be collected solely from teachers and/or administrators. Such personal information provided by teachers and/or parents will be available only to the teacher and administrator, the student, and the student’s parent or guardian.

We use log-in information to identify you as an authorized user and ensure that you can see and use those areas of our web sites that are appropriate for you. For example, student users cannot access those areas of the PLATO Learning web sites which are intended solely for their teachers or administrators. Exceptions to this privacy protection practices described above would only occur if PLATO Learning is sold to a third party or it is declared bankrupt or insolvent. In those instances, use of the user’s personally identifiable information will be determined by a court, other governing body, or the acquiring entity.

Request for Records/Deletion & Edit Procedure

For parents of children who access and use the services of our web sites by means of a license for such use purchased by your child’s school, in order to obtain a copy of your child’s student record in relation to such access and use, you must refer such requests directly to your child’s school. If a user wishes to be deleted from the system or have data previously entered into the system deleted or edited, this can only be done by submitting such a request to your school or institution’s teacher or administrator.

About Children Under 13

PLATO Learning encourages parental involvement, and requires parental consent before students under the age of 13 use these web products. Parents should provide verifiable consent by filling out a parental consent form provided by your child’s school, and returning it to your child’s teacher, school, or institution, who will then verify that written parental consent has been obtained. The signature on which will represent your agreement that your child under age 13 is authorized by you to access PLATO Learning online educational products and services. This consent is required by federal statute; PLATO Learning is precluded from providing access to our online educational products and services to your child under age 13 without this consent being first obtained.

Links to Other Web Sites

This and other PLATO Learning web sites contain links to other third party web sites. PLATO Learning is not responsible for the content or privacy policies of these sites. Such third party web sites are independently owned, controlled, and/or managed web sites whose content we believe will be of possible interest and value to our subscribers. These other sites may send you their own cookies, collect data, or solicit personal information. While we let you know when you are visiting a site outside of the PLATO Learning web site, we do not control the cookies or the content of third-party sites. Once you leave our servers, the use of any information you provide is governed by the privacy policy of the operator of the site you’re visiting. That policy may differ from ours. If you cannot find the privacy policy of any of these sites via a link from that site’s home page, you should contact the site directly for more information before providing that site with any personally identifying information. We specifically recommend that children check with their parents or teachers before clicking links to any new sites.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

If this privacy policy changes, the revised policy will be posted on this site. Since this policy may change from time to time, please periodically refer to it. This privacy policy was last updated on January 2, 2007.

Contact Information

Please contact us at privacy@plato.com if you have any questions or comments about our privacy policy. You can also contact us by general mail or phone listed below. General comments about our web site can be directed to info@plato.com.

General Mail
PLATO Learning
10801 Nesbitt Avenue South
Bloomington, MN 55437

Toll-Free Number
800.44.PLATO