Policies


This Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy disclose the privacy and cookie practices for www.figureoutphysics.com. These policies apply solely to data collected by this website.

You can contact our designated Data Protection Officer by email at support@figureoutphysics.com.


Notification of Policy Changes

From time to time we may use your personal data or use cookies for new unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in these policies. If our data or cookie practices change at some time in the future we will post the updated policies on this page. This page was last modified on 30th September 2022.

If you are concerned about how your personal data is used, or how we use cookies, you should check these policies periodically. Please contact our designated Data Protection Officer if you have any queries or feedback about our Privacy Policy or Cookie Policy.


Privacy Policy

What Data Do We Collect?

We collect the following personal data about visitors (a visitor is anyone who is not logged in):

  • Their IP address used when accessing our website

  • The url a visitor came from, their current url & the next url they load.


There are two main ways to use our website. Teachers can create accounts, and create classes under this account with associated students, each student is assigned a code which they can use to login. Students can also create their own accounts using email/password if they're 13 years or older, or we can generate a unique code for students to login if they're under 13; these student accounts can be linked to a class in a teacher account, or used separately.

For students who generate codes to login, no personal data is needed to generate the code. This data is collected for users logged in using codes:

  • The data listed above for visitors

  • We store quiz-related data (if a quiz has been started and what answers they've selected for each question) and what classes have been linked to that account.

For students who register using email/password, who are 13 years or older, we collect this data:

  • The data listed above for students logged in using codes.

  • Email

  • Account password (this is encrypted on registration)

For teachers who register using email/password, we collect this data:

  • The data listed above for visitors

  • Email

  • Account password (this is encrypted on registration)

  • We store information about classes and associated students (the point below details what information we store about a teacher's students).

Our legal basis for collecting data on registered users is their explicit consent, which is obtained by them agreeing to our Privacy Policy when registering on our website. Before students can enter any personal data when registering, we ask them to confirm they're 13 years or older.


We collect the following personal data about students using teacher codes (where a teacher has registered a teacher account, created a class, and added a student to this class):

  • The data listed above for visitors

  • Quiz-related data (if a quiz has been started and what answers they've selected for each question)

  • When a teacher creates a class they have to create a 'student' in our system for each of their students. When doing this, they need to give each student a 'name'. We don't require real names here, this name is just to differentiate different students (for example you might use a number to represent each student). Our legal basis for collecting data on a student is obtained through agreement to this Privacy Policy by their teacher.

  • If a teacher enters the personal data of a student (which is not required, as a number may be used to identify each student), it is the teachers' responsibility to get permission to use their students' data, whether this is from the institution they work for or from parents directly. Students aren't required to or prompted to enter any personal data themselves.


The following data may be collected by third parties, but is not stored by us:

  • Website usage statistics

  • This website contains links to other websites. Please be aware that when interacting with content such as this, you are providing your personal data to these third parties (and they will have their own privacy policies which we're not responsible for; we encourage you to read their policies).


How do we use your data?

Any personal data we collect is used to:

  • Figure Out Physics is committed to safeguarding the welfare of children and young people that use our service. We will not contact any teacher's students for any reason (we don't offer functionality to store a teacher's student's contact data, just a name to represent each student), the purpose of our service is to help teach students physics. Any student data entered by a teacher will only be accessible for that teacher and the associated student.

  • Provide you access to our website (e.g. we use an email/password to authenticate users, and a randomly generated code to authenticate students).

  • Analyse & customise your usage of our website (e.g. we may create customised quizzes based on student performance in previous quizzes).

  • Send registered users transactional emails (for things like registration confirmation).

  • Occasionally we may use user email addresses or other contact data to get their input on our services, or to communicate information (e.g. if there's a problem with their account).

  • Help protect us against criminal or malicious activity such as fraud.

  • Maintain our website performance, security and reliability.


How do we protect your data?

We take measures to maintain the security of your personal data.


Who do we share your data with?

The third parties we disclose your data to:

  • We may share your data with Figure Out Physics employees or contractors to improve site functionality or provide support.

  • We may provide anonymised data to the general public (e.g. specifying how many users we have on our website). This would not be personally identifiable.

  • Any data we collect will be disclosed when legally required to do so.


The third party services we disclose your data to:

  • Our website, and any personal data collected on the website, is hosted in the UK on third party servers.

  • We use StackPath to improve our website performance, security and reliability.


Requesting, correcting & updating data

Upon request, we will provide you with all personal data we have about you, or correct/update any data we have about you. To request this please contact our designated Data Protection Officer. We will respond to your request within a reasonable time frame, and may request further information to prove your identity.


Data deletion and retention

We retain data as long as is needed to provide you services, or to comply with legal obligations.

Upon request, unless we're required to keep it under legal obligations, we will delete all personal data we have about you within a reasonable time frame. Please email our designated Data Protection Officer if you want your personal data deleted.

Data that is logged automatically by the server our website is hosted on is used to help prevent criminal or malicious activity, so we may not be able to delete this data immediately on request. We delete these log files periodically when the data is no longer needed.


Do we use cookies?

We use first party and third party cookies on our website. See our Cookie Policy for details on cookies.


What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files stored on your computer. There are two types: first party (cookies created by this website) and third party (cookies not created by us).

We use first party and third party cookies on this website.

If you'd like to disable cookies, please visit the help pages of your web browser (many internet browsers enable cookies by default, but allow you to disable either all cookies or only third party cookies). Disabling first party cookies will prevent you using our teacher and student login systems. Disabling third party cookies may cause parts of our website to behave strangely. You can delete cookies at any time.

Third party cookies used on our website:

  • We use StackPath to improve our website performance, security and reliability. StackPath cookies are essential, so can't be disabled.