LessonHQ is a planning tool for teachers. Students never have accounts: they never sign up, log in or give us an email address, phone number or ID number. The only student data we hold is what a student types into a homework link or live lesson, and what a teacher chooses to type into the tools below. This page is written for district privacy leads, school administrators and IT teams; the legal detail is in our Privacy Policy.
Our commitments
- Never sold. We do not sell, rent or trade student data.
- No advertising and no profiling. No ads on student pages, and analytics and ad tools never load there. Student data is never used to build profiles or for targeted advertising.
- No AI training. Student data only goes to AI providers whose terms say they do not train on it, and we never use it to train models ourselves.
- Used only to provide the service to the teacher and school or district.
- Deletion on request within 30 days. A school, district or teacher can ask us to delete any student data, and we will complete it within 30 days.
- Breach notice within 72 hours of confirming a breach, or sooner where state law requires (for example 48 hours in Virginia). See Security.
What we hold, feature by feature
Optional fields are only present if a teacher types them. We advise first names or initials only, and leaving out diagnoses unless they are needed.
| Feature | Student data held | How long it is kept | Deleting it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homework links | The name the student types (we suggest a first name or initials), their answers, quiz score, which questions were right or wrong, and a 1-5 "how confident do you feel?" rating. | While the teacher's account is open | The teacher can delete a homework link at any time, which deletes every response to it. |
| Live lessons | During the lesson: the name each student types and their answers, held in server memory only. When the teacher ends the lesson, a summary is saved to the teacher's account: quiz scores, who may need follow-up, and written answers to short-answer questions with the name typed. | In memory: until the lesson ends, and never more than 4 hours after its last update. Summary: while the teacher's account is open. | Email us to delete a summary (we do it within 30 days). |
| Gradebook | Class lists (first names), homework results and any marks the teacher types in. | While the teacher's account is open | The teacher can delete a class list at any time. |
| Report Card Comments (Report Writer) | First names, levels, pronouns, strengths, targets and notes the teacher enters, and the comments written from them (saved in the teacher's private library). Names are swapped for numbered placeholders in the teacher's browser before anything is sent to AI. | Until the teacher deletes the saved document | The teacher can delete saved documents at any time. |
| Grading Assistant | Student answers a teacher pastes in, or photos of handwritten work (location and other hidden details removed first). | Not stored: handled in memory to suggest marks, then discarded. Photos are never saved. | Nothing to delete. |
| Staffroom | In a behavior or support plan: a student's initials and the needs, triggers or diagnoses the teacher describes. | Until the teacher deletes the saved document | The teacher can delete saved documents at any time. |
| Visual Supports Packs | A learner's first name (optional) and the needs the teacher describes. | Until the teacher deletes the saved document | The teacher can delete saved documents at any time. |
| IEP Goals & Accommodations Draft | A student's first name or initials, grade, pronouns, the needs, strengths, difficulties and targets the teacher describes, and any diagnosis they choose to add. The name never leaves the teacher's browser: the AI only sees "Student 1". It is a draft for the IEP team, not an IEP. | Until the teacher deletes the saved draft | The teacher can delete saved documents at any time. |
| Student Portal (home use) | Not school data. A separate area a parent sets up and controls at home: a nickname (no real name needed), grade, subjects and study activity. | Until the parent deletes the profile | The parent deletes it from the Parent Dashboard. See the COPPA section of our Privacy Policy. |
Not collected: student dates of birth, addresses, contact details, attendance, demographics, ID numbers, voice recordings and location. Resource generators (lesson plans, slides, worksheets and so on) only need a topic and settings, and teachers are told not to type student details into them.
Where it is stored
| Country | How | What |
|---|---|---|
| Germany (EU) | Stored | All account and student data: our servers and database (Hetzner, Nuremberg data center) and the nightly encrypted backups (a separate Hetzner backup server, also in Germany). |
| United Kingdom | Accessed, not stored | LessonHQ is run from the UK. The founder looks after the service and answers support requests from here. |
| United States and worldwide | In transit or processed, not stored by us there | Cloudflare's global network carries all traffic to and from the site. The AI providers listed below process requests to write the teacher's document (Anthropic, Groq and Cerebras in the United States; Cloudflare Workers AI on Cloudflare's network). |
Our data is stored in Germany. If your state or district agreement requires student data to be stored only in the United States, please contact us before signing up so we can talk it through.
Who can receive student data
Only these subprocessors can receive student data, and only to run the service. The full list of everyone we use (most of whom never see student data) is on our Subprocessors page.
| Subprocessor | What for | Student data it can receive |
|---|---|---|
| Hetzner Online (Germany) | Hosting, database and backups | All of the data in the table above |
| Cloudflare | Network, security and DDoS protection; also one of our AI providers (Workers AI) | Everything sent to or from the site passes through it in transit. As an AI provider: the same as the AI row below |
| Anthropic, Groq, Cerebras, Cloudflare Workers AI | AI drafting for the teacher (report comments, plans, Visual Supports Packs, IEP drafts, marking suggestions) | What the teacher enters for that document. Names are replaced with placeholders for Report Writer and the IEP draft. Photos of handwritten work go only to Groq or Cerebras. Their API terms say they do not train on what we send |
Requests that contain only a topic and settings (no student data) can also go to Google Gemini or OpenRouter as backups. Their free tiers may use what they receive to train or improve their models, so student data never goes to them; this is enforced in our code.
Keeping and deleting it
- While the teacher's account is open, their data is kept so they can use it. Teachers can delete class lists, homework links and saved documents themselves at any time.
- Erasing a teacher account (self-serve in Account Settings, or by email) permanently deletes their class lists, homework and student responses, live-lesson summaries, marks and saved documents after a 30-day safety window. An automatic job runs every day. A closed (not erased) account is erased automatically after 2 years.
- School or district requests: email [email protected] and we will delete the student data you name, or all of it, within 30 days and confirm in writing.
- Backups and logs: deleted data can stay in our encrypted nightly backups for up to 14 days (30 days for uploaded images) before they are overwritten. Server logs are deleted after 14 days.
How it is protected
- Encrypted in transit (HTTPS with TLS 1.2 or 1.3, and HSTS). Backups are encrypted (AES-256) before they leave our server.
- The database only accepts connections from our own server; it is not reachable from the internet.
- Teacher passwords are stored hashed (bcrypt). Only the founder has administrator access, and administrator accounts must use two-step sign-in.
- Documents that can hold student data can never be sold, previewed publicly or added to a school's shared library.
More on our Security, AI Safety and School IT pages.
FERPA, COPPA and state laws
- FERPA: when a school uses LessonHQ, we act as a "school official" with a legitimate educational interest. We use student records only for the school's purposes, under the school's direct control, and do not re-disclose them except to the subprocessors above.
- COPPA: for homework links and live lessons, we rely on the school's authorization in place of individual parents, and use the information only for the school's educational purposes, never for any commercial purpose of our own.
- State student privacy laws: we follow the rules that laws such as California's Student Online Personal Information Protection Act (SOPIPA) and similar laws in other states set for education services: no selling, no targeted advertising, no non-school profiles, reasonable security, and deletion when the school or district asks.
Data privacy agreements
We are ready to sign the Student Data Privacy Consortium's National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA v2.2), with your state's supplement where one applies. We can also send a one-page summary of how we handle student data for your review. Email [email protected] with your district name.
Questions, deletion requests or agreements: email [email protected]. Security reports: [email protected]. LessonHQ is run by Aaron Poyser, trading as LessonHQ, in the United Kingdom. Information correct at October 23, 2026.