Trust Center
Privacy & security for schools
ContactAssist helps a teacher log parent emails about students into a Google Sheet they own. We built it to keep student data minimal, under the school's control, and never used for anything but the teacher's workflow. This page is written for school and district reviewers.
Last updated: June 2026 · Operated by JC Design Intelligence, LLC (Tennessee, USA)
Our role: you control the data, we process it for you
As between ContactAssist and your school, the teacher (together with the school or district) is the data controller for all parent and student information processed through the service. ContactAssist acts as a processor / school official under FERPA, handling that information solely on the teacher's instructions and only to provide the features in the app — under the direct control of the school with respect to the use and maintenance of education records.
Student data, FERPA & state laws
- We support compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and applicable state student-privacy laws — e.g. New York Education Law §2-d, California SOPIPA, Illinois SOPPA, and Colorado student-data rules — through a signed Data Privacy Agreement with your district.
- The school or district directs the purpose of processing. We do not determine our own purposes for student data.
- ContactAssist is not intended for protected health information and is not HIPAA-compliant; we do not sign Business Associate Agreements. The “Health” topic label is a coarse sorting category, not a place to store medical records.
What we never do
No selling data
We never sell or rent student, parent, or teacher data — ever.
No AI training
We do not use data from Google Workspace APIs to train or improve generalized AI/ML models.
No advertising
We do not share data with third parties for advertising or marketing.
No silent sending
AI replies are saved as drafts for the teacher to review. Nothing is emailed without the teacher clicking Send.
Subprocessors
To run the service we rely on these vetted third parties. Student data is limited to summaries and metadata as described above.
| Provider | Purpose | Data involved |
|---|---|---|
| Google LLC | Gmail, Sheets & Drive APIs (source of the emails; destination log) | Email content read in-memory; log written to the teacher's own Sheet |
| Anthropic, PBC | Claude model — summarizes each email once | Email content sent per-request; not used by Anthropic to train models per its API terms |
| MongoDB, Inc. + cloud hosting | Encrypted storage of logged summaries/metadata | Summaries and metadata only (no full email bodies) |
| Stripe, Inc. | Subscription billing | Teacher billing data only — no student data; cards never touch our servers |
Data retention & deletion
- Disconnect anytime from Settings or your Google Account permissions. Once disconnected, we can no longer read your Gmail or Sheet.
- Deletion within 30 days of account deletion or at the end of the agreement, including on a district's written request.
- Your export is your Sheet. The log lives in a Google Sheet the teacher owns; additional exports are available on request.
Security practices
- Encryption in transit (HTTPS/TLS) between your browser and our servers.
- Google refresh tokens encrypted at rest.
- Least-privilege OAuth scopes — e.g. per-file
drive.file(never full-Drive) and draft-onlygmail.compose(never mailbox-modify). - Access controls — production access is restricted to authorized personnel and requires multi-factor authentication.
- US-based hosting. Data is processed in the United States.
Agreements & compliance status
| Item | Status |
|---|---|
| Data Privacy Agreement (DPA) — we'll countersign your district's DPA, including the SDPC National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) | Available now |
| Google CASA security assessment (tied to our Gmail integration) | In progress |
| Student Privacy Pledge — we align with its principles today and are completing our signature | In progress |
| SDPC Resource Registry listing / iKeepSafe FERPA badge | Planned |
Contact
JC Design Intelligence, LLC
Attn: Privacy & School Compliance
State of Tennessee, United States
Email: drj@jcdesignintelligence.com
See also our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.