Privacy Policy

The OC Student AI Network is for middle and high school students. We collect as little as we can, we never sell it, we never show ads, and we never send what you type here to an AI model.

1. Who we are

The OC Student AI Network website (the “Site”) is operated by the Orange County Department of Education (“OCDE,” “we,” “us”), a public educational agency at 200 Kalmus Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. The Site supports a network of middle and high school students, and the teachers who work with them, learning about artificial intelligence across Orange County schools.

The Site has three parts: public pages anyone can read; the “My Day” planner for registered attendees of the 2026 Student AI Convening; and a staff-only area that named OCDE staff use to run the network.

2. Students and children

OCDE handles student information in line with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and California student privacy laws, including the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act (SOPIPA). Parents and guardians can ask to see or delete their child’s information (see Section 10).

3. Information we collect

From your school’s registration. When a school registers students and adults for the Convening, we receive and keep: first name, last initial, school email address, school, district, and whether the person is a student or an adult. We use this list only to decide who can sign in to the planner.

When you sign in. Our sign-in provider keeps your email address, an account ID, and when you signed in. If you sign in with Google, Google also shares your name and profile picture with the sign-in provider; we don’t display or use them. We never see a password.

In the planner. The sessions you star, your Round 1 and Round 2 session picks, and for each session you rate, two ratings from 1 to 5 (“I learned about AI” and “I can apply what I learned about AI”). The planner has no free-text boxes.

Forms linked from the Site. Some pages link to Google Forms (for example, interest forms and applications). What you enter there goes to OCDE and is covered by this policy; Google’s own privacy policy also applies.

Automatically. Our hosting provider records basic technical information for every web request, such as IP address, browser type, the page requested, and the time. Font and script services may record similar information (see Section 6). The Site does not use analytics or tracking tools.

4. How we use it

• To let registered attendees sign in, and to keep everyone else out
• To show you your own schedule, picks, and ratings
• To plan the event, for example how many people chose each session so rooms are the right size
• To improve future events and report on the program using totals and averages that don’t identify anyone (for example, the average rating for a session)
• To keep the Site secure and to meet OCDE’s legal obligations as a public agency

We do not sell personal information, use it for advertising, or use it to build profiles of students.

5. Who can see it

• You can see your own picks and ratings. Other students and adults can’t see anything about you.
• OCDE staff who run the network can see the registration list, picks, and ratings to run the event.
• Session presenters and schools may receive totals and averages for their sessions or students, never an individual student’s ratings.
• Service providers listed in Section 6 store data for us and may use it only to provide their service.
• When the law requires it, for example a court order or a public records request (see Section 11).

6. Services we use

• Google Firebase (Hosting, Authentication, and Cloud Firestore database): runs the Site, sign-in, and the planner. See Firebase Privacy and Security.
• Google Sign-In: optional way to sign in. See the Google Privacy Policy.
• Google Forms: forms linked from some pages.
• Google Fonts and gstatic.com: deliver the Site’s fonts and the Firebase code libraries, and may log technical information about the request.

The Site does not use analytics, advertising, or social media trackers, and does not send your information to any AI model.

7. Cookies and browser storage

The Site stores a small amount of information in your browser only so sign-in works: the sign-in provider keeps you signed in, and when you ask for an email sign-in link, your browser remembers your email address until you finish signing in. There are no advertising or tracking cookies. If you block browser storage, sign-in may not work.

8. How long we keep it

Convening information that identifies a person (the registration list, sign-in accounts, picks, and ratings) is deleted by January 31, 2027. After that we keep only totals and averages that don’t identify anyone. Responses to linked Google Forms are kept for the current and following program year, then deleted, unless OCDE record-retention rules require otherwise.

9. Security

We protect information with encrypted connections (HTTPS), sign-in limited to registered school email accounts, database rules that let each person read only their own records, and staff access limited to named OCDE staff. No system is perfectly secure. If a security incident affects your personal information, we will notify you as required by California law.

10. Your choices and rights

• See or correct. Students, parents, guardians, and adult attendees can ask to see or correct the information we hold.
• Delete. You can ask us to delete your planner account, picks, and ratings at any time. Deleting your registration also means you can’t sign in to the planner.
• Skip it. Using the planner and giving ratings is optional. You can attend the Convening without signing in.
• Google access. If you signed in with Google, you can remove the Site’s access in your Google account settings.

Parents and guardians can make these requests through their child’s school or by contacting us directly (Section 13). We may need to confirm who you are first.

11. Public records

OCDE is a public agency subject to the California Public Records Act (Government Code § 7920.000 et seq.). Information submitted to the Site may be a public record, but student records and other personal information are withheld from disclosure where the law allows, including under FERPA and the California Education Code.

12. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update the “Last updated” date above. For a significant change that affects students, we will tell participating schools before it takes effect.

13. Contact us