Our Data Policy, in Plain English
The short version of what happens to your students' work. The full legal version is our Privacy Policy, and it says the same things with more words.
Your students' work stays in your Drive
Assignment templates, student documents, and the snapshot copies TYay makes all live in your own Google Drive, under your Google account. We don't warehouse student documents on our servers, and you can see every file TYay touches by opening your Drive.
What we keep, and what we don't
When TYay grades a submission, it reads the student's document from your Drive and sends it to the AI model for grading. We don't keep copies of student documents on our servers.
What we do keep in your account: assignment info, submission status, scores, and feedback (which can quote bits of the student's work). That's what makes your gradebook and review pages work. For handwritten work, the photos, scans, and the text transcription all go into your Drive (the transcription is written into the student's Google Doc). If you turn on the writing timeline, we keep word counts over time, plus the student's latest draft text until they submit, then that draft text is deleted. If you delete your account, it's all deleted within 30 days.
Student work is never used to train AI
TYay uses AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google to draft grades and feedback. Each provider processes student work only to generate that feedback, under terms that prohibit using it to train their models. Providers may hold data briefly for abuse monitoring, as described in their own policies, and that's it.
We also don't use individual student work for product development or marketing. Ever.
The free Magic Wand follows the same rules
The Teacher's Magic Wand lets you upload a rubric and grade a sample answer without signing in. Those uploads follow the same rules as everything else: processed to build your smart assignment and grade the sample, never used to train AI.
FERPA and your school
TYay is built to operate within FERPA: student work is processed only for the grading and feedback you request, documents stay under teacher control in your Drive, and we never share student records with unauthorized third parties. When a school or district adopts TYay, we operate under FERPA's "school official" exception as your service provider.
Need a DPA? We offer a Data Processing Agreement that formalizes our obligations under FERPA and applicable state student privacy laws. Email us at tyaysupport@kernioncognitivelabs.com and we'll send it over.
Students under 13
TYay handles younger students' data in line with COPPA, consistent with the school consent exception: educational purposes only, no ads, no selling data, no training AI on their work. The details are in our Privacy Policy.
Deleting data is always in your control
- Remove a student, and TYay deletes their submissions, scores, feedback, and the snapshot copies in your Drive. Their own Google Doc is never touched.
- Delete your account, and everything goes with it: courses, submissions, grades, and your TYay Drive folder, within 30 days.
Questions? Ask a person.
Email tyaysupport@kernioncognitivelabs.com and a real person will answer. For the complete legal detail, read the Privacy Policy or the Terms of Service.