Privacy at Lola

What we collect

• Students: first name, last initial, optional grade (9–12), a username and a password (stored only as an argon2 hash). No email, birth date, address, phone, photo ID or NYC student ID (OSIS) number.
• Learning records: which practice questions were answered, the answer given and whether it was right, hints used, time taken, exam answers and scores, study plans, time on task and optional confidence check-ins.
• Attached work (if the class has photo upload on): photos or sketch-pad drawings a student attaches to a practice or exam question. Photos are re-encoded on our server, which removes hidden location and camera data (EXIF), and large pictures are shrunk.
• Chat transcripts (if the class has chat on): kept only for the number of days the teacher sets (default 180) and then deleted automatically.
• Teachers: a display name, username and password hash.

What the AI sees

• Lola uses an AI model (OpenAI) to tutor. The AI never receives a student's name, username or school: each student is represented by a random pseudonymous ID, and if a student types their own first name it is replaced with "Student" before sending.
• Photos a student chooses to send are passed to the AI to read the math. Please don't put your full name, address or student ID on a photo.
• Work attached to a practice question goes to the AI only when the student taps Ask Lola for a hint. During a practice exam there is no AI help at all: attached work is only saved. After the exam is submitted, a student can ask for Lola's feedback on their attached work.
• Right/wrong decisions are made by Lola's own math checker (SymPy), not by the AI.
• Voice: when a student uses the microphone, the recording is sent for transcription and is not stored by Lola.

What we never do

• No advertising, no selling or sharing data for marketing, no profiling for anything other than helping the student learn.
• No public profiles; students only see their own work. Teachers only see students in their own classes.

What your teacher can see

• Your teacher can see the questions you were asked in practice, exams and chat, your answers, whether they were right, hints used and time taken, any photos or sketches you attached to a question, and your chats with Lola (for as long as the class keeps chat history). This helps your teacher see where you need support. Other students and other teachers can't see any of it.

Controls

• Teachers can switch chat, voice and photo upload on or off for each class, set the transcript retention period, reset passwords and remove a student (which deletes that student's data for the class).
• Sessions expire automatically; logins are rate-limited to stop password guessing.

For schools

Using Lola with real students in a New York public school requires a signed data privacy and security agreement that meets New York Education Law §2-d and its regulations (8 NYCRR Part 121), including a Parents' Bill of Rights for Data Privacy and Security, and approval through the NYC Public Schools (DOE) vendor and privacy review process. Lola does not claim to have completed these steps; they would be part of any pilot. Demo mode uses only invented students.

Wellbeing

Lola is a math tutor, not a counselor. If a student seems upset, Lola encourages them to talk to a trusted adult: a parent or guardian, a teacher, or the school counselor.

Who we are

Lola Math is an edtech product of firstprep, an edtech company that offers state-of-the-art tutoring services for mathematics and admissions.