Privacy policy

This page explains what Class Ping keeps, what it sends, who it goes to, how it is protected, and what you can do about it. It covers the Class Ping app for Windows and this website.

Contents

1. Who we are
2. What stays on your PC
3. What leaves your PC
4. Sign in with Google
5. Who it is shared with
6. How it is protected
7. How long it is kept
8. Your controls
9. Children
10. Schools
11. Your rights
12. Changes
13. Contact

1. Who we are

Class Ping is a free Windows app made by a small independent team. "We" and "us" in this policy mean the Class Ping team. You can reach us at classpingsupport@gmail.com for any question, or to ask us to show you or delete anything we hold.

Class Ping is not made by, affiliated with, or endorsed by Google. It works with your Google Classroom account.

2. What stays on your PC

To do its job, Class Ping keeps the following on your PC. None of it is sent to us.

In the Microsoft Store version, downloaded attachments are in the folder Documents\Class Ping\Attachments. Everything else is in the app's own storage on your PC.

3. What leaves your PC

Only these, and nothing else:

To Google, to show you your Classroom

Class Ping loads Google Classroom in Google Chrome, and downloads your attachments and profile pictures from Google, using your signed-in session, exactly as your browser would. When you write a comment in Class Ping, it posts that comment to Classroom for you. For a YouTube attachment it loads the video's preview picture from YouTube. Google's privacy policy applies to these.

To an AI company, only if you turn it on

AI is off by default: posts are sorted on your PC. If you choose an AI service (Groq, Google Gemini, OpenAI or Anthropic Claude) and add your own key, then for each post Class Ping sends that company: the class name, the post's title, its text, its dates, the names of its attachments, and its photos. It uses the answer to write a short "what to do" line, to suggest a section, and to translate posts. A post's text can mention people by name. Class Ping does not send the teacher's name, the comments, or your email address. That company's own privacy policy applies to what it receives. If you choose Ollama, the post goes to Ollama running on your own PC and nowhere else. You can turn AI off, and delete your keys, at any time in Settings.

Feedback you choose to send

Only when you press Send in the feedback window, Class Ping sends us: the name you typed, the email address you typed (optional), your message, the versions of Class Ping and Windows, how posts are being sorted, and, only if you leave the box ticked, recent lines of the activity log with email addresses and web links removed first. It reaches our support inbox. We use it only to read your message, reply to you, and fix problems.

4. Sign in with Google

We plan to offer a second way to connect: Sign in with Google, using Google's official Classroom interface, so that you approve Class Ping on Google's own screen. This section applies when you use that option.

Class Ping would ask Google only for read-only access to:

• your list of classes;
• the announcements, assignments, questions and materials in those classes, with their due dates and attachments' names and links;
• the names, email addresses and profile pictures of the people in your classes, to show who posted.

What Class Ping does with that data is exactly what this policy describes for the rest of the app: it is shown to you, sorted and searched on your PC, and used to notify you of new posts. It is not sent to us. It is sent to an AI company only if you have turned AI on, as described in section 3. The sign-in permission Google gives Class Ping is kept encrypted on your PC. No person at Class Ping reads your Google data.

Class Ping's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We never sell Google user data, never use it for advertising, and never use it to decide anyone's credit or lending.

You can remove Class Ping's access at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions, and delete what it saved by uninstalling it (see Your controls). If we ever want to use Google data in a new way, we will tell you in the app and ask first.

5. Who it is shared with

• Google: to load your Classroom, as above. Our support inbox is also a Google (Gmail) account, so feedback you send is stored by Google for us.
• The AI company you chose, only if you turned AI on.
• Nobody else. We have no advertisers, analytics companies, data brokers or other partners. We would share information only if the law required it.

6. How it is protected

• Class Ping talks to the internet only over encrypted (HTTPS) connections.
• Saved AI keys, and a Google sign-in permission if you use one, are encrypted on disk with Windows' own protection.
• Everything else on your PC is protected by your Windows account, so keep your PC locked when you step away.
• Feedback is protected by the security of our Google account.

7. How long it is kept

• On your PC: until you delete it or uninstall Class Ping. You can choose to keep downloaded attachments for only the last 7 days.
• Feedback: only as long as we need to reply and fix the problem, and never more than one year. Ask us and we will delete it sooner.

8. Your controls

• See it: everything Class Ping keeps is shown in the app, and the files are in the folders named in section 2. To see the feedback we hold from you, email us.
• Turn AI off and delete keys: Settings > Sorting and AI.
• Keep fewer files: Settings > Storage, to keep attachments for only the last 7 days.
• Delete everything: uninstall Class Ping. The Microsoft Store version removes its data when it is uninstalled. Then delete the folder Documents\Class Ping to remove downloaded attachments.
• Delete feedback: email classpingsupport@gmail.com.

9. Children

Class Ping is made for students, and some of them are under 13. We take that seriously.

• We do not collect personal information from children. What Class Ping reads from Classroom stays on the child's own PC and is never sent to us.
• There are no accounts, no chat with strangers, no ads, and nothing a child can make public through Class Ping.
• The only way information can reach us is the optional feedback form. It tells anyone under 13 to ask a parent or teacher first, and to leave their name and email out.
• If we learn that feedback came from a child under 13, we use any contact details in it only to reply once to that message, and then delete the message and the contact details. We never use them for anything else or share them.
• AI is off by default. A parent can keep it off, so posts never leave the PC.
• Parents can ask us at any time to show them, or delete, anything we hold from their child, and can tell us not to collect anything more. Email classpingsupport@gmail.com.

10. Schools

Class Ping reads a school Google account, so your school's own rules for that account still apply. Class Ping only shows a student what they can already see in Classroom. It does not change anything in Classroom, except posting a comment when the student writes one.

11. Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us what we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, or to stop using it. Since almost everything stays on your own PC, in practice this means the feedback you sent us. Email us and we will reply within 30 days. You can also complain to the data protection authority where you live.

12. Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes and the new version is published here. If a change affects how your information is used, the app will tell you, and will ask you first where the law or Google's rules require it.

13. Contact

Class Ping team: classpingsupport@gmail.com