For districts: what Peabody collects, keeps and never does

Peabody is free for teachers and children, has no ads, and sells nothing. This page is for a district's privacy officer: what a child is asked for, what is kept and for how long, who else touches it, and what we do not have.

What a child is asked for

A first name (or a nickname) and, in a class, the class. Peabody never asks a child for an age, birthday, last name, photo, address, email or phone. A child joins a class by typing the class's six-letter code on their own page; a teacher never types a child into a form unless the teacher's own sign-up screen is switched on (it is off today), and even then the child is a first name and four numbers they pick, with no email.

What a teacher sees about a child in a class

The first name, or a name the teacher gave the child in the class (the family sees that name too).
Their grade and reading level, and when they joined.
Their practice on the Skill Map: for each step, whether they have not started, are learning, have got it, or are done for good; and, for a class Focus, how many they got right this week.

A teacher never sees a child's stories, chats, posts, pets, games, buddies, family, last name, pen name, face, email or sign-in numbers. The database itself gives a teacher only their own class's practice records, and only while class mode is on. A child's family is told when the child joins a class, and any grown-up of the family can take the child out at any time. When a child leaves or the class is deleted, the class's rows about that child are deleted at once. See Class mode: what a teacher sees, what a family controls, what we keep.

What Peabody keeps about a child who uses it

A child who has a Peabody account (a family's or their own) has: a first name, an avatar, a generated pen name, a sign-in code and a colour theme; a reading level and practice results skill by skill; the stories they made and the ideas they gave for them; how they read (answers, time on each page); and what they asked Peabody, if the Ask Peabody box is on. The full list is in the privacy page. A grown-up's account has an email address and a password stored only as a one-way hash.

How long it is kept

Account, child and practice data: as long as the family account exists. A parent can delete a child or the whole account at any time, and it happens right away.
A child's own account (a child with no grown-up on Peabody): until they delete it. One never used is removed after 14 days, and one with no sign-in or reading for 180 days is removed.
What a child asked Peabody and Talk with Peabody chats: 30 days, then deleted.
The review list of what was typed into Peabody's boxes, with names and contact details taken out: 90 days.
Peabody's own count of page visits (no name, no account, no address, no cookie): 90 days.
A teacher's account: while it exists. A class's children, its Focus and its sets: until the teacher deletes the class or a child leaves. A Live game's code shows for 3 hours.

What we never do

Show ads, sell data, or share it for anyone else's marketing. There are no ad networks on Peabody. The ad-free promise.
Show a child's real name outside their own family (and, in a class, their teacher), including inside a story.
Send a child's profile to a school. A teacher sees the class's practice, described above, and nothing else.
Record anyone's voice or receive a recording.
Charge a school, a teacher or a child for any of this.

Counting visits

Peabody counts visits to pages so it can fix what is broken: its own simple counter, and the page-visit counting of its host, Vercel, which uses no cookies. Google Analytics is also on the site, including on pages children use, to count visits. It is given page addresses and three named events (a game started, a story started, a sign-up started), never a child's name, answer or typed word. It sets its own cookies (their names start with _ga). It is not loaded when a browser sends the Global Privacy Control signal, and nothing is counted in the browser for a page embedded on a school's own site.

Who else touches the data

Only the services that run Peabody, each for that job alone: Supabase stores the data, Vercel hosts the site, Resend sends the emails Peabody sends a family, and Anthropic writes and safety-checks stories and reviews them. The page Peabody's privacy page lists what each is sent. Anthropic is never sent a child's age, school or last name; a first name is sent only if the grown-up allows it in stories, and never for a child on their own.

How AI is used with children

AI writes and screens; code decides. Every use, what it is told and never told, and where we still fall short are in How Peabody uses AI with children.

What we do not have

No signed data-privacy agreement is offered, and no third-party privacy certification is held.
The privacy page is a published draft that has not had a legal review. Where a fact there is marked as not yet confirmed, it is not yet confirmed.
No single sign-on from a district system, and no roster upload from a district's student information system, yet.

Ask us

Questions, a deletion request or a correction: hello@peabody.kids. A parent can delete a child from the grown-ups' privacy screen at any time; for anything else, write to us. If something on this page is wrong, tell us.