Privacy Policy

Introduction

Language Research Lab ("LRL", "we", "us", "our") operates languageresearchlab.in and the Joyful English program, working with schools, teachers, researchers, donors and partner organisations across Tamil Nadu and beyond.

This policy explains what information we collect through our website, our school and teacher portals, and our classroom assessment tools, why we collect it, and the choices you have. It applies to visitors, newsletter subscribers, donors, registered teachers and school administrators, and to the schools and students we work with through our implementing partners.

Information We Collect

We collect different information depending on how you interact with us:

Website visitors

• Standard technical data such as IP address, browser type, device type and pages visited, collected automatically through cookies and analytics.

Contact and inquiry forms

• Name, email address, phone number, school or organisation name, and the content of your message, when you submit our contact or partnership inquiry forms.

Newsletter subscribers

• Email address, used solely to send research updates and pedagogy content you've asked to receive.

Donors

• Donations are processed through Razorpay, a third-party payment processor. We do not directly collect or store your card, UPI or bank details — these are handled entirely by Razorpay under its own privacy policy. We may receive your name, email and donation amount from Razorpay for receipting and record-keeping.

Teacher and school portal accounts

• If your school registers for the CALA or dashboard portals, we collect account details such as name, role, email address and school affiliation, along with activity within the portal necessary to deliver the program.

Classroom & Reading Assessment Recordings

As part of the Joyful English program, participating schools may use our reading assessment tool, which records short audio or video clips of students reading aloud so that teachers and researchers can track progress. This is a genuinely sensitive category of data and we want to be specific about how it's handled, not just say "we take privacy seriously."

• Who collects consent: Recordings are only made through a participating school, and consent is obtained by the school from parents or guardians before a student is recorded, following that school's own consent process. We do not collect recordings directly from the public or outside a school relationship.
• What is recorded: Short clips of a student reading or speaking, used to assess literacy progress against the LSRW framework.
• Where it's stored: Recordings are uploaded to Cloudflare R2 cloud storage and processed for transcription through Azure Batch Transcription, a Microsoft service. These providers act as our data processors and are contractually limited to processing this data only to provide storage and transcription services to us.
• Who can access it: Access is restricted to the student's teacher, authorised LRL staff involved in the assessment pipeline, and researchers working on program evaluation. Recordings are not made public and are not used for marketing without separate, explicit consent.
• Retention: We retain assessment recordings only as long as needed for the academic term or research cycle they support, after which they are deleted or anonymised. Schools may request earlier deletion of a specific student's recordings by contacting us.

Because this involves data about children, this section deserves particular care during legal review — especially around the consent chain between LRL, the school and the parent, and how deletion requests are actioned in practice.

How We Use Information

• To respond to inquiries and manage partnerships with schools, donors and researchers.
• To deliver and improve the Joyful English program, including assessing reading progress.
• To process donations and send donation receipts.
• To send newsletters and program updates to subscribers who opted in.
• To maintain teacher and school portal accounts.
• To understand how our website is used, so we can improve it.
• To comply with legal obligations, including those relating to non-profit reporting where applicable.

Legal Basis for Processing

Where the DPDPA or another applicable data protection law requires a legal basis for processing, we rely on: your consent (for newsletters, donations and student recordings, via the school's consent process); our legitimate interest in running an educational non-profit and communicating with our partners and supporters; and compliance with legal obligations such as financial record-keeping for donations.

Sharing With Third Parties

We do not sell personal information. We share information only with:

• Razorpay — to process donations.
• Cloudflare — for cloud storage of assessment recordings (R2) and website infrastructure.
• Microsoft Azure — for automated transcription of assessment recordings.
• Email service providers — to send newsletters to subscribers who opted in.
• Partner schools — for data relating specifically to their own students and staff.
• Government authorities or auditors, where required by law or by our status as a registered non-profit.

We do not otherwise share personal data with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

Data Security

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect the information we hold, including access controls on our portals and cloud storage, and restricting recording access to authorised staff. No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security of information transmitted to us.

Data Retention

We retain personal information only as long as necessary for the purposes described in this policy: inquiry and contact data for as long as needed to manage the relationship; donor records as required for financial and tax record-keeping; newsletter subscriptions until you unsubscribe; and assessment recordings as described in Section 3 above.

Your Rights

Depending on your relationship with us and applicable law, you may have the right to:

• Ask what personal information we hold about you.
• Ask us to correct inaccurate information.
• Ask us to delete your information, subject to any legal or program-related obligations that require us to retain it.
• Withdraw consent for newsletters at any time, using the unsubscribe link in any email.
• For a student's recordings, ask your school to raise a deletion request with us on the student's behalf.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the details in Section 13.

Cookies & Analytics

Our website may use cookies and similar technologies for essential site functionality and to understand how visitors use the site. You can control cookies through your browser settings; disabling some cookies may affect site functionality.

Children's Privacy

Our website itself is intended for teachers, school administrators, researchers and donors, not for direct use by children. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children through the public website.

The exception is the classroom reading-assessment recordings described in Section 3, which are collected exclusively through participating schools with parental or guardian consent obtained by the school, not by children submitting information to us directly.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time as our programs and tools change. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision. Significant changes affecting how we handle student data will be communicated to partner schools directly.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this policy or want to exercise any of the rights above, reach out to us: