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Privacy Policy
Effective Date: September 17, 2026
Hidden Skills LLC ("Hidden Skills," "we," "us," or "our") provides a tool that surfaces and names the durable skills students are already building through their participation in programs run by schools and education organizations. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, how we share it, how long we keep it, and the rights available to students, families, and our partner organizations. It also describes our text-message program.
This policy applies to information we receive through our website at hiddenskills.net and through the delivery of our services.
1. Our Role
Hidden Skills works on behalf of partner organizations, such as schools and education nonprofits, to deliver skill reports to the students in their programs. We act as a service provider to these organizations and handle student information under their direction and only to provide our services. The partner organization, not Hidden Skills, decides which students participate and how contact information and consent are collected.
When we work with a school district, we act as a School Official with a legitimate educational interest under FERPA, and as an operator under applicable state student privacy laws, including the Illinois Student Online Personal Protection Act. We handle student information under the direct control of the partner organization and use it only for the purposes that organization authorizes.
2. Information We Collect
We collect only what we need to deliver our services:
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Student identifiers: first name, email address, and an optional phone number, provided to us by the partner organization. We use first name to personalize each report. Students enter their email address or phone number on the Hidden Skills platform to reach their personalized reflection question and record their reflection. We also use the email address or phone number to match each student to the right cohort and to deliver their report and related messages. Students or their programs choose text, WhatsApp, or email, and we collect a phone number only when text or WhatsApp is chosen.
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Audio reflections that students submit through an uploader on the Hidden Skills platform
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Transcripts generated from those reflections
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Skill reports produced for each student
3. Information We Do Not Collect
We do not collect mailing addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, family or household information, academic records, disciplinary records, or any health information.
4. How We Use Information
We use the information we collect to transcribe and analyze student reflections, to produce and deliver each student's skill reports, to communicate with students about their reports and reflections, and to operate and improve the quality of our service. We do not use student information for advertising, and we do not sell it.
5. Text Message and WhatsApp Messaging
If a student or their program provides a phone number and agrees to receive messages, we send recurring messages related to the student's participation in their program. These messages include a secure link to the student's skill report and occasional reminders to record a reflection on the Hidden Skills platform.
Where a student or family chooses WhatsApp as their contact method, we send these same messages through WhatsApp instead of SMS.
Message frequency varies and depends on the program and the student's activity. Message and data rates may apply to text messages, and data charges may apply to WhatsApp messages.
A recipient can reply STOP at any time to opt out and stop receiving messages, or reply HELP for assistance. For help, recipients may also contact us at privacy@hiddenskills.net.
We do not sell or share mobile phone numbers or SMS opt-in consent with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. We share this information only with the providers that deliver our messages, and only as needed to operate our text-message program. Text-message originator opt-in data and consent are never transferred to third-party marketers. No mobile information is shared with any third party for marketing under any circumstances.
6. How We Share Information
We do not sell personal information. We share information only with the service providers that help us deliver our services, and only the information each provider needs to perform its function. Each provider is bound by its own data protection terms.
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Anthropic (Claude API): analysis of reflections and drafting of reports
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Fly.io: application hosting, the platform uploader, audio storage, report rendering and hosting, and the environment in which our self-hosted transcription runs
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Twilio: delivery of text messages, WhatsApp messages, report links, and report-related communications
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Google (Google Workspace): transmission of reports by email, and hosting of the documents in which reports are prepared
Subcontractor list last reviewed: September 2026.
If law enforcement or another government entity requests student information, we direct the requester to the partner organization, which controls the records. If a court order compels disclosure, we notify the partner organization in advance where the order allows.
As stated in Section 5, mobile phone numbers and SMS opt-in consent are never shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing purposes.
7. How We Use AI
We use Anthropic's Claude API to analyze reflections and draft reports, and a self-hosted speech-to-text model running on infrastructure we control (Fly.io) to generate transcripts. The Claude API is used under Anthropic's commercial terms, which do not use submitted data to train models, and reflections are not sent to any third-party transcription or audio hosting service. A Hidden Skills team member reviews every report before it is delivered, and no report is produced by automated processing alone. Full details are in our Data Retention and Handling Policy, available on request.
8. Data Retention
We keep data only as long as needed to deliver our services and meet our obligations to partner organizations.
Within 30 days of the conclusion of our agreement with a partner organization, we delete all data tied to that organization's students, including audio reflections, transcripts, reports, draft files, communications, and contact information. This applies unless the partner organization directs us in writing to retain or transfer specific data, or applicable records law requires us to hold it. A partner organization, student, or family may request deletion at any point during the agreement, and we complete those requests within 30 days.
We do not keep identifiable student data for research or any other secondary purpose. We may retain aggregate, de-identified information, such as counts of how often particular skills appear across a group, from which all names, contact information, and quoted reflections have been removed. We use this only to evaluate and improve the quality of our work. We do not attempt to re-identify it, we do not sell it, and we do not share it with a partner organization in a form that identifies another organization's students.
Our full Data Retention and Handling Policy is available on request.
9. Data Security
We protect student information with administrative and technical safeguards, including multi-factor authentication, device-level encryption, restricted access to our hosting and processing infrastructure, and a unique, non-guessable link for each report that stops working once the report is deleted. All student information is stored within the United States. Our full security practices are described in our Data Retention and Handling Policy, available on request.
10. Your Rights
Students, families, and partner organizations may request deletion or export of student data at any time by emailing privacy@hiddenskills.net. We complete these requests within 30 days and confirm them in writing.
Where the partner organization is a school district, records remain under the district's control and these requests follow the district's process. If a student or family contacts us directly, we refer them to the district.
Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights over your personal information, including the right to know what we collect, the right to request deletion, and the right not to be discriminated against for exercising these rights. California residents may exercise these rights through the same contact above. We do not sell personal information.
Hidden Skills is based in the United States. Information about students outside the United States is transferred to the United States and processed by the providers listed in Section 6.
11. Student and Children's Privacy
We provide our services to schools and education organizations and handle student information under their direction. We do not sell student data, use it for advertising, or build advertising or behavioral profiles. Where a student is under 18, consent to receive communications is provided by a parent, guardian, or the partner organization acting under its existing authority to communicate with families.
12. Changes to This Policy
We review this policy regularly and update it when our practices change. The current version and effective date appear at the top of this page. We communicate material changes to active partner organizations at the time of update.
13. Contact Us
Questions about this policy may be directed to privacy@hiddenskills.net.