Privacy notice

Who holds your data

Hong Kong Baptist University is the data user for the personal data collected here, in the sense the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance uses that term. The CLAP-TECH Centre runs the platform on the University's behalf. Your school arranges your access and remains responsible for its own records about you.

The University's Privacy Policy Statement and Personal Information Collection Statement applies to you in full. It is linked at the bottom of this page. Where anything here and that statement disagree, that statement wins.

What the platform records

Your account details: your name as your school gives it, your email address, your school and class, the student number assigned to you for this programme, and whether you are in the group using the platform or the comparison group.

Your schoolwork: everything you write, draw, design or hand in on the platform. That includes drafts and earlier versions, answers to lesson questions, quiz attempts, prompts you write for the AI, images you generate, group documents you edit, and comments you leave on classmates' work.

Speaking practice: when you record yourself, the audio and the text version of what you said.

AI usage: a record of each time you use an AI feature, which feature it was, and what you asked it. This is the AI Logbook your teacher can see.

Technical records kept by the systems that run the site, such as sign-in times and error logs.

The platform does not ask for your ID card number, your address, your phone number, or payment details, and you should not type them into it.

Why we record it

To run the lessons and let you pick up where you left off.

To let your teacher mark your work, see who needs help, and give feedback.

To let the AI features respond to what you actually wrote.

To check that the AI is being used the way the programme intends, which is why prompts are logged.

To evaluate whether the programme works. This is research, and it is covered separately below.

We do not sell your data, and we do not use it to advertise anything to you.

Where your work goes when you use an AI feature

The AI features do not run on our own computers. When you ask for feedback, generate an image, or record yourself speaking, what you submitted is sent to an outside company that runs the model, and their answer comes back to you.

• OpenAI: writing feedback, prompt scoring, conversation practice, image generation, and text to speech.
• Microsoft Azure OpenAI: turning speech recordings into text.
• Tencent Cloud (Smart Oral Evaluation): pronunciation scoring, when the school has that feature switched on.
• Supabase: the database and file storage where your account and your work are kept.
• Vercel: the hosting that serves the website.

These companies process the data for us and are required to protect it. Send only schoolwork. Do not type personal details about yourself or anyone else into an AI feature, and do not upload photographs of other people.

Who can see your work

Your teachers at your school, and staff at your school with a reason to look.

CLAP-TECH Centre staff who run and support the platform.

Classmates, but only where the activity is meant to be shared, such as a group document, the discussion board, peer review, or something you choose to put in the class gallery.

Researchers working on the programme evaluation, who normally see pseudonymised data rather than your name.

We may also have to disclose data where the law requires it. The University's statement sets out the full list of parties it may transfer personal data to.

Research use and pseudonyms

This platform is being studied as part of the programme, so you fall under the section of the University's statement covering participants in studies and research projects.

Every account has a pseudonym. The AI usage records are written against that pseudonym, not your name. When results are analysed, reported to the funder, or published, they are reported as group figures or with identities removed. Your name is not published.

Using the platform is part of the programme, so there is no separate arrangement that lets you take lessons here and be left out of the evaluation. What protects you instead is how the data is handled: the analysis works from records that carry your pseudonym rather than your name, and identifying details are removed before anything is reported or published.

If you or your parents have questions about the research, raise them with your school.

If you are under 18

Most students on this programme are under 18. The University asks anyone under 18 to go through this page and the University's own statement with a parent or guardian, and to make sure you both understand them, before giving personal data.

If your parent or guardian has a question about the platform, they can raise it with your school or write to the University at the address below.

How long it is kept, and how it is protected

Data is kept in line with the University's retention policies and no longer than is needed for the purpose it was collected for, except where the University has to keep it to meet a legal obligation.

Accounts are protected by a password and access is limited by role, so a teacher sees their own classes and a student sees their own work. Data sent between your browser and the platform is encrypted.

No system online is completely secure. The University's statement makes the same point about sending personal data over the internet, and it is worth taking seriously: keep your password to yourself.

Cookies and what your browser stores

Signing in sets a cookie that keeps you signed in. Choosing English or 中文 sets a cookie that remembers the choice. Your browser also stores small display settings, such as your accent colour and background glow.

There are no advertising cookies and no cross-site tracking on this platform. Blocking cookies will stop you signing in.

Seeing your data and correcting it

You have the right to ask what personal data the University holds about you and to ask for a copy. Fill in a data access request form and send it to the University's Personal Data (Privacy) Officer. The University charges a fee for handling a data access request and normally tells you the outcome within 40 calendar days, giving a reason if the request is refused.

If data about you is wrong, you can ask for it to be corrected in writing, and there is no charge for that.

For anything on the platform that is simply a mistake, such as a misspelled name or the wrong class, tell your teacher first. That is usually faster.

Contact and the governing statement

Questions about your personal data go to the Personal Data (Privacy) Officer, c/o General Administration Office, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Email: data-privacy@hkbu.edu.hk

Questions about the platform itself can go to your teacher or to the CLAP-TECH Centre through your school.

The full statement this page sits under is the HKBU Privacy Policy Statement and Personal Information Collection Statement, version 4.0, 12 August 2021. Read it here:

This page may be updated. If there is any difference between the English and Chinese versions, the English version applies, which is the same rule the University's statement uses.

HKBU Privacy Policy Statement and Personal Information Collection Statement (PDF)