Privacy Policy
How Lessual handles your data
Lessual helps teachers plan lessons from the National Standards Curriculum and keep track of how each class is doing. Doing that well means handling information about you and, indirectly, about your students. This policy explains exactly what Lessual collects, what it deliberately does not collect, where the information goes and what you can do about it.
The short version
- Your students' records stay on your device. Class lists, names, attendance, marks and your evaluation notes are stored in your browser. They are never sent to our server.
- We keep very little about you: your email address, your Google account ID, the level you teach, whether you have been given access, and the dates you use Lessual.
- Lesson generation sees no student's identity. When you generate a plan, we send curriculum details and anonymous class summaries such as "about a quarter of the class" to our AI provider. Never names, never exact counts, never your free-text notes.
- We do not sell your data, show advertising or share your data with data brokers.
- You have the right to see, correct and delete what we hold. Write to lessual-teachers@googlegroups.com.
1. Who we are
Lessual is operated by Pinachle LLC, a company registered in the United States ("we", "us"). For the personal data described in this policy, Pinachle LLC is the data controller: we decide why and how it is used.
Lessual is offered to teachers in Jamaica, so we follow Jamaican data protection law in how we handle your personal data, even though we are not a Jamaican company.
2. Who Lessual is for
Lessual is a professional tool for teachers. It is not directed at children, and students do not use it, sign in to it or create accounts in it. Lessual includes material for kindergarten and primary classes, but that material is for the teacher planning the lesson, not for the children in the class.
3. What stays on your device
Lessual is built so that the most sensitive information never reaches us. The following is stored only in the browser on the device you use, and we cannot see it:
- your classes, class lists and student names
- attendance, quiz results, marks and mastery records
- your evaluations and debriefs after each lesson, including any notes you write about individual students
- the lesson plans, worksheets, quizzes and slides you generate and edit
- your profile details, such as the name you add for your slides
Because this information lives on your device, you control it. Clearing your browser's data for Lessual deletes it, and we have no copy to restore. Lessual lets you export a backup file. That file is created on your device, and if you choose to email it to yourself, it goes through your own email app, not through us.
If you share a computer with colleagues, anyone who can open your browser profile can open your Lessual data. Please use your own browser profile or device for Lessual.
4. What we collect when you sign in
You sign in with your Google account. Generating plans and exporting slides need a sign-in, and in future opening Lessual will too.
What Google sends us
When you sign in, Google sends us a signed confirmation of who you are. It contains your email address, whether Google has verified that address, a unique Google account ID, your name and your profile picture. We use only your email address and Google account ID. Your name and profile picture arrive as part of the same confirmation, but we do not store or use them.
We do not ask Google for anything else. Lessual cannot see your Gmail, Drive, contacts, calendar or any other Google service.
What we keep about you
- Your email address and Google account ID, to recognise you when you sign in.
- Your access status: whether you have asked for access, been approved or been removed, with the dates each happened.
- The level you teach (kindergarten, primary or high school), which you choose when you ask for access, and the package that level maps to.
- If you used an invite code: which code, the school or group it was made for, and when you used it.
- The dates you use Lessual while signed in: the first and most recent day, and how many days you have used it. We record days, not what you did on them. This tells us whether the pilot is genuinely helping teachers.
On your device
After you sign in, Lessual saves a sign-in token in your browser so that you are not asked again on every visit. It lasts up to 30 days. Signing out removes it.
5. What is sent to generate a plan
Lesson plans, worksheets, activities, quizzes and slides are written by an AI model provided by Anthropic. When you press Generate, your device sends a request to our server, and our server passes the relevant parts to Anthropic. The request contains:
- the subject, grade, term, unit, topic and session details, which are curriculum information
- your class size, session length and how often the class meets
- the resources and equipment you select and any generation preferences you choose
- for a revised plan or slides, the text of the plan being revised, including your edits
- anonymous summaries built on your device from your evaluations and records, written in broad terms such as "about a quarter of the class has not yet secured this standard" or "one student needed individual help"
Those summaries are designed to be anonymous before they leave your device. They never include student names or IDs, exact counts or tier labels for small groups, or the free-text notes you write about behaviour, disruptions or individual students.
Please do not type students' names into lesson plan text. If you edit a plan and later ask Lessual to revise it or turn it into slides, the edited text is sent for generation as written.
When you export slides, the name you added to your profile is sent to our server to put on the cover and in the file details. It is used to build the file and is not stored.
6. Technical records
To keep Lessual working and affordable, our server keeps three kinds of technical record:
- Error records, when generation fails: what went wrong, a reference code you can quote to us, and the curriculum unit or class size involved. They do not include your name, your email or the content of your plans.
- Usage counts for each generation: the type of request, the AI model used and its size measured in tokens. They do not include any content or anything that identifies you, your school or your students.
- Server connection logs, such as the IP address and time of each request, which every web server keeps. We use them to keep the service running and to investigate abuse.
When generation fails, we receive a short alert through a notification service so that we can fix the problem quickly. These alerts are written so that they never contain your name or email address.
7. Why we use it
We rely on a lawful basis for each use of personal data. Ours are:
| What we do | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Signing you in, deciding whether you have access, and generating plans you ask for | Providing the service you asked for (contract) |
| Reviewing access requests and invite codes | Providing the service you asked for (contract) |
| Recording the dates you use Lessual | Our legitimate interest in knowing whether the pilot helps teachers and which teachers to follow up with |
| Error records, usage counts and connection logs | Our legitimate interest in keeping Lessual reliable, secure and affordable |
| Answering your questions and privacy requests | Legal obligation, and providing the service |
We do not use your data for advertising, profiling or automated decisions about you.
8. Your Google account data
Lessual's use of information received from Google follows the Google API Services User Data Policy. In particular:
- We use your Google email address and account ID only to sign you in, manage your access and record the dates you use Lessual, as described above.
- We do not sell Google user data, use it for advertising, or give it to data brokers, information resellers or anyone assessing creditworthiness.
- We share it only with the service providers listed below, only as needed to run Lessual, and otherwise only where the law requires or to investigate abuse or a security problem.
- The only person who reads it is the Lessual operator, when approving access requests, answering you, or investigating a problem.
- If we ever want to use your Google data in a new way, we will update this policy and ask for your agreement first.
You can remove Lessual's connection to your Google account at any time from your Google Account connections page. That stops future sign-ins. To have us delete what we hold, write to us as described in section 13.
9. Who else handles data
We use a small number of service providers. Each receives only what it needs:
| Provider | What for | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Akamai (Linode), United States | Hosts our server | Everything our server keeps, as described in sections 4 and 6 |
| Anthropic, United States | Writes generated plans, worksheets, quizzes and slides | The generation requests described in section 5. No email address and no student identities. |
| Google, United States | Sign-in. Also serves the fonts on our pages. | Your sign-in. For fonts, your device's IP address, as with any website that loads fonts from Google. |
| ntfy.sh | Sends us alerts when generation fails | A short error description and reference code, with no personal data |
| Google Forms | Our feedback form, only if you choose to fill it in | Whatever you type into the form, under Google's own privacy policy |
We may also disclose information where the law requires it, or to a buyer if Lessual is sold. In a sale, this policy would continue to apply to your data, and we would tell you before anything changed.
10. Where your data is stored
Our server is in the United States, so the information described in sections 4 to 6 is transferred out of Jamaica. We keep it adequately protected wherever it is, by keeping it to a minimum, never sending student records to our server at all, and using established providers that commit by contract to handle data securely and only on our instructions.
11. How long we keep it
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| Your account record | While you use Lessual. Deleted within 30 days of your request. |
| A removed account | We keep a short record that the account was removed, so that a removal cannot be undone simply by asking for access again. You can ask us to delete it entirely. |
| Error records and connection logs | Up to 90 days |
| Usage counts | As long as useful for pricing. They contain no personal data. |
| Your sign-in token, on your device | Up to 30 days, or until you sign out |
| Your classes, students and plans, on your device | Under your control. We never hold a copy. |
12. How we protect it
- All connections to Lessual use HTTPS encryption.
- Student records are never sent to our server, so a breach of our server cannot expose them.
- Google's confirmation of your identity is checked on our server every time you sign in, and your access is re-checked on every generation request, so a removed account stops working immediately.
- Only the Lessual operator can reach the server and the records on it.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal data, we will tell you and the relevant authorities promptly.
13. Your rights
You have the right to:
- see the personal data we hold about you
- correct anything that is wrong
- have it deleted
- withdraw consent where we rely on it
- object to our use of it based on legitimate interest, including the dates-of-use record
- complain to Jamaica's data protection regulator
To use any of these rights, email lessual-teachers@googlegroups.com from the address you sign in with. We will reply within 48 hours and complete your request within 30 days. We would welcome the chance to put things right before you go to the regulator, but you are free to do so at any time.
14. Changes to this policy
If we make a material change, such as collecting something new or using your data for a new purpose, we will email you at least 14 days before it takes effect, and where Google's rules or the law require it, we will ask for your agreement first. Minor corrections take effect when published. The date at the top of this page always shows the current version.
15. Contact us
Pinachle LLC, operator of Lessual
Email: lessual-teachers@googlegroups.com
Please do not include student names or other details about students in your message. We do not need them to help you.