Privacy Collection Notice.

Your school uses Loam for writing assignments. Loam is a writing space where students type their own work, and the school can see how each piece of writing was produced. Loam is operated by Difinity Pty Ltd (ABN 82 686 692 759). This notice explains, briefly, what information we collect when a student uses Loam and what happens to it. Our full Privacy Policy has the detail.

• From your school: the student's name, school email address, and class, so we can set up their account.
• When the student writes: the assignment itself, and a record of how it was written: each edit, with its time. This record is what lets a teacher verify the work and watch it being written.
• Automatically: basic technical information (like IP address, browser type and screen size) to keep accounts secure, and word counts and editor events (such as when a paste was blocked) from the writing session.
• If your school turns on the AI comprehension check: a short excerpt of the student's own in-progress writing (the last ~600 words) may be sent to an AI service running in the same part of the world as the Loam region your school chose, to ask them a question that checks understanding, not to grade or judge. If your school chose the Australia region this stays in Australia; the United States region, in the United States; the Germany region, in the European Union. It carries no direct identifiers, it's never used to train an AI model, and it's off unless your school switches it on.
• If you sign in with Google or Microsoft: your school (or your teacher, on an invitation link) can let you sign in with a Google or Microsoft account instead of a Loam password. If you do, that company tells us your name, your email address, an account reference number for you (not a password), your school's Google or Microsoft organisation ID if it's a school account, and when you signed in. We never send your writing, your class, or anything you've submitted to Google or Microsoft. Signing in is all they do.

No camera. No microphone. No screenshots or screen recording. No lockdown browser. Nothing typed outside the Loam editor. No biometrics or typing-rhythm profiles of a person. We watch the document, never the student.

To run the writing environment, to give teachers trustworthy evidence of how each assignment was written, and to keep the service secure. That's it. We never sell personal information, never use it for advertising, and never use student writing to train AI models.

The student's teachers and school administrators, at the student's own school. We use Amazon Web Services to host the service and send emails; our providers act only on our instructions. If you sign in with Google or Microsoft, that company checks who you are and tells us; it never sees your writing, your class, or anything you've submitted. Difinity's operations personnel are in Australia. In the Australian operations system they can see only opaque Loam identifiers for the student, teacher, school and support request, together with the name, work email address and support messages of a teacher or school administrator who contacts us. They cannot see or receive a student's name, email address, date of birth, writing, replay, evidence record or other directly identifying student details or student content. Student content and direct student identifiers remain in the institution's selected region. PostHog analytics and replay never run in the signed-in application and PostHog receives no student account, writing or evidence information. We don't share personal information with anyone else unless the law requires or allows it, for example a court order. If our business is ever sold, the same promises follow the data, and schools are told first.

In the region your school chose when it set up Loam (Sydney, Frankfurt or N. Virginia), encrypted, for as long as the school directs. Schools usually keep assignment evidence for their marking and appeal periods. The school can have it exported or deleted under its agreement with us.

Loam can't work without an account and the writing record. That's the product. If a student can't use Loam, their school decides an alternative arrangement under its own policies.

You can ask to see or correct personal information. The fastest way is through the school, or you can email us at hello@loam.ink. Our full Privacy Policy explains how we handle information, and how to complain (including to the OAIC at oaic.gov.au) if you're not happy with our answer.

Questions? hello@loam.ink. We answer parents and students directly.