Security and privacy
The question a faculty senate asks first is what does it not do.
A tool that records students has to be able to state its limits precisely, in public, without a sales call. This page is that statement. If something you need is not answered here, ask us and we will put the answer on this page rather than in an email.
Hard limits
Six limits, by design.
These are not settings. There is no administrator switch that changes any of them, because the capability is not in the product.
What is recorded
How the document was built, inside the editor.
EssayGuard captures the shape of the writing process. That is enough to show a paper being written, and it stops at the edge of the editor.
Kept
Edits to the assignment document, with their timing. Insertions, deletions, revisions, pauses and idle periods, and pastes with their length and destination. Copies and cuts inside the document. Text that arrived by speech to text. When the student left the page and came back. Typing rhythm, such as how long keys are held, and counts of clicks and scrolls. The reconstructed text of the draft at each point.
Not kept
Anything typed outside the assignment document. Clipboard source. Other tabs, applications, files, or windows. Screen contents. Anything from the camera or microphone, which are never accessed. Ordinary technical information such as an IP address is handled as described in the privacy policy.
Told to the student
Before they start, students are told that EssayGuard records how they write. They can download their own essay at any time. Transparency is the point rather than a concession. A record only helps a student who knows it exists.
Where it lives and who can reach it
The institution controls the record. We hold it for them.
Storage and transport
Hosted in the United States.
Application data is held in Postgres on Supabase, with the application served from Vercel. All connections use HTTPS and TLS. Row level security is enforced at the database, so an instructor account can read only the sessions belonging to their own assignments.
- Encrypted in transit on every connection
- Row level security scoped to the owning instructor
- Service credentials never exposed to the browser
Access
A short list of people.
The instructor who created the assignment, and anyone the instructor deliberately shares a printed report with. Coming soon on department and campus plans: read access for an integrity office, limited to the sessions attached to an open case.
- No default institution-wide visibility
- Exports are generated by a person, never pushed
- Support access requires a written request from the account owner
Retention
Ninety days by default. Deleted on request.
Records are kept for 90 days by default, which covers a full term plus the period in which an integrity question is normally raised. Your school can ask us to delete them at any time.
Deletion on request by the institution is covered in the data processing agreement. Under FERPA those requests are handled through the institution rather than directly with the student. The privacy policy sets out the rest.
Compliance
What we can say today, and what we cannot.
What is EssayGuard’s role under FERPA?
When an institution uses the platform, EssayGuard acts as a School Official with a Legitimate Educational Interest. Student records remain under the institution’s control, and access, correction, and deletion requests are handled through the institution. The full language is in the privacy policy.
Will you sign a data processing agreement?
Yes. A standard DPA is published in full at essayguard.io/dpa so your counsel can read it before anyone talks to us. Campus agreements can be executed against your institution’s own paper.
Are you SOC 2 certified?
Not today, and we will not imply otherwise. EssayGuard is a small product and a SOC 2 Type II report is on the roadmap rather than in hand. If your procurement process requires one, tell us where you are in your cycle and we will be straight with you about whether we can meet it.
Do you sell or share student data?
No. Student work is never sold, never licensed, never used for advertising, and never used to train a model. The service runs on Supabase (database and sign-in), Vercel (hosting and page analytics), Resend (email), and Stripe (payments for paid plans).
Can a student refuse to be recorded?
That is a question for your institution rather than for us, because it is an assignment design decision. What we can tell you is that students are told before they start that EssayGuard records how they write.