AI policy

For students: what you need to know

• Your school uses your work and school records to teach you and manage school life. Submit only what your teacher or school asks for.
• Use made-up names in practice work where possible. Do not put passwords, identity card numbers, home addresses or other people’s private information into an essay, recording or AI conversation.
• Assigned school staff can see the records needed for their work. Your parent or guardian can see only the child records the school has authorised and made available to that account.
• If you are unsure, want something corrected or want to stop an optional activity, ask a teacher or parent to help you contact the school. Logging out does not erase your school records.

What AI is used for

School-enabled features can assist with writing feedback, speaking practice, teaching-material creation, authorised document search or teacher drafting. Ordinary record keeping does not send every school record to AI. The school selects the enabled features and permitted service; local simulation is labelled. The Family app links to learning tools rather than recording speech itself, and ordinary vocabulary marking is not an automatic AI transfer.

Before collection: school notice and choices

Before collecting student data, the school should explain to students and parents, in age-appropriate language, the data required, each purpose, who receives it, retention, the school contact, whether supply is mandatory or optional and the consequences of not supplying it. This product policy does not replace the school’s collection notice.

School enrolment, reading this page or allowing the microphone does not give blanket permission for unrelated uses. The school must obtain any consent required for the particular use, including a new purpose not directly related to the original purpose unless a legal exemption applies. A parent or guardian acts for a child only where legally entitled; an app account link alone does not settle that authority.

Required identity and class details support school access and assignments; omitting them may prevent the relevant service. Optional uploads or device permissions affect only the functions that need them. Students or parents can ask the school to withdraw an optional permission or discuss an alternative; the school must explain the actual learning impact and which existing records still need to be kept.

Exactly what may be sent

• Text assessment: the relevant essay, answer or dialogue turn, the task/rubric and necessary context; document search may use authorised excerpts. Known student names/identifiers and recognised personal details are redacted through the school gateway. Free text can still identify someone indirectly, so redaction is not a guarantee of anonymity.
• English speech: the full submitted recording and, for read-aloud tasks, the reference text, plus language/task settings. The current private speech request does not attach the account name, school name or pupil ID in its metadata. Spoken names and the sound of a voice are not anonymised. Short dialogue speech recognition and partner voices use the configured local processing.
• Do not include identity card numbers, passwords, contact details, health/SEN/counselling notes or unrelated classmates’ records in AI tasks. A teacher must review any reference text or document before submission; the system cannot guarantee detection of every private detail.

Who processes it and the limits of no-retention claims

Current school text processing can use iGears’ self-hosted assessment service; full-recording English speech uses iGears’ private speech service when enabled. They are operator-managed services and may be separate from the school application server. The school must confirm the actual Hong Kong/school hosting and agreed processing terms before real pupil use. Unapproved external AI services remain disallowed by the gateway.

No training is enabled or authorised for student content. Text requests ask for no persistent storage; speech necessarily has temporary processing storage with the limits set out below. Sending a no-training/no-retention flag is a request to the service, not independent proof of its hosting, logs or contractual enforcement. Saved school work and reports are not covered by a claim that an AI processor retains nothing.

English recordings: two separate copies

School recording: by default, playback expires at the programme end date in Hong Kong time, or the teacher sets 1–365 days for the assignment. Expired audio is refused for playback immediately; an hourly cleanup job removes expired audio objects, with failures needing retry. Unfinished, abandoned or failed uploads become eligible for cleanup after one day. Removing audio does not automatically remove the transcript, report or usage record.

iGears speech-processing copy: LearnSys requests deletion after result retrieval or cancellation and retries unconfirmed deletion. The current service caps processing content at 60 minutes from acceptance and 15 minutes after completion, whichever expires first. Content-free deletion/expiry status markers may remain for up to 24 hours. These limits concern the speech processor, not the school’s retained recording or report.

AI text and school learning records

Text requests specify no training and no persistent provider content storage. The school AI usage ledger keeps references, feature/provider, status, time, character counts and cost metadata, not prompt or response bodies. Submitted work and saved feedback in the learning module are separate school records. Provider-side no-retention settings and actual logs must be confirmed for each deployment; request flags alone do not prove enforcement.

Teacher responsibility and student choices

Practice feedback can appear before a teacher reviews it. It can be wrong or biased and is not an official grade or a diagnosis. Teachers must review any result used for formal assessment or a decision affecting a student. Current English pronunciation evidence is uncalibrated, so no numeric pronunciation grade is shown. Students or parents can ask the teacher to review a result.

Student coaching should support the learner’s own work, not produce assessed work to pass off as their own. The school should explain the AI activity before use and handle questions, optional withdrawal or alternative arrangements through its usual teaching/privacy contact. Closing a practice page is different from deleting a previously submitted assessment.

Access, correction, deletion and help

Contact the school office or its designated privacy contact through an existing verified private channel. Identify the student using the school reference, explain the records or activity concerned, and state whether you seek access, correction, removal or withdrawal of an optional permission. The school checks identity and any parental/guardian authority before disclosure.

Under Hong Kong’s Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, statutory access and correction requests are generally to be complied with within 40 calendar days of receipt, subject to the applicable requirements and exceptions. If unable to comply in time or lawfully refusing, the responsible data user must give the required written notice and reasons within that period. An internal review does not restart the statutory clock.

Deletion is reviewed against the purpose and any continuing retention duty; it is not an unconditional promise to erase every record immediately or within the access-request deadline. The school should explain any retained category, reason, review date and progress. See this product’s retention and deletion pages.

If you cannot identify the school contact, email [email protected] with the school name and a short description only. Do not send student records, passwords, invitation codes or identity documents in ordinary email or the public quotation form. Suspected exposure should be reported promptly through these channels without forwarding the exposed records. You may also contact the PCPD about privacy concerns.

Changes to student-data arrangements

The version date identifies this published policy. Before a new data category, recipient, processing location or purpose is introduced, the school and iGears must review the arrangement and provide the relevant notice and any required consent process. Posting a revised page alone does not authorise a new purpose.