Is student data shared with third parties?

Skie for Enterprise · Updated

Short answer

Only with the service providers needed to run the product. For the enterprise product that means Google Cloud for hosting, and a DNS filter provider for web filtering. Skie does not sell student data, and message content, call logs, audio and video are never collected, so they cannot be shared.

Two kinds of outside provider are involved. The first is hosting. Skie runs on Google Cloud, and for the enterprise product the data sits in an India region, Mumbai. The second is the DNS filter provider. A filtering DNS service answers the device's website lookups and refuses the ones that belong to blocked categories.

The hosting provider holds the infrastructure the data lives on. The DNS provider sees domain lookups from filtered devices, which is how filtering works at all. The next entry explains exactly what that does and does not include.

Neither is a place where student records are handed over for other uses. They are part of delivering the service, which is the usual meaning of a processor or service provider in data protection law. Your own agreement and the privacy policy are the documents that set out the details, and you should read them as part of any procurement.

Because the organisation owns its data, it also decides who else it shares it with. Skie does not decide for you that a report goes to a parent or to an auditor. That is a school decision.

A practical tip: for a vendor review, ask for the current list of providers by name and write it into your own records. Providers change over time, and a dated list is more useful than a general statement.