Children's Privacy Policy

Welcome to the Arduino Children's Privacy Policy! 

Kids Privacy Assured by PRIVO: COPPA Safe Harbor Certification. Arduino s.r.l is a member of the PRIVO Kids Privacy Assured COPPA Safe Harbor Certification Program ("the Program").

This Privacy Policy will tell you about the kinds of information that Arduino S.r.l. and its affiliates (collectively " Arduino ", "we", "us", or "our") collect from children and how we use it or share it. You will know that this Privacy Policy applies when you visit us on a website, mobile application, online service, or on a portion of a site or service, use any online or offline services that we operate, or attend an in-person live event or experience (together we call these our "Services") and this Privacy Policy is made available to you.

This Privacy Policy is in accordance with applicable global privacy laws, such as the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (also known as COPPA) and outlines our practices regarding information collected from and about children who use our Services. It supplements and is in addition to the Arduino general audience Privacy Policy, which should be read alongside this Privacy Policy. If you have questions about our privacy practices as they relate to information we collect about children, see the "Contact Us" section below.

As a Junior user (as defined under Junior Account section below) you can access the following services:

• Access Educational products and services intended for middle school students (view the full list on Arduino Education)
• Download and use Arduino IDE.
• Download and use the Arduino Science Journal App. Use the Science Journal Apps only for creating experiments saved locally in the App. Sharing functionality with Google Drive is not made available to Junior Accounts.
• Submit Assignment from the Science Journal App to Google Classroom, subject to an existing plan held by your teacher and approval of the latter. 

You should always check with your parents or guardians before giving out any information about you, especially before entering information on any website, mobile application, or online service.

If you are an Adult using our Services -- our general audience Arduino Privacy Policy, which can be viewed at https://www.arduino.cc/en/privacy-policy, applies to our collection and processing of your data (including on the Services where this Children's Privacy Policy is posted). We encourage families to discuss their household guidelines regarding the online sharing of Personal Information. 

Click on the table of contents for more information or scroll down to read the full Privacy Policy.

Our Mission to Protect Children's Privacy

We recognize the need to provide further privacy protections when it comes to children. Some of the Services are directed to children, while other Services or portions of them are intended for use by adults and teens. For Services that are directed to children, we may collect, use, and disclose information about you as described in this Privacy Policy. Some of this information may be considered "Personal Information" or "Personal Data" (as defined under applicable law) which is information that identifies you or your device or is reasonably associated with you. We consider you to be a child if you are not of legal age to consent to the collection and processing of your Personal Information under applicable laws where you live.

Information We Collect

Below we summarize potential instances of collection of Personal Information where our Services are directed at children. We also outline how and when we will provide parental notice and/or seek parental consent.

In any instance that we collect Personal Information from a child, we will retain that information only so long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the activity requested or allow you to continue to participate in the activity, and to ensure the security of our users and our Services, or as required by law.

In the event we discover we have collected Personal Information from or about a child in a manner inconsistent with legal requirements, we will either delete the information or immediately seek the parent's consent for that collection.

With regard to the processing of personal data of children under 16 years of age, please read the following information. In any event, Arduino does not process the personal data of children under the age of 14. In case Arduino recognizes that it has collected personal information from users under the age of 14, Arduino will take steps to delete such information as soon as possible. Students under the age of 14 who are involved in using Arduino Education products will not be identified, as they will be given unique and anonymous access credentials that only the teacher will give to the students under the age of 14, whose browsing data will not be visible to Arduino.

Arduino cares about the security of its website and its services, particularly when minors under the age of 16 are accessing it.

Therefore, Arduino has expressly stated that some of the services provided through its website are only accessible to certain users, and at the same time, has provided for different types of registration to its website, depending on the age group, in order to better protect browsing and use of services through its website by users under 16.

Adult Account (for users between 14 and 16 years old)

Arduino processes personal data of users between 14 and 16 years old when they create an Adult Account on the website.

In particular, Arduino processes the user's email address as well as his/her username and password and his/her date of birth, to verify that he/she can proceed with the creation of a Adult Account. The legal basis for this processing is to follow up on the user's request to create an Adult Account. The data retention period is equal to the period of activity of the account for the use of Arduino services according to the terms and conditions of use that you have accepted, within the limits described.

Just as for the Junior Account, for the Adult Account of users between 14 and 16 years old, in order to complete the registration of an Adult Account, Arduino will process the personal data of the person exercising parental authority as well, who will be asked to enter his/her email address and create a username and password. 

The personal data of the person exercising parental authority are therefore processed in order to allow the creation of the Adult Account as well as the management of the account itself, in terms of preferences and access to the services and will be stored for the entire period of activity of the account, which in any case will be deleted (both the Adult Account of the user between 14 and 16 years old and the Adult Account of the user over 16 years old) in case of inactivity of the same for 24 months.

Through the Adult Account of users between 14 and 16 years old, the user has access to all the services available on the Arduino website, except for those services/features expressly reserved for the person exercising parental authority set forth below. Only the person exercising parental authority may choose which services would be activated and which services the child between 14 and 16 years old can access.

Personal data of the person exercising parental authority of a user between 14 and 16 years old who has an Adult Account may be processed for the following purposes.

• To send essential information relating to the account and use of Arduino products and services.
• To participate in our surveys.

For the purposes described above, Arduino does not process personal data of users between 14 and 16 years old. 

Such data may be processed, if the person exercising parental authority provides his/her prior authorization through the dashboard, only for the following purposes.

• To ask information and to interact with other users.
• To obtain an Arduino certification.
• To enable the use of Arduino Education products.
• To publish software to which the user is a contributor.
• To interact with customer care operators.
• To publish data of the user on Arduino website as an "Arduino Certified User".

Junior Accounts (for minors under the age of 14)

Users under the age of 14 may create a Junior Account. Arduino does not process any personal data that would allow you to be identified as a child under the age of 14.

In order to create a Junior Account, the user is asked to choose a username and a picture (an Avatar), from a set of predetermined options, as well as to enter a password of their choice. As with all users who create an account on the website, the user is also asked to enter his/her date of birth, also to verify that he/she can correctly proceed with the creation of a Junior Account.

In order to complete the registration of a Junior Account, Arduino will process the personal data of the person exercising parental authority, such as their email address entered during the creation of the Junior Account, and will ask him/her to create an Arduino Adult Account (users over 16 years old). If you do not provide such personal data or if you do not create an Adult Account (users over 16 years old), the Junior Account will not be created and all data provided will be deleted within 30 days. The personal data of the person exercising parental authority are therefore processed in order to allow the creation of the Junior Account and will be kept for the entire period of activity of the account, which will, in any event, be deleted (both with regard to the Junior Account and the Adult Account) in case of inactivity for 24 months.

The personal data collected within the Junior Account, and therefore only those relating to the person exercising parental authority, who created an Adult Account (users over 16 years old), will be processed in order to allow access to all services and features on the Arduino website. The purposes, the legal basis and the retention periods are indicated in this Privacy Policy in the dedicated sections, which you should visit, please.

For more information on the recipients of the personal data of the person exercising parental authority, on any transfers outside the EU of such personal data as well as to know the rights recognized to data subjects under the GDPR, please see the previous sections of our Privacy Policy.

With a Junior Account, the user will only be able to:

• Access Educational products and services intended for middle school students (view the full list on Arduino Education).
• Download and use Arduino IDE.
• Download and use the Arduino Science Journal App. Use the Science Journal Apps only for creating experiments saved locally in the App. Sharing functionality with Google Drive is not made available to Junior Accounts.
• Submit Assignment from the Science Journal App to Google Classroom, subject to an existing plan held by your teacher and approval of the latter. 

Information You Give to Us

You can use most of the Services without actively submitting any information, but some of the Services may allow you to provide Personal Information, such as the following:

• Parent or guardian contact information.
• Date of Birth.

Information Collected About Your Computer, Phone and Other Devices

We and our service providers operating on our behalf or other businesses who collect information on our Services may automatically collect or receive certain information associated with you and/or your device(s) as part of your use of our Services through device-based tracking technologies. This could be information such as your IP address (a number assigned by your Internet Service Provider that can identify your device) and identifiers associated with cookies. For more information about cookies and other tracking technologies and the choices you have regarding the use of them, click https://www.arduino.cc/en/cookie-policy, to view our Arduino Cookie Policy https://www.arduino.cc/en/cookie-policy.

Websites and Data Collection of Third Parties

On all areas of the services that are open to users 14 years of age or under, we restrict the use of third-party service providers unless COPPA compliant.

We use Analytics provider Google Analytics to help us better understand the use of the services. In association with them, we may passively collect IP addresses, OS versions and browser types. This information is for internal use only and can't be shared. For more information on the use of please review the Google Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US.

In the application Science Kit Physics Lab, users are invited to use the Arduino Science Journal app to visualise data coming from our hardware. Users do not need an account to use Science Journal, it can be used anonymously. 

In the application Science Kit Physics Lab we embed videos from YouTube and tagged for child-directed treatment with Google. For more information on the tag please follow this link: https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/3248194?hl=en or visit the Google privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy. 

Information collected by third-party devices or on other sites and services is subject to the privacy policy and practices of the third party providing such site or service and not subject to this Privacy Policy.

Please consult the privacy policies of any third parties with which you share information in this manner to learn about the third party's data practices. If you have any questions about the service providers used, please contact us at privacy@arduino.cc. 

How We Use Information & Why

We collect and use information about you for the following purposes.

• Provide, maintain, and improve the Services, as well as to develop new content and features;
• Create, maintain, and service your account, if you have created one;
• Send notifications related to your account, if you have created one;
• Respond to customer service requests from you;
• Analyze traffic and user activities on the Services, identify popular areas or features, and optimize and personalize the Services;
• Debug the Services to identify and repair errors;

We may send you local notifications. We do not collect personal data to contact you directly via push notifications, but we may use "local notifications" that are sent directly through a mobile app to your device (and do not require an internet connection). We may use these local notifications to notify you of new content or events within the app, among other reasons.

We will store your data only as long as needed for business purposes. We store the Personal Information we collect for as long as is necessary for the purpose(s) for which we originally collected it in accordance with applicable laws. We may also retain Personal Information as required by law.

Who We Share Your Information With & Why

We will not share the information we collect other than as follows:

We may share information within the Arduino family of companies. Where permitted by law, we may share information we collect about you with the Arduino companies for the purposes described in the "How We Use Information & Why" section above.

We will share information with third parties who perform Services on our behalf. We share information with unaffiliated companies or individuals we hire or work with that provide us with professional advice, business support, or perform services on our behalf, including customer support, payment processors, or others who assist us in fulfilling orders or transactions, web hosting, information technology, payment processing, event providers, direct mail and email distribution, contest, sweepstakes and promotion administration, and analytics services ("Service Providers"). These Service Providers are allowed to use your information to help us provide our Services and not for any other purpose.

We will share your information with your consent or if you ask us to. We share your information with third parties if you provide your consent or when you ask us to do so and if it is allowed under applicable law. For example, if you ask us to share your information in order for you to participate in an interactive service that is operated by a third party, we will share that information as requested and allowed.

Parental Control and Choices

If we allow children to create an account or otherwise engage with us over time, we will obtain parental consent prior to the collection of their Personal Information. If you are a parent, you can refuse to permit us to collect Personal Information from your child and can request that we delete from our records the Personal Information we have collected. Please keep in mind that a request to delete records may lead to a termination of an account, membership, or other Services.

If you have any questions or concerns about our approach to children's privacy, you, as a parent, want to access the data of your child or request the deletion of your child's data, please submit a request via our webform https://www.arduino.cc/en/contact-us. For more information about your choices and rights, visit our Arduino general audience Privacy Policy https://www.arduino.cc/en/privacy-policy.

Other Rights in Your Jurisdiction

Depending on the applicable law in your jurisdiction, you may have additional rights, such as rights to access, correction and delete your Personal Information. If you have any questions about what rights and choices apply in your jurisdiction, please feel free to contact us through our supports' webform https://www.arduino.cc/en/contact-us/.

Educational Services

Some of our Services are available for teachers, schools, and school districts ("Schools") to use as part of an educational curriculum under the oversight of the School. These Services are designed to minimize the collection of Personal Information from children and to comply with student data privacy laws. When used by Schools, usernames, identifiers that may identify you or your device, and other information may be provided to us by a child's School and associated with a class or grade level. The School will be able to see information regarding the child's use of the Services in connection with a class and make changes to the child's username and other information. In some circumstances, teachers and other authorized personnel may create accounts for their students.

The School is solely responsible for providing notices and obtaining consents required by applicable student data privacy laws, including providing all required notices to parents, obtaining all necessary parent or guardian consents, or complying with applicable requirements of an exemption or exception from parental consent requirements. The School is also responsible for activities such as removing a child from the class roster, deleting a class, or submitting a deletion request when a child's Personal Information is no longer needed for School purposes.

If you are a parent and have questions about reviewing, modifying, or deleting your child's Personal Information, please contact your child's school directly.

Changes to this Children's Privacy Policy

From time to time, we may change and/or update this Privacy Policy to accommodate new technologies, industry practices, regulatory requirements or for other purposes. We will provide notice to you where required by applicable law. Notice may be by email to you at the last email address you provided us, by posting notice of such changes on our websites, applications and Services, or by other means, consistent with applicable law.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you may contact us through our supports' webform https://www.arduino.cc/en/contact-us/, phone at +39 01119116387, email privacy@arduino.cc or mail at: Arduino Srl c/o Toolbox, Via Agostino da Montefeltro, 210134 Turin (TO), Italy.

Kids Privacy Assured by PRIVO: COPPA Safe Harbor Certification

Arduino s.r.l is a member of the PRIVO Kids Privacy Assured COPPA safe harbor certification Program (“the Program”). The Program certification applies to the digital properties listed on the certification page that is viewable by clicking on the PRIVO Seal. PRIVO is an independent, third-party organization committed to safeguarding children's personal information collected online. The PRIVO COPPA certification seal posted on this page indicates Arduino s.r.l has established COPPA compliant privacy practices and has agreed to submit to PRIVO’s oversight and consumer dispute resolution process. If you have questions or concerns about our privacy practices, please contact us at +39 01119116387 (Privacy Issues enquiries only) or privacy@arduino.cc. If you have further concerns after you have contacted us, you can contact PRIVO directly at privacy@privo.com.