Privacy policy
Last updated October 16, 2026
Harbor helps teachers, school staff and families communicate about students, including students who receive special education services. We take that responsibility seriously. This policy explains what we collect, why, and the choices you have.
The short version
- We collect only what we need to run Harbor.
- We never sell personal information and never show ads.
- When a school uses Harbor, the school controls its students’ information, and we act on the school’s behalf.
- You can ask for a copy of your data or ask us to delete your account.
Information we collect
Account information
Your name, email address, password (stored only as a secure hash), preferred language and role, such as teacher or parent.
Student information
Teachers may add a student’s name, preferred name, grade, class, photo consent status and the people on the student’s team. We ask teachers not to enter ID numbers, birthdates, diagnoses or home addresses.
Content you create
Messages, class posts, photos, acknowledgements, reactions, IEP drafting notes and marketplace listings. IEP and medical messages are stored separately with additional protection.
Technical information
Basic records needed to keep the service secure and working, such as sign-in times, device push-notification tokens and error reports with personal details removed. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking technologies.
How we use information
- To provide Harbor: delivering messages, posts and photos to the right people.
- To translate messages into each reader’s preferred language.
- To provide drafting help a teacher requests, with names and identifiers removed first.
- To keep accounts secure, prevent abuse and keep required records of access to protected information.
- To respond to support requests.
We do not use student information to build advertising profiles, and we do not use it to train AI models.
Schools and student records
When a school or district uses Harbor, information about its students may be part of the students’ education records under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In that case we act as a “school official” under the school’s direct control and use the information only to provide Harbor to that school. Families should contact their school to inspect, correct or request deletion of education records. We will help the school respond.
Students do not have Harbor accounts. Information about children under 13 is provided by their school and parents, and is used only for the educational purposes described here.
Who we share information with
We share information only as needed to run Harbor, with service providers bound by confidentiality and data-protection terms:
- Supabase: database, sign-in and file storage, hosted in the United States.
- Vercel: hosting for our website and web app.
- Google Cloud (Vertex AI): translation and drafting help, with names removed and no use for model training.
- Expo, Apple and Google: delivering push notifications. Notifications never contain message content.
- Stripe: processing marketplace payments, once payments are available.
We may also disclose information if required by law, or to protect the safety of a student or another person. We will tell the affected school when the law allows.
Retention and deletion
Schools choose how long messages are kept. IEP drafts delete themselves automatically, after 90 days by default. When you delete your account we remove your personal information, except content that a school must keep as part of a student’s education record.
Security
We use encryption in transit and at rest, strict role-based access controls, required two-step verification for school staff, and logs of access to protected records. Read more on our security page. If we ever learn of a breach affecting your information, we will notify affected schools and users as the law requires.
Your choices and rights
- Download a copy of your data from the app: More → Download my data.
- Delete your account from the app: More → Delete my account.
- Change your preferred language at any time, and ask your child’s teacher to update photo consent whenever you like.
- Depending on your state, you may have additional rights. Contact us to use them.
Changes
If we make important changes we will notify you in the app or by email before they take effect.
Contact
Questions? Email hello@example.com.