Who we are
Strew is operated by StormGate Ltd, trading as Strew Home Education. This privacy policy explains how we process personal information when you use the Strew website, mobile application, ChatGPT tools, and related services.
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service Privacy Policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Who we share your data with
If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where your data is sent
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
ChatGPT and AI report tools
Strew provides tools that can be used through third-party AI services such as ChatGPT. When you use a Strew tool to create a home education report, Strew receives only the information required to perform that request.
Depending on what you provide, this may include a child’s first or preferred name, age, UK jurisdiction, reporting period, home education approach, reason for the report, and notes about activities, interests, learning and development.
Please only provide information that is relevant to the report you want to create. You do not need to provide a child’s full legal name, address, contact details or other unnecessary identifying information.
How we use information provided to AI tools
Information supplied to the ChatGPT Strew home education report tool is used to generate the report requested by you and to operate, secure and troubleshoot the service.
We do not use report content to create advertising profiles or sell personal information.
Strew does not intentionally use information supplied through this tool to build a permanent profile of a child unless a user separately chooses to save information using a Strew account or another Strew feature that provides for such storage.
AI service providers
To generate reports, Strew sends the information required for the request to OpenAI through its API. OpenAI processes this information on our behalf to generate the requested output.
OpenAI states that data sent through its API is not used to train its models unless the API customer explicitly opts in to data sharing. OpenAI may retain API request and response data for service operation, safety and abuse monitoring in accordance with its applicable data-retention policies.
Information you provide directly to ChatGPT before a Strew tool is called is also subject to the privacy terms and settings that apply to your ChatGPT account.
To read more about how Strew interacts with AI, see our AI Pledge.
Retention of ChatGPT tool requests
Strew does not store the contents of home education report requests or generated reports in its application database when using the unauthenticated ChatGPT report tool. They are processed for the purpose of generating the requested report and returned to the requesting service.
Limited technical information may be retained in server logs for security, reliability and troubleshooting. We do not intentionally include report contents, children’s names or generated reports in application logs.
Third-party service providers involved in processing a request may retain information in accordance with their own retention policies.
Information about children
Strew is intended for use by parents, guardians and other adults responsible for a child’s education. The ChatGPT report tool is not intended for children to submit personal information about themselves directly.
Parents and guardians should avoid providing information that is not necessary to create the requested report. In particular, please do not provide passwords, financial information, government identifiers, medical records or other sensitive information unless a Strew feature explicitly requires it and provides appropriate information about that processing.