Privacy Policy

Last Updated: September 12, 2025
Effective Date: October 12, 2025

 

At Respondus, Inc. (“Respondus,” “we,” or other applicable first-person pronouns), we understand that your privacy is important. We are providing this Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and the supplements referenced within (collectively, the “Privacy Policy”) to explain how we collect, use, disclose, and otherwise process (collectively, “Process”) certain information. This Privacy Policy also informs you about the choices and rights you have regarding your Personal Information and how you can manage the privacy of your Personal Information.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your Personal Information. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Services. By accessing or using our Services, you agree to this Privacy Policy.

When Respondus Processes Personal Information based on your use of our Software, we do so on behalf of our customers, consisting primarily of learning institutions (“Institutions”). When acting in this capacity, we Process information strictly in accordance with the written instructions of these Institutions. In these circumstances, the Institution’s privacy policies and procedures take precedence. If you are using our Services through an Institution, this arrangement typically applies to your information. We recommend reviewing your Institution’s privacy policies and directing any questions about your privacy rights or information handling practices to them directly.

Here are examples of what this Privacy Policy covers:

  • The services we provide to Institutions.
  • Your use of our services.
  • Your purchase of our services.
  • Your communications with us via email, phone, text, and other forms of electronic messages, including web-based chat functions.
  • Personal Information we collect through our websites, including https://web.respondus.com/ and https://studymate.com/ (collectively the “Website”).
  • Personal Information we collect when you interact with social media linked on our Website and our official accounts on other third-party websites like LinkedIn and X.
  • Personal Information we collect when you interact with our service providers to offer, provide, and improve our Website and other services.
  • Our marketing activities (we do not use Student information for marketing).
  • Any offline business interactions you may have with us.
  • Other services we offer or that you request from us.

(collectively, the “Services”).

For clarity, our Services include the software listed below (the “Software”). This Privacy Policy is incorporated into each of their Terms of Use, which must be agreed to by users prior to using the Software.

We Process your Personal Information similarly across our Services. However, there are differences in how LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor Process Personal Information, so we have provided additional information for those Services. Click the links below for more information.

We may also provide additional or supplemental privacy policies for specific Services at the time of collection. Unless otherwise noted, the supplemental policies, including those for LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor, when applicable, should be read together with this Privacy Policy. In the event of a conflict or inconsistency between this Privacy Policy and any supplements, the supplement controls.
This Privacy Policy does not apply to:

  • Websites or services that link to or reference different privacy policies.
  • Personal Information that is collected by any third party. Those third parties have their own privacy practices, and we encourage you to review them, especially by reading any available privacy policies, before providing Personal Information to or through them.
  • Personal Information we collect about employees or job applicants.

The list below may be used to jump to specific sections of this Privacy Policy.

Effective Date and Changes to this Privacy Policy
Children’s Data
Personal Information We Collect about You
How We Use Your Personal Information
Disclosing Your Personal Information
Your Choices
Your Rights
Data Retention
Data Security

 

Effective Date and Changes to this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy is effective as of the “Effective Date” above and will remain in effect except with respect to any provisions that are changed in the future. Respondus may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time and will notify you by email or posting a notice on the Website. Your continued use of the Services following the posting of a revised Privacy Policy means that you accept and agree to the changes. If you do not agree with the changes, you should stop using the Services.

 

Children’s Data

Respondus’ Software is only provided to children with parental or guardian consent in accordance with applicable law. Otherwise, Respondus’ Services are not intended for or directed to children. If you believe that Respondus is Processing a child’s information without parental or guardian consent, please contact us so that we can take steps to comply with the law.

 

Personal Information We Collect about You

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, “Personal Information” is broadly defined to mean information that can identify an individual directly or indirectly through reasonably available information and includes the definitions of “personal information,” “personally identifiable information”, “personal data,” and other analogous terms under applicable privacy laws.

The Personal Information Respondus collects about you and how we Process it depends on our relationship with our customers, our relationship with you, your interactions with us, and the Services you use. For example, we may Process your Personal Information differently depending on whether you are a student, learner, examinee, test taker, or other individual using our Software (“Student”); an instructor or exam supervisor who uses our Software in the classroom or to administer exams (“Instructor”); an individual that facilitates the licensing, integration, use, support or administration of our Software or other authorized users acting on behalf of an Institution (“Administrator”); a visitor of one of our social media accounts; or a Website visitor. We also Process Personal Information differently based on the directions we receive from Institutions, the choices you make, and the requirements of applicable law.

For more information regarding the information we collect, please review the disclosure relevant to you:

We collect information about you directly from you, automatically, and from third parties as further described below.

 
Information Collected Directly from You

Respondus may collect information directly from you. For example, you may provide us Personal Information when you:

  • Sign up for, purchase, implement, or use our Services.
  • Correspond with us by phone, email, text messaging, through our interactive chat functions, or otherwise. The information collected may include copies of these correspondences.
  • Create an account with us if you administer our Software on behalf of an Institution.
  • Complete forms on our Website, at live events, and provided to you in other ways.
  • Interact with our social media.

You also may provide information to be transmitted to other users of the Services or third parties (collectively, "Content"). For example, some of our Software allows you to submit text and images, and you may post on or to our social media. If you choose to share your Content, your Content is transmitted to others at your own risk. Although we limit access to certain pages, we cannot control the actions of other users of the Services with whom you may choose to share your Content. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that your Content will not be viewed by unauthorized persons.

You may elect not to directly provide us with information, but we may be unable to provide you with the applicable Services if you do so, as further described in Your Choices below.

 
Information Collected Automatically

We may collect information from you automatically as you use our Services online. For example, we may automatically collect Personal Information when you:

  • Use our Software.
  • Interact with our Website.
  • Correspond with us via email.
  • Engage with us for customer support.

Some of the information we collect automatically is through the use of “cookies” and similar tracking technologies. You can learn more about this in our Cookie Policy.

 
Information Collected from Other Sources

We may also collect Personal Information from other sources such as:

  • Institutions.
  • Our service providers.
  • Social media.
  • Marketing and sales generation partners.
  • Government agencies and others who release or publish public records.

 

How We Use Your Personal Information

Respondus uses your Personal Information for the following purposes:

Providing the Services. We use information about you to provide our Software to Institutions. As noted above, we Process the Personal Information of Students similarly across our Software. However, there are differences in how LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor Process Personal Information, so we provide additional information about this Software at the links below.

Some Institutions require Students to pay for the Software, and in those circumstances we will direct you to our service provider to process your payment. Administrators may need to log in to a portal to manage licenses for the Software, and Students using our StudyMate Software may need to log in to create and access their Content, so we use their information to create, maintain, and secure their account. We will also use your information to run and manage our business in the ordinary course and keep our records up to date.

Providing customer support. We use information about you to respond to inquiries about our Services and to investigate and resolve technical support issues. In the course of providing customer support, we may use your Personal Information to monitor and improve our responses.

Research and development. We may use your information to analyze and improve our Services, including the Website and Software, and to develop products and services.

Communicating with you about the Services. We use the information for Instructors and Administrators to communicate about the Services, including regarding:

  • Software training.
  • Software licensing, including initial licenses, expiration, and renewal notices, and other administrative matters.
  • Technical issues and security alerts.
  • Changes to the Services.

We use the information of an individual who sends us an inquiry to respond to such inquiries.

Marketing. We market our services only to current, past and potential Instructors and Administrators. We do not use Student information for marketing. For Administrators and Instructors, we may use your information to communicate with you regarding developments within our business or products, services, or events we or our business partners may offer that may be of interest to you. If you do not want to receive marketing communications, you can learn more in Your Choices below. For any visitor of our Website or anyone who engages with us on Social Media, we may also use your information to present our Website to you, to engage with you on Social Media, and to improve our marketing.

Legal reasons. We may use your information to:

  • Notify you about changes to our Privacy Policy and terms of use.
  • Apply or enforce any agreements between us and an Institution, you, or any other third party.
  • Exercise, protect, and defend our Services, rights, employees, operations, property, or any other person or business.
  • Comply with any court order, law, subpoena, or other legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.
  • Comply with legal and regulatory requirements.
  • When we believe in good faith that the provision of such information is required or permitted by law, such as in connection with the investigation or assertion of our legal defenses or for our compliance matters.

With your consent. We will use your information to fulfill the purposes for which you provided it, that were described when it was collected, or for any other purpose with your consent.

 

Disclosing Your Personal Information

Respondus discloses your Personal Information in the following circumstances:

Providing the Services. We disclose Student information to the Institution that has contracted with us to provide the Services. When Students use our Software, we share their information with the contracting Institution to enable delivery of the services the Institution has purchased from us.

With our service providers. We disclose your information to service providers we use to support our business and which are bound by contractual obligations to keep Personal Information confidential and secure and use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them.

For mergers and acquisitions. We will disclose your information to a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, including in contemplation of such transactions. Your information may be among the shared or transferred business assets.

With your consent. We will disclose your information with your consent.

 

Your Choices

Respondus strives to provide you with choices regarding your Personal Information. The following tools and procedures may provide you with the control over your information:

  • Cookies. We explain how you may exercise control over the information automatically collected through cookies in our Cookie Policy. Please review it for more information.
  • Marketing communications. We respect your rights related to marketing communications, and we enforce internal policies to preserve your rights. If you do not want us to send you marketing communications, you may “opt out” at any time by unsubscribing or contacting us directly. You can unsubscribe by following the instructions in the applicable communication you received from us. Please note that if you are one of our customer’s employees and you unsubscribe from receiving marketing communications from us, we may continue to send you transactional or service-related emails.
  • Opting not to provide information. You may choose not to provide us with your information, including your Personal Information. If you choose not to provide Personal Information, you may be able to obtain certain Services; however, you will not have access to the Services that require Personal Information. Students who choose not to provide us with information may have to make alternative arrangements to using the Software with their Instructor.

 

Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights regarding your Personal Information. Respondus is committed to respecting your rights and performing its obligations under applicable privacy laws. Please see the disclosure relevant to you for more information:

 

Data Retention

When your information is collected in order to use our Software, the Institution has control of the retention and deletion of that information, and its data retention policies and practices apply. Respondus systems are configured such that Institutions can adjust the length of time the data is stored on our system.

For the other information Respondus’ Processes, except as otherwise permitted or required by applicable law or regulation, we will only retain your Personal Information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, as required to satisfy any legal, accounting, or reporting obligations, or as necessary to resolve disputes. To determine the appropriate retention period for Personal Information, we consider applicable legal requirements, the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the Personal Information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your Personal Information, the purposes for which we Process your Personal Information, and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means.

 

Data Security

Respondus uses physical, electronic, and administrative safeguards designed to protect your Personal Information from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, use, alteration, or disclosure.
We require our service providers to maintain data protections consistent with the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the Personal Information they are Processing and best practices.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee that the safeguards we have in place will work or the security of the Personal Information transmitted to us. We are not responsible for the circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Services. Any transmission of Personal Information is at your own risk.

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where you have a password for access to certain parts of our Services, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. Do not share your password with anyone. We urge you to use discretion when providing information that is available to the public, such as your Content, reviews, or on our social media, and avoid sharing Personal Information.

 

Contact Us

If you have questions, comments, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy, its supplements, or our privacy practices, or if you need to access this Privacy Policy in an alternative format due to having a disability, you may contact us through our Privacy Contact.