VHL PRIVACY POLICY

This Privacy Policy was last updated on May 10, 2024. Please review and familiarize yourself with this Privacy Policy.

Welcome to Vista Higher Learning. This Vista Higher Learning Privacy Policy (this “Privacy Policy”) applies to your access to and use of https://www.vistahigherlearning.com (“VHL Corporate Website”), https://www.vhlcentral.com (“VHL Central”), and any other website that has a link to this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “VHL Sites”)

Vista Higher Learning, Inc. (“Vista Higher Learning”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) is committed to protecting your privacy through compliance with this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy explains our policies and practices with respect to the information you disclose to us, or the information we collect from you, when you use the VHL Sites. Throughout this Privacy Policy, “user”, “you”, or “your” refers to persons who have registered for and/or are using the VHL Sites or, for students who are under the age of 13, to the parents or legal guardians of those students.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this Privacy Policy or in our Terms of Use, we will not use the information that you provide or that we collect in any manner that violates the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”) and other federal, state or local laws, or any written agreement between you or your institution and VHL. Subject to the foregoing, by accessing or using the VHL Sites, you agree to the Privacy Policy’s terms. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy and its terms, please do not access or use the VHL Sites. This Privacy Policy is subject to our Terms of Use available here.

What this Privacy Policy Covers

This Privacy Policy applies solely to our use of information collected by, through, or on the VHL Sites and associated products and support services which link to this Privacy Policy. It does not apply to any information we may collect offline or through any other means. This Privacy Policy does not address, and we are not responsible for, information collected by or through third parties, even if their products or services may be linked to or from the VHL Sites. For more information, see “Links to Other Sites” below. Please read the terms of any privacy policies that you enter into with other parties, including your educational institution, as those policies may explain how certain of your information is used by those parties.

Information We Collect

You do not have to provide personally identifiable information to access or use the VHL Corporate Website. However, to take advantage of certain Support or Community features, such as the VHL Blog, you may choose to furnish us with personally identifiable information through the VHL Corporate Website.

The VHL Corporate Website offers you the opportunity to order learning materials directly from our Vista Higher Learning Store (the “VHL Store”) (https://vistahigherlearning.com/store). If you make a purchase from the VHL Store, you will need to create a VHL Central account, as described below, and your transaction will be processed by a third party payment processor. The payment processor will collect your credit card information and any other information required to process your transaction, such as name, email address, shipping address, and billing address. Vista Higher Learning is not responsible for the payment processor’s privacy and security practices.

To make purchases through the VHL Store or to make use of our online learning platform, VHL Central, we require that you create an account by providing certain information from or about you or your students. The first type of information we may collect includes certain personal or identifying information, such as first and last name, email address, birth year, school affiliation including country, state or province, time zone, school type, and full institutional name (optional), and username and password. When you provide us with this information, which is collected on an individual basis, you knowingly choose to disclose it to us.

When using our learning materials through VHL Central, we may collect the following additional information:

Subject to compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”) and other federal, state or local laws governing the privacy of educational records, your school, school district, or educational institution may provide Vista Higher Learning with certain information for your account, such as your name, email address, and course and section enrollment information. This is discussed further in the section titled "Student Information" below.

Another type of information we collect through VHL Central is user-generated content, which may include profile information, enrollment and login history, audio and video recordings, and scores for practice activities. In addition, VHL Central may offer instructors and students the ability to complete substantive course work, including the ability to upload documents and submit communications. VHL Central may also offer instructors the ability to store student grade information on or through such products.

You may choose not to provide us with some or all of the information described above. However, in some cases, if you choose not to provide us with the required information, you will not be able to access or use some or all of the content or services of the VHL Sites.

Use of Cookies and Website Information

Like many commercial websites, we use standard "cookie" technology and web server logs to collect information about how the VHL Sites are used. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by your web browser on your hard drive. Cookies allow our web servers to recognize the computers used to access the VHL Sites. Cookies allow you to move from page to page within the VHL Sites by remembering the information about the entire session.

Information gathered through cookies and by our web server logs may include your IP address, the date and time of your visit, the pages viewed, time spent on VHL Central, and the websites visited immediately before and after using VHL Central. This information is collected automatically and contains no personally identifiable information. However, we may tie this information to other information about you that we collect from you or other sources. For instance, we expressly reserve the right to analyze anonymous demographic information and to correlate it to particular individuals in order to investigate potentially unlawful conduct and/or breaches of this Privacy Policy or the VHL Terms of Use. For example, we may report to appropriate school and law enforcement authorities any IP addresses and correlated email address that is associated with multiple unsuccessful code redemption attempts.

We may also use IP addresses and anonymous demographic information in the aggregate to share with advertisers and market researchers, and to improve the design of the VHL Sites to better serve our customers and otherwise for Vista Higher Learning business purposes. While it may be possible to correlate this information to particular individuals, we do not generally do so. We may share this aggregated information with other third parties.

You can configure your web-browser to disable cookies, but doing so may impair your use of VHL Central.

You may occasionally get cookies from companies advertising on our behalf. We do not control those cookies and they are not subject to this cookie policy.

We may also use web beacons or flash cookies. A web beacon or flash cookie (also known as “action tags”, “tracer tags”, or “single-pixel gifs”) is an invisible graphic on a web page that is programmed only to collect information that is not personally identifiable to you about your use of a given website. We do not collect personal information, such as names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers through such web beacons without your express permission.

We may use third-party web analytics services on the VHL Sites, such as Google Analytics. These services help us analyze how visitors use the VHL Sites. The information collected for this purpose (including your IP address and other information collected by automated means) will be disclosed to or collected directly by these service providers. To learn more about opting out of these activities, visit: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

How We Use the Information We Collect

We may use the information and user-generated content we collect for any business purposes not prohibited by law or this Privacy Policy, including, but not limited to, improving our products and services. For example, information we collect may be used in the following ways:

• To facilitate and enable the registration, access, and operation of the VHL Sites;
• To respond to your requests for product support or customer service;
• To develop content and functionality that helps us better serve your needs, such as training opportunities and updates;
• To engage in advertising and marketing activities as permitted by this Privacy Policy;
• To personalize your use of and experience with the VHL Sites; and
• To monitor and improve the overall performance and quality of the VHL Sites, including assessing trends in your use of the VHL Sites or purchases of products or services from the VHL Store.
• To deidentify and aggregate data for legitimate business purposes.

We may also use the information we collect through VHL Central to communicate with you in connection with your use of VHL Central. You may opt-out of receiving these communications at any time. The following options are available to opt-out of receiving these messages:

Send email to privacy@vistahigherlearning.com

Send written correspondence to:

Vista Higher Learning
500 Boylston Street
Suite 620, Boston, MA 02116

Call 800-618-7375 or 617-426-4910

By using the "unsubscribe" link on any emailed correspondence from Vista Higher Learning

Disclosure of Your Information

Vista Higher Learning does not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer your personally identifiable information to outside parties except under the following circumstances:

• To our trusted affiliates and third party service providers, as further described below, who assist us in operating our business, servicing the VHL Sites, or supporting you with your product experience;
• When we believe in good faith that disclosing such information is necessary or advisable, including, for instance, to comply with any law, court order, or legal process, including responding to any government or regulatory request;
• To enforce our Terms of Use or VHL policies or protect our or other’s rights, property, or safety;
• To a buyer or other successor or assignee in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Vista Higher Learning’s assets; and
• Otherwise as permitted or required by law.

Information collected from your use of VHL Central, including user-generated content and other Student Information, may also be made available to school officials, including instructors, who Vista Higher Learning reasonably believes to have a legitimate educational interest in such information and materials. Such information and materials may include a student's first and last name, username, e-mail address, student ID (if provided), the student's substantive course work, any student recorded and submitted communications, uploaded documents, product usage information (including time on site, time spent on each course-related activity, submission dates and times for course activities), score and grade information, login history, account creation date and time, and enrollment history. Additionally, if Vista Higher Learning makes chat rooms, forums, or message boards available by or through VHL Central, it is important to remember that information you choose to disclose in these areas may be viewed, accessed, retained, or re-disclosed by other VHL Central users. We encourage you to exercise caution in deciding whether to disclose your personal information on such forums.

For the avoidance of doubt, Vista Higher Learning will not provide any third party with any personally identifiable information for purposes of engaging in targeted advertising. However, Vista Higher Learning may disclose de-identified, aggregated user information or statistics in order to describe VHL Central to prospective partners, advertisers, and other third parties, and for other lawful business purposes.

Third Parties Who May Receive Your Information

Vista Higher Learning may share your information with affiliates and third party service providers who assist us in operating our business, servicing VHL Central, or supporting you with your product experience. You may find a list of Vista Higher Learning’s affiliates and third party service providers here. Vista Higher Learning is not responsible for any third party's implementation of its privacy and security practices.

How We Protect Your Information

We have implemented reasonable technical, physical and administrative safeguards to help protect your personally identifiable information against unauthorized access or loss. For instance, Vista Higher Learning provides privacy and information security training to our employees. While Vista Higher Learning strives to protect the personal information of users and takes reasonable steps to ensure the security, integrity and confidentiality of such information disclosed to us, we cannot guarantee the security, integrity or confidentiality of any information disclosed, and you do so at your own risk.

Username and Passcodes

When you create a password using VHL Central, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. Please make every effort to ensure it remains private. Do not share your password with anyone, even on a temporary basis. Vista Higher Learning is not responsible for unauthorized access to accounts gained through the sharing of passwords. If you suspect your password has been compromised, contact Vista Higher Leaning Technical Support immediately.

If you lose or forget your login information, you may contact us and ask us to change your password to a temporary password. You authorize us to, upon request, send your login information to your email address of record. Further, we may provide secondary school instructors with a method of resetting a student's password for students who have indicated to us that they are enrolled at the instructor's school. This means that, if you are a secondary school student, it is possible for instructors at your school to view your VHL Central account. We will not knowingly provide instructor login information to any student.

Changes to Your Personal Information

You or your parent or legal guardian may review, correct or delete your personally identifiable information maintained by us through your use of the VHL Corporate Site and/or VHL Store. You may also ask us to stop collecting or using some or all such personally identifiable information. However, please be aware that this may limit or prevent your future use of the VHL Sites.

To do this, please contact Vista Higher Learning using the contact information provided at the end of this Privacy Policy. To protect your privacy and security, we may require you to take certain steps or provide additional information to verify your identity before we provide any information or make any corrections.

If your school, school district, or educational institution has provided Vista Higher Learning with your user information in connection with your use of VHL Central, the school, school district, or educational institution is responsible for providing the means by which parents, legal guardians, and eligible pupils may review and correct erroneous personally identifiable information in accordance with applicable law. See the section titled “Student Information” below for more information.

Individuals Located in the State of California: Your Choices

If you are a resident of the State of California, click here for additional information regarding your rights and choices under the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018.

If you are a resident of the European Union or provide Personal Information through this website while located in the European Union, click here for additional information affecting your rights and choices under the GDPR.

Links to Other Sites

Vista Higher Learning may provide links to other websites by or through the VHL Sites. Vista Higher Learning does not endorse and is not responsible for any third party websites, products, services or business practices. Vista Higher Learning assumes no responsibility for the privacy or security of information you provide to any third party through linked websites or any other means. We urge you to review the privacy policy of any website that you visit.

Student Information

We may collect certain legally protected information from or about students, such as students’ personally identifiable information, in the course of providing VHL Central and related services (“Student Information”). In general, we consider Student Information to be confidential and do not use such Student Information for any purpose other than to provide and improve VHL Central or on behalf of our users and customers, including (1) to provide adaptive learning or customized student learning (including generating personalized learning recommendations); (2) to make product recommendations to teachers or institution employees; or (3) to notify VHL Central account holders about new education product updates, features, or services. Our collection, use and sharing of Student Information is governed by federal, state and local laws, as applicable, and not by any conflicting provisions contained in this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy does not supersede the terms of any agreements between us and any other party.

If you have any questions about reviewing, modifying, or deleting Student Information provided to us by your school or educational institution, please contact your school or educational institution directly.

Use of VHL Central by Children under the Age of 13

The VHL Sites are not generally intended for children under the age of 13, except for users of VHL Central in the school setting. If that is the case, the child’s parent or legal guardian or school must assist the child in registering the product or service for use. Any information that may be needed for delivery of the product or service which may not be legally collected from a child under the age of 13 must be provided by the child’s parent, legal guardian, or school with the consent of a parent or legal guardian or school, in each case as may be required by law. If you have reason to believe that we have collected personal information from someone under 13 years of age without having obtained the authorizations described above, please contact Vista Higher Learning.

We encourage parents and teachers to spend time online with children and to monitor their online activities. Please protect your child's privacy by instructing them to never provide personal information via the internet without your permission.

Retention

We will retain information collected through VHL Central, including personal data that we process on behalf of a customer, for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services. We may also retain this information as necessary to comply with company policy, legal obligations, resolve disputes, or enforce our agreements.

International Transfer of Data

Although the VHL Sites might be accessible worldwide, the VHL Sites are not necessarily appropriate for use outside the United States. If you choose to access or use the VHL Sites from outside the United States, you do so at your own initiative and you are solely responsible for complying with applicable local laws. For visitors using the VHL Sites from outside the United States, any data you submit to Vista Higher Learning may be transferred to and stored in Vista Higher Learning’s or its affiliate’s or vendor’s servers, which may be located in the United States, or parts of the world other than the country in which you are located when using the VHL Sites. By using the VHL Sites you hereby expressly consent to any information or personal data collected through use of the VHL Sites to be transferred to and stored in the United States. When we transfer your information to recipient in other countries, we will protect that information as described in this Privacy Policy and will comply with applicable legal requirements.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

Vista Higher Learning reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to change, modify, add or remove this Privacy Policy in whole or in part, at any time. Changes will be effective when notice of such change is posted on the applicable the VHL Sites. Your continued use of the VHL Sites after any changes are posted will be considered acceptance of those changes. Unless otherwise required by law or agreed in writing by Vista Higher Learning, the data collected via the VHL Sites (other than Student Data) belongs exclusively to Vista Higher Learning. Vista Higher Learning is solely responsible for creating and maintaining this policy.

Contact Vista Higher Learning

If you have any questions or concerns about Vista Higher Learning's use of non-public personal information or about this Privacy Policy, please contact Vista Higher Learning at:

Vista Higher Learning:

500 Boylston Street
Suite 620
Boston, MA 02116
USA

Phone:
(800) 618-7375
(617) 426-4910

E-mail:
privacy@vistahigherlearning.com