Privacy Policy

Last updated: May 29th, 2025

This Privacy Policy describes how FIRSTDRAFT, LLC (“First Draft”, “we”, “us”, and “our”) collects, uses, discloses, and otherwise processes your Personal Information (defined below) when you visit or use our website or platform (“Websites”) or the services we make available through the Websites (“Services”) or otherwise communicate or interact with us. For purposes of this Privacy Policy, “you” and “your” means you as the user of the Services, whether you are a registered user or Website visitor. “Personal information” is information that identifies or is reasonably identifiable to an individual natural person.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By using and accessing any of the Services, you acknowledge our collection, use, and disclosure of your information as described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please do not use or access our Websites or any of the Services.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. The date this Privacy Policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page. All changes are effective immediately upon posting and, by accessing or using the Website(s) or Service after changes are posted, you acknowledge those changes. Material changes will be conspicuously posted on the Websites or otherwise communicated to you.

Scope of this Policy and FERPA Compliance

This Privacy Policy does not apply to Personal Information that is publicly available or that has been anonymized or deidentified such that it no longer may reasonably be used to identify any individual natural person.

In addition, if you are registering with us as a student of an educational institution that we support, certain pieces of your Personal Information may be subject to our privacy obligations to your educational institution and subject to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). To view our FERPA Statement, please visit: https://learn.firstdraft.com/ferpa_statement.

How We Collect Personal Information

The Personal Information that we collect varies depending on how you interact with us. We collect Personal Information (1) directly from you, (2) automatically through your use of the Websites, and (3) from GitHub and our payment processor.

  1. Information From You

    We collect Personal Information that you provide to us. This includes Personal Information that you directly submit to us through our Websites or Services, which may include:

    • Basic contact details including your name, username, and email address.
    • Personal Information you may submit as a result of your attendance in synchronous sessions.
    • Personal Information included when you submit your coursework.
    • Personal Information you may submit when you interact with our chat bot.

  2. Information Automatically Collected

    We also automatically collect Personal Information about your interaction with the Websites and Services. We may track lessons that you start (or don’t start) as well as completion percentages. We may also track whether or not you open emails and other messages from us and your attendance and participation in synchronous or asynchronous sessions. We also track what pages you view and click within the Websites and your interaction with the Websites. This activity and information may be associated with your account.

    To automatically collect the above information, we may use cookies and similar technologies (“Tracking Technologies”), which collect information, including information about how you access and use our Websites, device information, browser information, information about your network connection, your IP address and other information regarding your interaction with the Website and Services.

    We also automatically collect Personal Information in the course of recording synchronous sessions. If you attend synchronous sessions, you may be required to separately sign a publicity release and waiver for such recordings.

  3. Information from Other Sources

    We may collect Personal Information from third parties as well.

    We may receive Personal Information from our third party payment processor in response to your payment.

    We also receive Personal Information via our single sign on feature with GitHub. In order to set up a First Draft account, you must sign into your GitHub account and then login to the Website. This requires you to submit your GitHub user name and email to First Draft during login with GitHub.

    In addition, if you are accessing our Websites as a result of your enrollment with an educational institution, we may receive Personal Information from your educational institution and their applicable learning management system (i.e. Canvas).

How We Use Your Personal Information

We use the Personal Information that we collect for a variety of purposes, including the following:

  • provide you with the Services and access to the Websites
  • manage and remember your preferences
  • analyze and improve the Services and Websites as well as our curriculum and content
  • administer, manage, and troubleshoot the Services and Websites
  • communicate with you
  • for training and development purposes, including for training artificial intelligence (AI) tools and developing and refining curriculum and content
  • to protect our legal rights or interests, or those of other parties, including to bring a legal action against you or anyone who may be causing harm to us, our Services, or to users of the Services.
  • to seek business, financial or legal advice, and to respond to legal requests.
  • to create anonymized and/or deidentified data sets. Any such anonymized and/or deidentified is no longer Personal Information and not subject to this Privacy Policy.

In addition to the above, we use Tracking Technologies to power and improve our Websites and our Services (including to remember your actions and preferences), to run analytics and better understand user interaction with the Websites and Services. Most browsers automatically accept Tracking Technologies by default, but you can choose to set your browser to remove or reject Tracking Technologies through your browser controls. Please keep in mind that removing or blocking certain Tracking Technologies can negatively impact your user experience and may cause some of the Services, including certain features and general functionality, to work incorrectly or no longer be available.

How We Disclose Personal Information

We may disclose your Personal Information to the entities and for the purposes below:

  • We disclose Personal Information to our third party vendors and service providers who perform services on our behalf (e.g., updating lesson grades in a Learning Management System, executing code blocks, data analytics, and cloud storage), may otherwise have access to your Personal Information to perform services to us.
  • We reserve the right to disclose Personal Information to law enforcement and other governmental agencies: (i) if we believe in good faith we are legally required to disclose that personal information, (ii) if we are advised to disclose personal information by our legal counsel, (iii) when necessary to identify, contact or bring a legal action against someone who may cause or be causing harm to, or interfering with our or any other party’s legal rights, or (iv) as otherwise appropriate.
  • We may disclose Personal Information to our professional advisors, such as our attorneys, accountants, financial advisors and business advisors, in their capacity as advisors to us.
  • We may disclose Personal Information to the subsequent owner(s) of the relevant business asset in the event of a change of control, acquisition, sale of assets, reorganization, or similar corporate transaction.
  • We may disclose Personal Information when explicitly requested by or consented to by you, or for the purposes for which you disclosed the Personal Information to us as indicated at the time and point of the disclosure (or as was obvious at the time and point of disclosure).

Third Party Websites and Links

Our Websites may provide links to websites or other online platforms operated by third parties. If you follow links to sites not affiliated or controlled by us, you should review their privacy and security policies and other terms and conditions as this privacy policy does not apply to those other sites. We do not guarantee and are not responsible for the privacy or security of such sites, or the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of information found on these sites. Our inclusion of such links does not, by itself, imply any endorsement of the content on such platforms or of their owners or operators.

Children’s Data

You must be 18 years or older to use the Services. The Services are not intended to be accessed or used by children under the age of 18 without parental consent, and we do not knowingly collect any personal information about children. If you are the parent or guardian of a child who has provided us with their Personal Information, you may contact us using the contact details set out below to request that it be deleted.

Security and Retention of Your Information

Please be aware that, although we take commercially reasonable security measures, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot guarantee security. As a result, any information you send to us may not be secure while in transit. We recommend that you do not use insecure channels to communicate sensitive or confidential information to us. All Personal Information that you provide us is at your own risk.

We retain your Personal Information depending on several different factors, such as whether we need the information to maintain your access to the Services, to provide the Services, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes or enforce other applicable contracts and policies.

Access from Outside of the United States

The Websites and Services are intended for use in the United States. If you access the Websites or Services from outside the United States, please be aware that Personal Information may be transferred to, stored in, and processed in the United States, which may have different data protection laws than other countries.

Contact

Should you have any questions about our privacy practices or this Privacy Policy, or if you would like to exercise any of the rights available to you, please email us at support@firstdraft.com. You may also contact us at:

FIRSTDRAFT, LLC
731 W 17th Street, 3W
Chicago, IL 60616