LA Companion is a teaching-reflection tool for Learning Assistants (LAs), instructors and institution administrators. This policy explains what the service collects, how it is used, who it is shared with, and how to have it deleted. In this policy, "LA Companion", "we" and "us" refer to the operator of the service.
Accounts are created by your institution. There is no public sign-up, and the app is not offered directly to the general public.
1. Information we collect
Account information
- Username, email address, first and last name
- Role (Learning Assistant, Instructor, Institution Admin, Super Admin) and institution
- Password, stored only as a salted cryptographic hash — never in readable form
Session content
- Audio recordings of classroom or tutoring sessions that an LA chooses to record
- Transcripts generated from that audio, including speaker labels and any corrections an LA makes
- Session titles, descriptions and any context an LA provides before requesting analysis
- AI-generated analyses: summaries, insights with timestamps, recommendations, skill ratings and action plans
- Reflections and goals written by the LA
Records LAs keep about the students they support
- First and last name, and an optional institution student identifier
- Grade level and subject focus
- Free-text notes written by the LA
Messages and usage
- Direct messages sent between users of the service
- Timestamps, recording durations and processing volumes, used for institutional quotas
We do not use advertising trackers or third-party analytics, and we do not sell personal information.
2. Microphone access
The mobile app requests microphone permission only for recording sessions. Recording starts only when you open the recording screen and tap Start Recording, and stops when you tap stop or leave the screen. The app does not record in the background and holds no background-audio entitlement. You can revoke microphone access at any time in your device settings; the rest of the app continues to work.
3. Recordings of people who are not account holders
A classroom recording will usually capture the voices of students who do not have LA Companion accounts. Audio is used solely to produce a transcript and teaching feedback for the LA who made the recording. It is not used to evaluate, grade or identify those students, and it is never sold or used for advertising.
Responsibility for informing participants and obtaining any consent required by law or institutional policy rests with the institution and the LA making the recording. If you were recorded and want that recording removed, contact your institution or write to us at the address in section 9.
4. How information is used
- To transcribe recordings and produce teaching feedback for the LA
- To show progress across sessions and generate action plans for future classes
- To let institution administrators oversee their own users and usage
- To operate, secure and support the service
We do not use your content to train our own models.
5. Third-party processing
LA Companion uses OpenAI to process content:
- Audio recordings are sent to OpenAI's Whisper service for transcription.
- Transcript text and your written context are sent to OpenAI's language models to generate analyses, chat responses and action plans.
This processing happens under the OpenAI API terms. See OpenAI's privacy policy for details. Email is delivered through a third-party mail provider for password resets and notifications. We use no other third-party processors.
6. Storage, retention and deletion
Data is stored on servers operated by LA Companion.
Recordings, transcripts and analyses are retained for as long as your institution's account is active, so that LAs can track their development over a term. When a recording is deleted in the app it is immediately hidden from all users and excluded from any further processing or analysis. The underlying audio file may remain in backups or server storage for a period afterwards until it is purged.
To have specific recordings, an account, or all data for an institution permanently erased, contact us using section 9. We action verified deletion requests within 30 days.
7. Who can see your information
- You — your own recordings, transcripts, analyses and reflections
- Your institution's administrators — users, usage and content within their institution
- LA Companion system administrators — where necessary to operate or support the service. Administrators can temporarily access an account to diagnose a problem, and every such access is recorded with the administrator's identity, the account accessed, and the reason.
We do not otherwise disclose personal information, except where required by law.
8. Security
All traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted with HTTPS. Passwords are hashed. Mobile sessions use signed tokens held in the device's secure keystore (iOS Keychain). Access is restricted by role, sign-in attempts are rate-limited, and uploads are size-limited. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
9. Your rights and how to contact us
You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal information, and you may ask us to stop processing it. Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under laws such as the GDPR or CCPA.
Contact: hamisi@academicamplify.com
If your institution provided your account, you may also raise requests with your institution's administrator.
10. Children
LA Companion is intended for use in higher education by users aged 16 and over. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. If you believe a child's information has reached us, contact us and we will delete it.
11. Changes to this policy
We will update this page when our practices change and revise the date at the top. Significant changes will be communicated to institution administrators.