DPA advice for US Teachers

Do you need DPAs to use Teach Your Monster Games?

Before a school in the US can use an online service for its students, it must complete a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) with the supplier.

This is an agreement where the supplier agrees to comply with the specific Data Protection regulations for the specific state in the US.

A DPA can be provided per school or even a district that all schools subscribe to.

At present TYM have approximately 120 DPAs signed, some for a single school but others for a district that covers all schools in that area that they just sign up to.

This includes Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, And Vermont, we have completed one single DPA with them and all schools in that area subscribe to it making it easier for the school administration.

If a school does need to complete their own DPA we currently have a quick turnaround period of 14 days maximum. This includes receiving the email, checking the DPA against our regulations for that area and then passing to our Data Protection Officer for review.

We then send to our director to be signed digitally and then returned to the school.

If there are any issues, (the only one we have found so far is that some areas specify storage in the US in their standard DPA), then we ask for this to be changed.

Please be reassured that TYM adhere to strict UK GDPR regulations as well as US privacy law and we will protect our data to the highest standards. We have Cyber Essentials certification (which is aligned to the NIST framework in the US) and all data is secured to strict security guidelines.

Another reassurance for you as a school is that the only student data we collect is a username that they create to login and the geolocation (not specific). This is the minimum we can collect to provide the TYM games.

Our website will be updated soon with all information required for DPAs.  The full details of our commitment to protecting student data is set out in our Privacy Policy.

In the meantime if you need any support completing the DPA please reach out to us and we may even be able to provide a template for you, depending on the District. Our email address is [email protected]