Privacy

What we keep, and what we don't

Map Scouts is made for elementary school classrooms, so we keep as little as we can. This is the plain-words version. Schools and districts can ask us for the full list of every field we store, and why.

When a child plays in class

A child's play is saved only after they join their class and tap their name. We keep:

A first name, typed by the teacher, and a last initial only when two students share a name.
What they did in Map Scouts: places found, stories opened, answers to questions and quizzes, lesson steps, time played, and where they walked on the town map.
How Map Scouts ran: screen size, speed, and error messages, so it works well on school Chromebooks.

Only the child's teacher and the Map Scouts team can see it. Answers a child types are never exported.

What we never collect

Last names, birthdays, email addresses, home addresses, photos or voices.
Accounts or passwords for students.
Precise location, contacts, advertising IDs or device fingerprints.

There are no ads and no third-party trackers. We never sell or share student data.

Playing at home, or without a class

Exploring a town without a class link sends nothing to us. Progress stays in that browser and nowhere else.

Counting visits to this website

The public pages of mapscouts.com (this page, the home page, the teacher and family pages) count visits anonymously, so we can tell which pages help teachers find us: which page was opened, which button was pressed, and which of our links brought you here. There are no cookies, and we keep no IP address and nothing that identifies you or your child. Map Scouts itself sends nothing unless a student is signed in to a class.

How long we keep it

Class activity is deleted one year after the end of the school year it was collected in.
When a teacher deletes a class, its roster and all of its students' activity are deleted right away.
Families and districts can ask us to delete a child's data at any time.

Teachers

Teachers sign in with a school email address. We keep the email, the classes they run, and a log of changes to rosters and settings. We email teachers sign-in links, news about their account, and a few notes about getting started; every note that isn't essential has an unsubscribe link.

For schools and districts

Student data belongs to your school. We act as your service provider (a "school official" under FERPA), and where consent is needed under COPPA, the school gives it for its educational purpose. We will sign the Massachusetts Student Privacy Alliance's standard Student Data Privacy Agreement on request, and we can send our full list of data elements and answer your security questionnaire. Write to team@herenowlabs.xyz.

Privacy Policy

Version 1 · effective October 9, 2026 · Here Now Labs, Inc.

What changed on October 14, 2026: the product is now called Map Scouts. The terms are the same.

What changed on October 9, 2026: this is now version 1 (no longer a draft). It names QuestVille instead of "the game"; describes the free unit, school licenses and card payments (Stripe); and describes the emails we send teachers (each non-essential one has an unsubscribe link), the note colleagues get when you join, and funding requests a teacher sends through Map Scouts. Nothing changed about student data.

The plain-words version above is for families. This is the full policy, and where they differ, this policy controls. It says exactly what Here Now Labs, Inc. ("Here Now Labs", "we") collects through Map Scouts (the websites mapscouts.com and teach.mapscouts.com, the Map Scouts student experience, and the teacher portal), why, who can see it, how long we keep it, and how it is protected and deleted.

1. Students: what we collect, and only in class

A student's play is recorded only after the student joins a class with the class code and taps their name. Playing Map Scouts without a class (exploring a town from the home page, or at home) sends nothing to us; that progress stays in the browser. For a student in a class we collect:

Identity: the first name the teacher typed, and a last initial only when two students in the class share a first name. Nothing else identifies the student.
Learning activity: places found on the map, story cards opened and for how long, answers to questions and quizzes (which choice, right or wrong, time taken), guided-lesson steps completed, treasures collected, the path walked on the town map, and minutes played.
How Map Scouts ran: screen size, frames per second, graphics tier, and error messages, so Map Scouts works on school Chromebooks.
Session information: a session identifier, timestamps, the class, and a hashed (one-way) form of the network address used only to limit abuse of the class-code screen; the address itself is not stored.

We never collect from a student: last names, birthdates, email or home addresses, phone numbers, photos, voice, precise location, contacts, advertising identifiers, or device fingerprints. Students have no accounts and no passwords. Students cannot type free text that reaches other students; the few free-text answers in lessons are visible only to the student's teacher and are never exported.

2. Why we collect it, and the legal basis

We use student data only to provide Map Scouts to the student's school: to show the student their own progress, to show their teacher what each student found, answered, and finished, to let a teacher resume a class on any device, to measure how long lessons take so teachers can plan, and to keep Map Scouts working on school devices. We may use de-identified, aggregated information (for example, how many students statewide finished a chapter) to improve Map Scouts and to report on the program; such information cannot be linked back to a student.

COPPA. Students under 13 use Map Scouts only in class under a school's supervision. Where consent to collection is required, the school provides it for the school's educational purpose, as COPPA permits schools to do. We do not seek consent from students or parents directly, and we collect no more than the educational purpose requires.

FERPA. For education records, Here Now Labs acts as a "school official" with a legitimate educational interest, performing a service the school would otherwise do itself, under the school's direct control, and using the records only for that purpose.

Massachusetts. We follow 603 CMR 23.00 (Student Records) and M.G.L. c. 71 §34H as they apply to a service provider, and we will sign the Massachusetts Student Privacy Alliance's standard Student Data Privacy Agreement at a school's or district's request.

3. What we never do with student data

We never sell it. We never use it for advertising or marketing of any kind, to students or anyone else. There are no advertisements in Map Scouts and no third-party advertising or analytics trackers. We never build a profile of a student for any purpose other than showing their teacher their progress in Map Scouts. We never use student data to train or improve machine-learning models. We never share it except as section 6 describes.

4. Teachers and other adults: what we collect

When you create a teacher account we collect your email address; the name your students call you; your school, town, and grade; how you heard about Map Scouts; which version of the Terms and this policy you accepted and when; and, as you use the portal, your classes and settings and a log of actions you take in the portal (so a school can see who changed a roster). Sign-in is by a link or code sent to your email; we store no passwords. We use this to run your account, to support you, and to tell you about Map Scouts itself (for example a change to this policy, or how to get started with your free unit). Emails that are not essential to your account carry an unsubscribe link, and you can also write to us. We do not sell teacher data or use it for third-party advertising.

Signing up from mapscouts.com: the email address and, if you give it, the town you type, so we can send your sign-in link and add your town to the list of towns teachers ask for.
Colleagues: when you join, teachers at your school who already use Map Scouts get a short note with the name your students call you.
Funding requests: if you ask your school or a funder to pay for Map Scouts, we email the people you choose, in your name, with a summary of your class (how many students played and which chapters they covered; never a student's name). We keep those people's names, roles and email addresses to send the request, tell you when it is opened, and follow up. They can unsubscribe from any of these emails or ask us to delete their information.
School licenses: when a school buys a license we keep the names and email addresses of the people who approve and pay, and the quotes and invoices. Card payments are handled by Stripe; we never see or store card numbers.
People who write to us: what you send through a form on mapscouts.com (your name, email, role, school, town and message), to answer you.
Visits to mapscouts.com: counted anonymously, with no cookies and no IP address, as the plain-words section above describes.

5. Who can see student data

The student's teacher and any co-teacher the teacher has added to the class.
School and district administrators the school has designated, when a district account exists.
Here Now Labs staff, only as needed to run, support, and secure the Service, under confidentiality obligations and access controls.
Researchers, only in de-identified form (a role in the portal that can never see names).

6. Service providers (subprocessors)

We use a small number of providers to run Map Scouts, each bound to use data only to provide their service to us: Vercel (hosting), Supabase (database and sign-in, hosted in the United States), Resend (sending email to teachers and to the people a teacher asks for funding; students receive no email), and Stripe (card payments for school licenses; it never receives student data). Map data is from OpenStreetMap. We will update this list before adding a provider that handles student data and tell schools with active classes. We disclose data otherwise only when the law requires it, to protect the safety of a student or others, or with the school's instruction. If Here Now Labs is acquired or merges, student data remains subject to this policy and the school's agreement, and schools will be notified.

7. How long we keep it, and deletion

Class activity is deleted one year after the end of the school year in which it was collected.
When a teacher deletes a class, its roster and all of its students' activity are deleted immediately. When a teacher deletes a student from a class, that student's activity is deleted immediately.
A school, district, or a parent or guardian (through the school) may ask us to delete a student's or a class's data, or to provide a copy of it, at any time at team@herenowlabs.xyz. We act within 30 days of a verified request.
Teacher accounts and their data are deleted on request, and on the schedule above once no classes remain.
Backups are kept for up to 30 days for disaster recovery and are then overwritten; data deleted from the Service is not restored from backups except to recover from a failure of the Service.

8. Security

Data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest. Access to student data is limited to the roles above, is controlled by database-level rules, and is logged. Students join with a class code and a short-lived, class-scoped token; no student credentials exist to be lost. We review our providers' security practices. If a breach affects student data we will notify the affected school without unreasonable delay and in any case within the time Massachusetts law requires (M.G.L. c. 93H), with what we know and what we are doing.

9. Children's privacy, families, and schools

Parents and guardians can ask their child's teacher or school to see or delete the child's data, or write to us; because students have no accounts, we identify a student's record through the school. Schools and districts can request our full data-elements list, our Student Data Privacy Agreement signature, and answers to their security questionnaire.

10. Your rights under state law

Where a state privacy law gives you rights over your personal information (for example, to access, correct, or delete it), you may exercise them by writing to team@herenowlabs.xyz. We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. For a material change we will email account holders at least 30 days before it takes effect and ask teachers to accept the new version at their next sign-in. The version is at the top of this section, and prior versions are available on request.

12. Contact

Here Now Labs, Inc. · 1007 N Orange St, Fl 4, Wilmington, DE 19801 · team@herenowlabs.xyz

Ask us anything

To ask a question, get a copy of your child's data, or have it deleted, send us a note. You can also ask your child's teacher.