Version 2026-11-03 · Effective 2026-11-03
Mekorot is used by schools and by individual learners. This policy explains what we collect, why, and what we never do with it.
Mekorot provides an adaptive interlinear Torah reader used by schools, teachers, and individual learners. This policy covers the Mekorot website and application.
| Data | Why we hold it |
|---|---|
| Name and email address | To identify an account and let a teacher or administrator find a student on their roster. |
| Password (hashed), or the account id Google or Microsoft gives us when you sign in with them | To sign you in. Passwords are stored only as salted hashes; we never hold the plaintext. |
| Your account id in your school's Canvas or Schoology, where the school connects one | To recognise you each time you open Mekorot from it, or we read a class list from it, even if your email address there changes. |
| Username, where a class signs in without email addresses | Some younger classes have no school email. Those students sign in with a username issued by their teacher instead. |
| Grade | To pitch the reader and its grammar explanations at the right level — a grade 3 explanation is not a grade 10 one. We derive an approximate age from the grade for that purpose, or use the youngest level when no grade is set for a learner. Grade also sets the time limit on each quiz and placement question: 20 seconds up to grade 3, or when no grade is set; 15 seconds in grades 4 and 5; 10 seconds from grade 6. We do not ask for or store a date of birth. Grade advances by one each August unless a teacher changes it. At home sign-up, a grade of 1–7 sends the person to a parent. |
| Extended time: whether a student's questions are untimed | A teacher, parent or school administrator can turn off the time limit for a student who needs more time. This may reflect an accommodation such as an IEP or 504 plan, so it is sensitive. We use it only to remove the time limit. |
| School and class membership | To show a teacher their own students and to scope a school administrator to their own school. |
| A link to a parent or guardian's account, where one exists | So a parent can see their own child's progress, and so a student who has no email can recover their sign-in through their parent. |
| Parent's consent, for a child at home — who said yes and the email address we asked, how that address was confirmed, when, and which version of our notice they saw | To show that a parent agreed to their child's account, and to send the follow-up email that lets a parent who didn't agree delete it. |
| A record of accepting the Terms of Use — when, which version, and whether an adult accepted on the account's behalf | To show that the account was created with consent, which matters most for accounts belonging to minors. |
| Learning progress — which words are mastered or being learned | To adapt the reader to the learner and to show a teacher how their class is doing. This is the core function of the Service. |
| Answers to quiz and placement questions, and how many seconds each took | To place a learner, choose what they practise next, and check that the time limits are fair. |
| Each time a learner asks for a hint, says “I still don't know” a word, or misses or passes it on a quiz, with the place in the text | To show the learner, their parent and their teachers how each word is going, and where it was hard. |
| Words a teacher or parent has marked as known or not known for a learner, with who marked each and when | So the reader and quizzes treat each word the way they said, and so a mark can be undone. |
| Requests for a simpler grammar explanation, and the last word asked about | So a learner's teachers know the grammar is hard for them. |
| Which verses a learner has read | A verse counts as read when it stays on screen long enough to read it. It shows when a learner met a word in the text without needing help. |
| Where you left off in the reader | So the reader opens there next time. |
| How many minutes a learner is active each day | Counted only while the reader is open and being used, so a teacher can see a student's study time. |
| Basic technical logs | To keep the Service running and diagnose faults. |
If a teacher or administrator chooses to connect Google Classroom, we ask Google for permission to read the following, and nothing else:
| Permission requested | What we do with it |
|---|---|
classroom.courses.readonly | Show the list of courses you teach, so you can pick one to import. |
classroom.rosters.readonly | Read the list of students in the course you picked. |
classroom.profile.emails | Read those students' email addresses, which is how we match each one to the right Mekorot account, or create it if there is none. |
These permissions are read-only. We never write to Google Classroom, never modify or delete anything in it, and never touch coursework or grades.
We store the roster information described above, and an encrypted Google authorisation token so that a re-import does not require signing in again. That token is encrypted at rest and can be revoked at any time by clicking Disconnect in Mekorot, or at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
Limited Use. Mekorot's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. In particular, we do not use Google user data for advertising, we do not sell it, we do not transfer it to third parties except as required to run the Service or to comply with law, and we do not allow humans to read it except with your explicit consent, for security purposes, to comply with law, or where the data has been aggregated and anonymised.
Where a school uses Mekorot, the school decides which students are enrolled and we act on the school's instructions as its service provider. We collect from students only what is needed to run the reader and report progress to their own teachers. We do not build advertising profiles, we do not show advertising, and we do not sell student data — ever.
We hold a student's grade so that explanations are pitched at the right level for the reader: we derive an approximate age from it, or use the youngest level when no grade is set. Grade also sets the time limit on quiz and placement questions. We do not ask for a date of birth, and we do not use age or grade for anything else, except that at home sign-up we send a person in grade 1–7 to a parent; we also use a current grade of 1–7 to ask a parent's yes for an account at home, and make no such account without a parent.
A parent or school may ask us to delete a student's data at any time using the contact address below.
A school's administrator accepts our Terms for Schools on the school's behalf.
A child under 13 can't sign up for Mekorot on their own. A parent or guardian signs up, then adds the child from their Parent page. Before adding the child, the parent reads our notice, which says what we keep about the child, what we use it for and who sees it, and says yes.
When someone answers at sign-up that they are under 13, we keep one cookie
in that browser, mk_u13. It holds only that this browser answered
under 13, so sign-up sends it to a parent next time too. It lasts 365 days and
is HttpOnly, so the page's scripts can't read it. Nothing else is kept.
About a day after a parent says yes, we send them a short email. If it wasn't them who said yes, the link in that email deletes the child's account. If a school has the child by then, the link instead withdraws the parent's yes, and the school decides about the account.
A parent sees their child's progress on their Parent page, also after the child joins a school. Once the child is in a teacher's class, that teacher sees it too. A parent can ask us what we hold about their child, or delete the child's account at any time: from their Account page (section 9), with the link in our email, or by writing to us.
People 13 and older may sign up on their own.
For children at home, the operator is Mekorot Learning, PO Box 2800, Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004, rafi.eis@mekorot.org.
A teacher sees the students in their own classes. A school administrator sees their own school. Individual learners see only themselves. Mekorot staff can access data where necessary to operate and support the Service.
Four companies run parts of the Service for us, and so hold or receive some personal data:
We publish and share statistics about how the Service is used and how learners progress — for example, the average number of words learned over a term, or the average quiz score across a group. This supports research, product improvement, and reporting to partners and to current and prospective investors.
These statistics never identify anyone. Specifically:
Because these statistics identify nobody, we may keep and use them after an individual account has been deleted.
We keep account and progress data for as long as the account exists. When a school removes a student, the student is taken out of that school's classes. The school's administrators can still see their name in a list of removed students for 2 years, to add them back or delete them. If that was the only school the student belonged to, and the account was created for them by a school, or they sign in with the school's own email and a parent didn't create the account, the account is also deactivated and the student can no longer sign in, because the school's consent no longer covers it. Any other account stays active, such as one the student created with another email, or one a parent created, even when the child signs in with the school's email. Removing is not deleting. The record is kept for 2 years, so that a student who comes back, or moves to another school that uses Mekorot, doesn't start again from nothing. If another school later adds them from a Google Classroom class, or Mekorot moves them to another school at that school's request, it picks up their account: it sees the words they know, but not what the first school recorded day by day. If the account was deactivated this way and they haven't come back after 2 years, it is erased.
A school can also delete any student it brought in. If the school created the account, or the student signs in with the school's own email and a parent didn't create the account, the whole account is deleted. But if the student has their own account, including one a parent created, or another school has them too or removed them in the last 2 years, the school deletes only what was recorded during the student's time at that school. The account and the words the student knows stay, and so does what the student did while they were also at another school. The school keeps a note that it deleted them, so it doesn't add them back by itself.
Deleting an account erases it. Deletion takes effect 14 days after it is requested, so that a mistake can be undone; until then nobody can sign in to the account. After that the account and everything recorded for it — name, email address, sign-in details, reading progress, quiz results, and its links to Google, Microsoft and a school's learning platform — are permanently erased. Apart from the record described next, only statistics that identify nobody (section 7) remain. Copies in our database backups expire within 7 days after that.
If you accepted Mekorot's terms for a school as its administrator, the school's record keeps your name and the date you accepted.
A parent who signed their child up at home, and whose child has since joined a school, can also ask us by email to delete the child's account, and we will. If you ask us by email to erase personal data, we will do so within 30 days of the request, except where we are required to keep records to comply with law. Google authorisation tokens are deleted immediately when you click Disconnect.
You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal information. You can delete your own account in the app or on the website: sign in, open the account menu, choose Account, and use Delete account at the bottom of the page. A parent can delete the accounts they created for their children the same way. While a school has the account as one of its students, neither you nor the parent who made it can delete it: ask the school. Students whose account their school created, or who sign in with their school's email, should ask their school administrator, who can correct their details, remove them from the school, or delete them. Teachers can't delete students, but they can pass the request on. Anyone may also write to us directly at the address below; how to delete an account explains each route.
Leaving a school. A school can add an account you made yourself, or one a parent made for their child: from its class lists in its learning platform, when you sign in from that platform, or by hand. When one does, we tell you the next time you're in Mekorot, with what the school can see and change; for a child, we tell the parent. While a school has the account, its teachers and administrators see its name, email address and grade, which words it knows and is learning, where it is in its reading, and its quizzes, reading and time in Mekorot from its time in the school (from its start, for an account you made yourself that joined within a day of being made). They can also set a new password on the account, which lets them sign in to it; change its name and grade; mark words as known or not known, send it back to the placement test, and set its question timer and how many words it learns at a time; put it in the school's classes and take it out of them; take it out of the school; and delete the quizzes, reading and time in Mekorot the school can see (section 8).
When you sign in again with a school's own Google or Microsoft account, we ask before you join it. If you join that way, an account you made yourself becomes the school's, as if the school had made it: to leave the school or delete the account, you'd ask the school.
To leave a school, ask the school. Neither you nor a parent can take an account out of a school in Mekorot; the school can. We take an account out of a school only when the school asks us to, or when the law requires it. When we do, the account is taken out of the school's classes, the school no longer sees what it does in Mekorot, what the school set for it (a question timer, how many words it learns at a time) is cleared, and what it knows stays with the account. The school's class lists and sign-in don't add it back by themselves; the school can still add it back by hand, and we tell you if it does.
Data is transmitted over encrypted connections. Passwords are stored as salted hashes. Google authorisation tokens are encrypted at rest. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable measures appropriate to the sensitivity of the data we hold.
If we change this policy we will update the version above. Material changes affecting how we use Google user data or student data will be communicated to affected schools.
Questions, or requests about your data: info@mekorot.org