ClassHelper is engineered around privacy-first principles. Everything you create on the digital whiteboard stays in your browser on your device by default. This guide provides full transparency on what data is stored and where it lives.

What is Stored Locally on Your Device

In the standard free tier, all instructional content resides exclusively in local browser storage on your computer or tablet:

1. Lesson Collections: Whiteboard layouts, notes, and tool configurations across your lessons.
2. Class Rosters: Student lists, names, and groups, including archived rosters from prior terms.
3. Custom Backgrounds: Uploaded images and wallpaper graphics. Photos are re-encoded locally to strip camera metadata and GPS coordinates before display.
4. Visual Preferences: Theme settings (light or dark mode), language options, and custom toolbar arrangements.

Because this data resides in your browser, clearing browser cache or using private browsing windows will erase saved items. To protect your materials, use Export all data as file under Account settings, as described in Saving a Whiteboard.

What Reaches Our Cloud Infrastructure

When visiting classhelper.app and using tools without an account, zero personal data reaches our servers. When you create a Premium account, cloud synchronization activates:

1. Account Credentials: Your school or personal email address and securely hashed password.
2. Synchronized Boards: Encrypted backups of your lesson folders, allowing you to prepare at home and open the same board on classroom projectors.
3. Server Location: All synchronized account data is stored on secure servers in Germany within the European Union.
4. Strict Payment Isolation: ${stripeSentence}

Data Minimization in Daily Practice

To ensure student privacy standards like FERPA and GDPR are maintained effortlessly in your classroom:

1. Use first names or student initials only when building rosters (for example, Ki, Alex, Sam M.).
2. Use the automatic initial shortening feature when importing class lists, as explained in Creating a Class.
3. Export an offline JSON backup before end-of-year maintenance using Export all data as file.
4. To remove all materials from a shared classroom computer, navigate to Account > Delete All Data.

Summary

In the free version, lesson plans and student rosters stay exclusively in your browser. Premium synchronizes encrypted boards to servers in Germany. Billing data is strictly isolated, and student data is never transferred to payment processors.

Continue reading in Server Infrastructure, Requesting a DPA, and our Privacy Policy.