Privacy Policy

Last Updated: May 10, 2024

At SimTutor, Inc. (“SimTutor” or “We”), we know how important it is to feel that your personal information is safe online. We are committed to maintaining the trust and confidence of all visitors to our websites, including simtics.com and simtutor.com (“Sites”), as well as of users of our comprehensive eLearning software (“Product(s)”) (including SIMTICS and SimTutor Author) and customers who use our custom content development services (“Services”).

This Privacy Notice applies to the data collected from visitors to our Sites, including all subdomains of the Sites and from users of our Services and learning management system (“Platform”). It also applies to people whom we meet and engage with at conferences and tradeshows, and whom individual SimTutor team members may meet online, such as via LinkedIn and Facebook.

In general, SimTutor collects and uses personal information (“PI”) to communicate with website visitors and customers, and to deliver our Services. SimTutor keeps personal information secure both online and offline and does not share personal information with other businesses for direct marketing purposes.

In case you want to know more, we’ve provided information below on when and why we collect various categories of personal information, what other types of information we collect, how we use such information, the limited conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.

We’ve tried to make this Privacy Notice easy to understand; however, you’re welcome to contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions after you’ve read it.

Roadmap for this Privacy Notice

Categories of Personal Information Processed by SimTutor and Purposes for Processing 

  • Information for students and employees of SimTutor customers
  • Who else has access to your data?
  • Newsletter sign-up
  • Data Security 
  • Cookies and Internet Tracking Technologies
  • Links to other websites
  • Social media sites
  • Your privacy rights
  • Children
  • Changes to this Privacy Notice

Categories of Personal Information Processed by SimTutor and Purposes for Processing 

  • Name
  • Email address
  • Location (for customer submitting forms on marketing site)
  • Physical address (for customers purchasing directly from us)
  • Payment information (for customers purchasing directly from us)

SimTutor may collect, use or share  personal information where it is necessary: to notify its website visitors and customers  about important matters related to  their use of the Sites and/or Services, such as answering support questions or billing queries; to fulfill requests (such as sending a newsletter or billing  for a subscription); to communicate information about our Product(s) or Service(s); to complete a transaction; or to provide our Products and Services. If you fill out a form on one of our Sites to indicate interest in our Services, we may contact you to give you further information about the Services and how they could benefit you. You can unsubscribe from this type of communication by clicking on the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of one of our emails, replying to one of our email messages and asking us to unsubscribe you, or you can submit your unsubscribe request by email to [email protected].

When you register for a free trial or request a SIMTICS educator guest account, we ask you for information such as your email address and name, so we can create a unique login for you. We might also use your email address to stay in touch while you are evaluating our Product(s) or Service(s). For instance, we might send you a welcome message, Product information and tips (so you can learn how to use the Product), and/or notifications and updates related to your use of the Services.

When you request information from a SimTutor team member at a tradeshow, conference or online, we will collect your name and email address so that we can send you the information you requested. We may also continue to send you additional, relevant information about our Product(s) or Service(s) so you can make an informed decision about whether to purchase it or not. You can request to be removed from that email list at any time by clicking the “Unsubscribe” button at the bottom of any email from SimTutor.

When you purchase a subscription for your personal use, a secure payment form will ask for your billing information, including your payment card details and billing address. This information is collected by our secure third-party payment partner (Authorize.net), who will use this information to verify that the payment card is valid and isn’t being used fraudulently, to charge you for your subscription, and to ascertain if a charge was rejected by your financial institution. We will also remind you when your credit card is about to expire, so you can update it if you want to continue your subscription.

When you use the Services, we automatically keep a record of your in-app activity for you. This information includes which modules or simulations you access, the study time, and scores and completion times for individual simulations and quizzes.

Information for students and employees of SimTutor customers

SimTutor is often used by organizations and education institutions as a digital training resource for their students or employees, in which case the use of our Product may be administered directly by the school or employer. SimTutor is not responsible for the privacy or security practices of our organizational customers, which may differ from those set forth in this Privacy Notice. If this situation applies to you, the access to and use of your personal information that is held by SimTutor (including your logbook data) may also be subject to that organization's own policies and processes. By using a SimTutor Product or Service, you agree that we may share your product usage information with that organization, including that organization’s employees who are involved in administering your access to such Service.

Notice to Students and Educators who access the Services through their institution

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”) is a federal law that applies to educational institutions funded by the U.S. Department of Education (“covered educational institution(s)”).  FERPA provides parents and eligible students the right to (1) access education records and seek amendment of education records, and (2) provide consent to disclosure of personal information from student education records unless a FERPA exception applies.  Although SimTutor is not a covered educational institution, SimTutor provides services or functions to covered educational institutions for which the covered educational institution would otherwise use its own employees (“Educational Services”).

The covered educational institution may need to share PII with SimTutor to create user accounts or to set up individual student profiles.  This may be accomplished under FERPA’s exception related to directory information.  “Directory information” is information contained in the education records of a student that would not generally be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed. Typical examples of directory information include student name, e-mail, major field of study, dates of attendance, grade level, and Student ID number, user ID, or other unique personal identifier used to communicate in electronic systems but only if the identifier cannot be used to gain access to education records except when used in conjunction with one or more factors that authenticate the user’s identity, such as a PIN, password, or other factor known or possessed only by the authorized user.  Directory information is determined by the covered educational institution and parents and eligible students may opt out of disclosure under this exception.

In addition, SimTutor is considered a “school official” and has a legitimate educational interest in the education records and PII it obtains in connection with the educational services.  The school official exception under FERPA allows covered educational institutions to disclose PII from education records to SimTutor.  SimTutor may also need to share education records or PII with the covered educational institution.  Parents and eligible students may not opt out of disclosure under the school official exception.

FERPA and the covered educational institution determine how SimTutor uses and maintains the education records or PII.  SimTutor uses the education records or PII only for authorized purposes and does not re-disclose the education records or PII to other parties without specific authorization from the parent or eligible student or from the covered educational institution consistent with FERPA.  SimTutor will not use any FERPA-protected information for any other purpose than the purpose for which it was disclosed.  Furthermore, SimTutor will not share (or sell) FERPA-protected information, or re-use it for any other purposes, except as directed by the covered educational institution and as permitted by FERPA.  Student information that has been properly de-identified or that is shared under the “directory information” exception, is not protected by FERPA, and thus is not subject to FERPA’s use and re-disclosure limitations.

By using Services that are provided to an educational institution, you agree that we may share your education records and PII with your covered educational institution and any related person or software product that is involved in administering your access to such Services.

Who else has access to personal information?

We will never sell or rent your personal information to other companies or businesses for marketing purposes.

We do use third party service providers to provide you with various aspects of the Services, however.  Our service providers only use your personal information for the purpose of providing portions of the Service to you, on our behalf.  In addition, the third-party payment partners we utilize help us manage subscription charges and process credit card payments, so if you purchase a personal subscription or pay an invoice by credit or debit card, then these third-party payment partners will have secure access to your payment data, and they transmit and store it in encrypted form, using industry accepted TLS and AES protocols and algorithms. 

We use the following third-party payment partners - click on the links to read their security statements regarding how these companies protect PI:

  • processing a credit card payment for a personal SIMTICS subscription: Authorize.Net

  • processing a credit card payment for an invoice from SimTutor: Intuit/Quickbooks

  • We also use the third party service providers described at https://www.simtutor.com/resources/subprocessors/.

If you are a newsletter subscriber, please also read the section below titled Newsletter Sign-up.

The support teams for our Services have access to your personal information but will only view it if they need to answer a support query from you.

If you are an individual learner who has made a private purchase at our webshop, no-one else other than the SimTutor support team has access to your PI.

If you are using a Service because it is part of your school’s curriculum or at the request of your employer, then your instructors or supervisors will have access to view and print reports of your PI. Please read the section titled Notice to Students and Educators who access the Services through their Institution.

Other ways we may use personal information

We may share personal information to respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process, to establish or exercise our legal rights or, defend against legal claims and if in our judgment in such circumstances disclosure is required or appropriate.

We may share personal information if we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of our various terms of use, or as otherwise required by law.

From time to time, SimTutor may sponsor a promotion, prize draw or contest. If you are eligible and you choose to enter, you may be asked to provide personal information including your name and email address to participate. We will use the information you provide to contact you about the results of the promotion, draw or contest. From such personal information, SimTutor may also derive and store non-identifying and aggregate demographic information to evaluate the type(s) of people who are interested in our Products and Services.

We may share personal information in connection with any proposed purchase, merger or acquisition of any part of our business, provided that we inform any potential buyer that it must use such personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Notice.

Newsletter sign-up

If you register to receive our occasional e-newsletter, we will collect your personal information in order to be able to send those newsletters to you. We use our newsletters to tell you about Product updates and to share relevant information such as customer case studies, articles we’ve written, and articles from other reputable sources. We may also use contact you to check that our records are up to date. 

We use external mailing system providers to deliver our newsletters such as SharpSpring. These mailing system providers hold contact information about you, such as your email address, to deliver the e-newsletters to you by email. For more information on how SharpSpring uses and discloses PI, you can read its Privacy Notice using the link below:

SharpSpring privacy notice

When we send newsletters by email, we use industry standard technologies to gather statistics about how many people opened the email and how many clicked on links. This information does not identify individuals; we use it to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletter to make it more interesting and meaningful for our readers.

You can unsubscribe from our newsletter at any time by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of any of our newsletter emails. Alternatively, you can contact us online or email us at [email protected] and request to be removed from the list.

We do not rent to, or trade email lists with, other organizations and businesses.

Data Security 

SimTutor undergoes an annual SOC-2 audit by a third party, to ensure that all SimTutor policies and controls related to the protection of its infrastructure and customer data are effective and meet industry accepted standards.

Data is encrypted at rest and in transit utilizing industry best practices, through the use of TLS and AES protocols and algorithms for encryption.

You will know we are employing such measures because:

  • You will see “HTTPS” in our URLs, e.g. https://new.simtics.com.

  • You will see the word “Secure” in the browser bar, or a “padlock” symbol, or similar, before the URL address in your browser.

  • On secure pages and forms (like our billing registration form) the browser’s “padlock” icon at the bottom of the page in browsers like Google Chrome will show that it is locked - as opposed to un-locked, or open, when you are just 'surfing' websites.

Further, when our billing registration form asks you to enter sensitive information such as credit card details, that information is encrypted and is protected with the industry standard encryption protocol called TLS. 

Note that the servers that store PI are in a secure environment on Microsoft Azure in their data center located in the USA.  You can read more about Microsoft’s security measures here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/TrustCenter/CloudServices/Azure/default.aspx

As well as protecting your data online, we also use the following off-line data security measures: 

  • Our team members are required to adhere to our Security Program and Acceptable Use Policy and any updates to those.

  • Only specific SimTutor team members are granted access to PI, and only where they need it to perform a specific job that needs access to that data; for example, a customer service representative who responds to user queries or assists an instructor to access their students' logbook data; or an admin team member who investigates billing queries.  These team members are required to use passwords that are longer than the minimum length required for each application or system that holds personal information, and two-factor authentication is in place.

Cookies and Internet Tracking Technologies

When someone visits a SimTutor Site, third party services, such as Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity, collect standard internet log information and details of website visitor behavior patterns. We use this information to find out things such as the number of visitors to different parts of our Sites, so we can make improvements to them. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify any individuals; we do not make, and do not allow Google or Microsoft to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those individuals visiting our Sites.

Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity also use cookies. (You can find more information on how cookies are used on our Sites in our Cookies Notice.)  By using a SimTutor Site and/or the Services, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google and Microsoft in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

Links to other websites

The SimTutor Sites and Services may include hyperlinks to external websites, which are provided as a convenience or to guide you to additional relevant information. This Privacy Notice does not cover those external websites as we are not able to control the way they operate. 

We do not pass any PI to those other sites, but depending on how you use an external website, they may be able to collect some log data about you; for instance, your IP address if that site uses Google Analytics. 

If you have questions about how another site might use your information, you’ll need to check that site’s own privacy notice.

Social media sites

As an internet user, it’s important to remember that when you post a comment or content on any social media account (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) or comment on a blog or discussion forum, etc., you have the ability to include PI about yourself. If it is a site that is accessible to the public, like the SimTutor social media sites, you should be aware that any information you provide there may be read, collected, and used by other people who access those sites.

To request removal of your personal information from a SimTutor social media account, blog comment, or discussion forum, you can contact us at [email protected]. In some cases, depending on where you posted your information, we may not be able to remove your personal information ourselves, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why.

Your privacy rights and how to exercise them

Depending on where you live, you might have the right to access, correct or delete your personal information. For example, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia currently (or will soon) provide their state residents with rights to:

  • confirm whether we process their personal information;

  • access and delete certain personal information;

  • correct inaccuracies in their personal information;

  • opt-out of the processing of your PI for:

    • targeted advertising (excluding Iowa);

    • sales; or 

    • profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects (excluding Iowa and Utah).

  • either limit (opt-out of) or require consent to process sensitive PI. 

Note that SimTutor does not sell personal information, engage in targeted advertising or profiling, so some of the above rights are not applicable to your use of SimTutor’s Products or Services. Further, the exact scope of these rights may vary by state. 

To exercise any of the rights listed above, please contact us at [email protected].

After we receive your request, we will provide you with information about whether we hold and otherwise process, or process on behalf of a third party, any of your personal information. Requests to access, change, or remove your personal information will be handled within 30 calendar days.

If you are a customer or otherwise provide us with personal information in connection with your use of our Sites or Services, we will delete this information within 30 calendar days, provided that, notwithstanding such request, this information may be retained for as long as you maintain a SimTutor account, or as needed to continue providing you with our Services, to comply with our legal obligations, to resolve disputes and to enforce our agreements.

Privacy rights process for our Subscribers

Subscribers to our Services may update or change their account information by editing their profile or organization record or by contacting us at [email protected] for more detailed instructions. 

Privacy rights process for individuals who work for one of our customer entities

If you work for one of our customers (e.g., an educational institution), please direct your query to that customer organization (the data controller). If you submit the request to us directly, we are required to contact our customer for instructions on how to respond to your request.  

Upon receipt of a request from one of our customers for us to correct, amend or remove personal information, we will respond to the request within thirty (30) days. Note that we will need to retain personal information that we store and process on behalf of our customers for as long as needed to provide the Services to our customers and to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Thus, we cannot guarantee that your deletion request will be honored. 

Privacy rights process for individuals who reside in the European Economic Area (EEA) or the United Kingdom

If you reside in the EEA or the United Kingdom and provided us with your personal information based on a contract with us, you may ask us to export such personal information in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and you have the right to transmit those data to another controller. To request such export, please contact us at [email protected].

If you reside in EEA or the United Kingdom, you also may object to the way and scope how we process your PI. To do so, please contact us at [email protected]. You can opt out of our marketing and non-transactional communications by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of our marketing emails.

Finally, if you reside in EEA or the United Kingdom, you may lodge a complaint with a local supervisory authority if you consider that our processing of your PI relating infringes applicable data protection laws. We would be happy if you reach to us before filing the complaint.

Children

None of our Sites are intended for use by minors under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone below that age.

SimTutor marketing is directed at individuals 18 years and older, and in an education setting, we only sell to institutions for use by students in senior high school or older (i.e. Grade 11 upwards).

If you are younger than 16, please do not use the Sites or Services and do not provide any personal information to us. If you are a parent of a child under 13 and become aware that your child has provided personal information to SimTutor, please contact us at [email protected].

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. When we do, the changes will be published online and will be effective immediately. Be assured that our goal with any future changes is always to ensure that your personal information is protected and to comply with current and relevant laws.

This Privacy Notice was last updated on the date shown at the top of this notice.

We encourage you to check this page regularly to view any changes we have made to the Privacy Notice.  Your continued use of the Sites or the Services constitutes your agreement to be bound by such changes to this Privacy Notice. Your only remedy, if you do not accept the terms of this Privacy Notice, is to discontinue use of the Sites and the Services.

Cookies Notice

Like most websites, SimTutor Sites use “cookies” to help us deliver a better service to you while you are using our Sites.

What is a cookie?

Cookies are text files, often encrypted, which contain small amounts of information that are used by web developers to improve the user’s experience on a website. Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate a website efficiently and remembering your preferences in between sessions.

Cookies are created and stored on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. Each time you return to that website, your browser sends the relevant stored information back to the website.

You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, notify you when a cookie is set, or reject all cookies. The method for doing this will depend on the browser you use.

However, cookies are almost unavoidable if you use the internet. Over 90% of all websites use at least one type of cookie, including the largest and most popular websites like YouTube, Google, Gmail, Twitter, Yahoo mail, Amazon. If you disable or reject all cookies, then in most cases you won’t be able to log in and use those sites. The same applies to SimTutor: if you reject all cookies, you will not be able to use the Services or Sites properly, you may not be able to "sign in" and you may not be able to take full advantage of other offerings.

How long are cookies stored for?

  • Session cookies are created temporarily during a browser session. A browser session starts when a user opens the browser window and finishes when they close the browser window. Once you close the browser window, all session cookies are automatically deleted. These are the only type of cookies that SimTutor uses.

Persistent cookies remain on a user's device for the period of time specified in the cookie. They are activated each time that the user visits the website that created that particular cookie.  

You can find more information about cookies at www.allaboutcookies.org and www.youronlinechoices.eu.

Cookies we use on our Site

We only use cookies for storing session information (i.e. to track whether the user is logged in or not), and a session identifier so we can establish who it is that is interacting with the Site.  

Third party cookies 

We use web software from other software providers (often called “third parties”) that may use cookies. These other organizations may set cookies to allow them to track the success of their application or customize the application for you.

The third-party software we use includes: 

  • Intercom – for in-app communication with users of our Sites
  • Google Analytics – to track usage of our Sites
  • Microsoft Clarity -  track user experience
  • Raygun – for error and performance monitoring of our Sites
  • Facebook and LinkedIn – e.g. if you choose to use the “Login with Facebook” or the “Login with LinkedIn” options when you sign up, or click on a Facebook icon while on our Site

You may also have cookies from another application that you choose to access while using our Sites. For example, if you choose to share content through Facebook or Twitter, you might have cookies from these websites.

Also, if your school or employer uses a learning management system (LMS) like Blackboard, Moodle, or Canvas to provide you with access to a Service, then the LMS may use its own cookies.

Because of how cookies work, we cannot access any third-party cookies, nor can those third parties access the data in cookies used by SimTutor. If you have queries about cookies from other websites, please check those websites for more information about the cookies they use and how to manage them.  

Cookie Notice

This website stores cookies on your computer. These cookies are used to collect information about how you interact with our website and allow us to remember you. We use this information in order to improve and customize your browsing experience and for analytics and metrics about our visitors both on this website and other media. To find out more about the cookies we use, see our Privacy Policy.