Privacy Statement

Budget Challenge — Privacy Policy

Effective: May 1, 2026

Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) tells you about ProperLiving’s (dba Budget Challenge) privacy practices governing personal information we may collect when you visit our budgetchallenge.com website (including any subdomains and mobile apps), and how we may use and share that information. Your prior activities on the Site may have been governed by an earlier version of this Policy.

Changes to this Policy

If we update this Policy, we will post the revised version to our website with the new effective date. Any update to this Policy will either preserve or strengthen the privacy protections applicable to information we have already collected; we will not retroactively reduce the protections that applied to your information at the time we collected it. New information collected on or after the new effective date will be subject to the updated Policy.

Our Commitment to Student Privacy

Budget Challenge is designed so that we do not hold personal information about students. We consider this an architectural commitment, not merely a policy commitment.

Specifically:

We do not collect students’ first or last names under our direct registration. The student-facing registration flow on budgetchallenge.com contains no first-name field, no last-name field, no middle-name field, and no nickname field. Students enter a class code (given to them by their teacher), choose a username, and choose a password.
Where a school registers students through a single-sign-on (SSO) provider, we truncate names at ingestion before storage. The only path by which a student’s first or last name can reach us is SSO rostering through our partner Edlink (see “Registration through your School” below). When a name is transmitted, we reduce the first name to its first four letters and the last name to its first initial at the moment of the database write — the full name is never persisted.
There is no database field for date of birth. Our schema does not have a place to store a date of birth, so DOB cannot be retained even if it is transmitted to us.
There is no database field for student phone number, school-issued student ID, or state student ID. These identifiers likewise have no place in our system.
Student email addresses are collected only when the school permits and the teacher has affirmed that the addresses do not contain student personally identifying information. Any collected addresses are deleted automatically at the end of the simulation.
We do not accept student or teacher data files from schools. Provisions in student data privacy agreements that assume the school will hand us data do not apply to us.
We do not verify the accuracy of any student-supplied information. We do not cross-reference student accounts against any school information system or other external identity source. The information in a student’s account is whatever the student enters; we have no independent way to link it to a specific real-world individual.
We do not use ad networks, do not host advertisements, and do not sell personal data. Ever.

Special Note about Children’s Information

Programs, games, contests, and services offered through budgetchallenge.com and any related subdomains are not marketed to children under the age of 13, nor do we knowingly collect information, or permit schools to collect information on our behalf, from children under the age of 13. Our Terms of Use age-gate the Site at 14 years and older.

Special Note about Parents’ Rights and Parents’ Bill of Rights Laws

To protect students participating in Budget Challenge, we do not collect personal information from or about students. We cannot identify students in our system, and we cannot confirm parent-student relationships. For this reason, certain elements of state Parents’ Bill of Rights laws (including the Ohio Parents’ Bill of Rights, effective April 9, 2025) that are designed for entities that hold identifiable student records are simply inapplicable to our Site. Parents and legal guardians should direct any request for student records, correction or updating of student information, or transfer of student-generated content to personal accounts to the student’s teacher or school, which is the party that holds any identifying information linking a real-world student to a specific Budget Challenge account.

Special Note about Data Ownership

We do not accept student or teacher data from schools and are never in possession of school data. Therefore, any provisions relating to ownership, access, auditing, processing, deletion, or return of such data outlined in student data privacy agreements that are predicated on the school providing student data do not apply.

Public Entity Users

For school districts, educational service centers, and other state political subdivisions accessing the Site, certain contractual provisions are modified — including indemnification, amendment mechanics, security-incident notification, and venue. See the “Public Entity Users” section of our Terms of Use for the details.

What Information Do We Collect?

(See also the section below on our Budget Challenge Bill-Pay Companion App.)

Personal Information

What we collect depends on whether you are a teacher or a student, and on how your school has chosen to integrate Budget Challenge. We do not collect personal or contact information from students under our direct registration path.

Teachers

To register for Budget Challenge, a teacher will be asked for their first and last name, school name and school address, phone number, and school email address. The teacher will set up a username and password, and will choose a class team name for identification on publicly visible web pages. Teachers have full discretion on choosing a name that may reveal identifiable information about the class (such as school name, city, mascot, state, or team); teachers should choose whatever fits their school’s preferences and privacy considerations.

Students — Registration through our Site

To register for Budget Challenge directly on our Site, the student’s teacher provides a class code. The student uses the class code to create an individual account. We will match the student’s account to the school name and address already on file from the teacher’s registration. The student will set up a username and password. When a student creates a username and password, the student should not include any personally identifying information in either. If a student is unsure whether a given piece of information is personally identifying, they should check with their teacher.

Our Site does not ask the student for their name, date of birth, phone number, home address, school-issued student ID, or any other personally identifying information during direct registration.

Students — Registration through your School (SSO and rostering)

Schools may register their students through a single-sign-on (SSO) provider, typically via our integration partner Edlink (ed.link). SSO providers allow a wide range of student information to be transmitted to educational applications, and the school determines what information to share.

Regardless of what the SSO provider transmits, our ingestion process applies the following rules before any data is written to our database:

The student’s first name is truncated to the first four letters only.
The student’s last name is truncated to the first initial only.
Date of birth is not stored. Our database does not contain a field for date of birth.
Student phone number is not stored. Our database does not contain a field for student phone number.
School-issued, district, and state student identifier numbers are not stored. Our database does not contain fields for these identifiers.
Student email addresses are handled the same way as under direct registration — only collected if the school permits and the teacher affirms that the addresses do not contain student PII, and automatically deleted at simulation end.

The effect is that we do not retain any identifying information about a student even when an SSO provider would be willing to transmit it. These rules are enforced by our database code; they do not depend on the SSO provider’s behavior.

Usernames and nicknames

Students are instructed, both by the product and by their teachers, to choose usernames that do not include personally identifying information. Students may choose a nickname or other non-identifying string as their username (for example, “SuperStar42”). A self-chosen nickname used as a username is not personal information: it does not function as online contact information, and it is not linked or linkable to a specific real-world student based on the information we hold.

Remediation if personally identifying information ever appears in a username. If a student does enter personally identifying information in a username despite the instruction not to, teachers are instructed to alert Budget Challenge. On receiving notice, we will correct the affected account promptly to remove the identifying content.

Security questions and password recovery

Students and teachers are asked to provide answers to a few security questions to facilitate password reset in the event they are unable to remember their password. These questions are designed not to collect information that could be used to identify the user, and students should not provide identifying information in their answers.

Passwords are stored in encrypted (hashed) form, not in plaintext. Account recovery is performed by matching answers to the security questions set at registration; there are no persistent password-reset tokens tied to a student account.

Help Desk support

If a user submits questions to the live Help Desk during a simulation, we collect the information the user provides in asking the question. Users should not include any personally identifying information or disclose their identity in questions. If we determine that personal information has been disclosed to us in a Help Desk submission, we will promptly delete that information.

Information we gather automatically

For each visitor to our Site, we automatically gather certain technical information and store it in log files, including (as applicable) internet protocol (IP) addresses and last login date and time. We collect and store this information on an individual-basis and in aggregate form. We use proprietary algorithms to calculate behavior, knowledge, and skill statistics from individual simulation activity. We also collect aggregate information on what pages visitors access or visit.

“Do Not Track” signals. We do not currently have the capability to recognize browser “Do Not Track” signals. We adhere to the standards set forth in this Privacy Policy.

Cookies. A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user’s computer for recordkeeping purposes. If you reject cookies, you may still use our Site, but your ability to use some areas will be limited. We use session cookies to make it easier to navigate our Site, to record session information such as which pages a user has visited, and to store a one-time authentication token for the session. The authentication token value is encrypted and does not contain personally identifying information. These cookies expire when the session ends (when the user logs out or closes their browser).

Analytics. We use Google Analytics (GA4) to understand how many users visit our Site, how often they visit, and which areas are of greatest interest. Google Analytics may collect information such as your domain type and clickstream information. We do not combine the information collected through analytics tools with personally identifiable information. More about Google’s practices: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/.

Ad networks. We do not use ad networks on our Site, and we do not host ads for others.

How Do We Use and Share the Information We Collect?

We store and process teachers’ personal information to facilitate registration of classes and participation in, or observation of, Budget Challenge simulations. We may also use teacher contact information to notify teachers of other programs we think would be of interest; teachers may unsubscribe or opt out from these emails at any time. We use teacher emails to facilitate password reset when a teacher is unable to remember their password.

Verification of teacher status. As part of registration, we perform a manual verification to confirm that the registrant is an active teacher at the school they identify. We may use information the teacher has provided (such as school name, school address, and school email) for this verification, and verification may include direct outreach to the identified school. We may, in our discretion, make exceptions to the school-employment requirement for homeschool educators and for parent-led co-op classes of five or more students. The purpose of this verification is to maintain a community of legitimate educators and to give participating teachers reasonable confidence in the integrity of Budget Challenge’s class-vs-class features and public leaderboards.

We use the information we collect to analyze trends, administer the Site, and track users’ movements around the Site. We use this information to improve the simulations and to make the Site more useful to visitors.

School administrators may be provided reports that reflect summary statistics of students and individual teachers upon request.

The following information you provide us through the Site is displayed to others as described:

TEACHERS — public leaderboard. The following teacher and class information is visible to the public on Budget Challenge’s class leaderboards by default: the class team name (chosen by the teacher, who may select a more or less identifying name at their discretion), the class’s score and engagement averages, the school name, city, and state, and the teacher’s level and engagement status (such as gold or silver tier). The teacher’s full name is not publicly displayed unless the teacher affirmatively opts in; once opted in, the teacher’s name appears alongside the teacher’s status on the public leaderboard. The opt-in can be withdrawn at any time.
TEACHERS — class vs. class competition (separate opt-in). Independently of the public leaderboard, a teacher may opt in to “class vs. class competition.” If opted in, additional Budget Challenge statistics and achievements are visible to other teachers who have also opted in to the same feature (not to the general public). Teacher competition profile data (such as name, school name, school state, and school city) is visible only to those other opted-in teachers. Teachers can manage which profile data elements are included in their competition profile and can withdraw the opt-in at any time.
STUDENTS. Students have agreed not to provide any personal information through the Site.

We do not share personal information we collect with any third parties, except as follows:

We share information to the extent reasonably necessary to comply with law enforcement requests and judicial proceedings, and to ensure the safety and security of the Site.
We may engage in research with academic institutions using only non-personally-identifiable data sets.

It is possible that, at some time in the future, our company may be sold along with its assets, or may engage in business transactions in which customer information is one of the assets transferred. In such a case, the customer information we have gathered may be one of the business assets we transfer.

How Long Do We Keep the Information We Collect?

TEACHERS. We retain contact information after the end of a simulation so that teachers do not have to re-register with each group of students, and so that we may contact teachers with other programs of interest. Teachers may request deletion of contact information at any time.
STUDENTS. We retain student username and password information, which do not contain personal information, indefinitely. We automatically delete any email addresses after the end of a student’s participation in a Budget Challenge simulation.

We retain non-identifying information indefinitely to improve Budget Challenge simulations.

Budget Challenge Bill-Pay Companion App

As part of the Budget Challenge simulation, students have the opportunity to pay bills, review bills, and request support through the Bill-Pay Companion App downloaded to their mobile phones. There is no teacher-specific functionality in the App. The login credentials are the same as on the Site; no additional personal information is requested prior to or during use of the App. Only users who have accounts on the Site can use the App. When the App is used, we collect the phone’s UDID (unique device identifier) only if the user opts into push notifications when launching the App. We do not access any other information on the phone.

Sponsor Prize Opt-In

Budget Challenge offers sponsored prizes in certain contests and completion programs. Participation is always optional and requires the student’s affirmative opt-in.

The opt-in is a narrow exception to our general practice of not contacting students. Except for the specific opt-in mechanism described in this section, Budget Challenge does not contact students directly.

How the opt-in works

A student may check a single box on their Budget Challenge dashboard indicating that they wish to be notified if they win a sponsored prize. The opt-in collects no personal information — it is a simple yes/no flag attached to the student’s already-de-identified account.

If the student is selected as a winner, Budget Challenge notifies the student’s teacher (using the teacher’s already-on-file email address) and displays a “You won” prompt on the student’s Budget Challenge dashboard. We do not send prize notifications to students directly at this stage, and we do not ask for any personal information at this stage.

Claim engagement

If a winning student chooses to claim the prize, they must engage with a claim form on Budget Challenge. The claim form asks the student whether they are 18 or older.

If the student is 18 or older, Budget Challenge collects an email address from the student for the limited purpose of sending claim instructions.
If the student is under 18, Budget Challenge does not collect an email address from the student. Instead, Budget Challenge asks for a parent or legal guardian email address and sends the claim information to that email. The parent’s or guardian’s affirmative response to that email serves as parental consent for the student to proceed with the claim. Students under 18 are not contacted by Budget Challenge directly after this point; further communications and any identifying-information collection go through the parent or guardian.

The age attestation is self-reported; Budget Challenge does not verify it. Teachers are asked to remind students to complete the claim process if a claim has not been engaged within a reasonable time before the claim window closes.

Prize fulfillment by the sponsor

The actual delivery of a prize — for example, a merchandise shipment, a funded savings account at a sponsor financial institution, or a cash payment to a school — is handled by the sponsor, not by Budget Challenge. We provide a non-personally-identifying winner code to the student or parent, who then visits the sponsor’s site to complete the claim. The information the sponsor collects (such as name, delivery address, or, if the prize value crosses federal tax-reporting thresholds, a Form W-9) is collected by the sponsor, not by Budget Challenge, and is governed by the sponsor’s privacy policy. See the Linked Sites section below.

Budget Challenge does not tell the sponsor which student holds which winner code. The winner code itself does not identify the student.

Claim window and forfeiture

Each contest’s Official Rules specify a claim window during which a winner must engage with the prize claim process. Unless a given contest’s Official Rules state otherwise, the default claim window is 60 days from the date of the winner notification. A winner who does not complete the claim process within the applicable claim window forfeits the prize, and neither Budget Challenge nor the sponsor has any further obligation with respect to it. Budget Challenge may, at its discretion, award a forfeited prize to an alternate winner or declare the prize unclaimed.

Retention of opt-in information

The opt-in flag and any email addresses collected at the claim stage are retained only for the duration of the relevant contest plus a short audit period and are then deleted. Records associated with any winner whose prize value exceeds the federal tax-reporting threshold are retained by the sponsor (not Budget Challenge) for the longer period required by tax law.

Class-level and teacher prizes

Some contests may offer prizes to a winning class (typically as a cash grant to the school for the benefit of the class) or to individual teachers (typically as a recognition award). For class and school prizes, payment is made to the school’s business office and no student-level identifying information is collected; for teacher prizes, the teacher is an adult and engages with the sponsor’s fulfillment process directly. Budget Challenge’s role in both cases is limited to identifying the winner and providing a non-identifying winner reference.

How to Correct Information

Teachers may request updates or corrections to the personal information we maintain. Send your request to the postal or email address below. To help us process your request, please provide sufficient information to allow us to identify you in our records.

We reserve the right to ask for information verifying identity prior to updating, correcting, or deleting information. Information provided for identity verification is used only for that purpose and is destroyed when the process is complete.

Security

The security of personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the information submitted to us and to guard it against loss, misuse, or alteration.

When the Services are accessed using the Internet, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology protects the information in transit using server authentication and data encryption.

Measures we have implemented to protect and safeguard personal information include:

Zero personally identifying information collected from students by default.
SSL or equivalent secure connection technologies when receiving or sending personal information beyond internal networks.
Passwords stored in hashed form, not in plaintext.
Screening of all employees and independent contractors with access to personal information.
Limited, secure access to data by employees only as required for their roles.
Automated deletion of student-generated data at regular rolling intervals upon completion of the program.
User-generated data and account deletion upon request.
Independent data privacy certification by 1EdTech Consortium, Inc., the leading industry standards body for educational technology. Our current 1EdTech Data Privacy Certification is publicly listed at https://site.imsglobal.org/certifications/budget-challenge-financial-literacy-and-capability-investing/budget-challenge.

Please note that no method of transmission over the Internet, and no method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we use commercially reasonable means to protect personal information, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Links to Third-Party Sites

This Policy applies only to information collected by budgetchallenge.com. From time to time, the Site may link to other sites (“Linked Sites”) that are not owned by us. While the vast majority of links are to government sites, we do not control the collection or use of any information, including personal information, that occurs during a visit to a Linked Site. We make no representations about the privacy policies or practices of the Linked Sites and we are not responsible for their privacy practices.

Prize redemption on sponsor sites. If you win a sponsored prize (as described in the “Sponsor Prize Opt-In” section above), claiming the prize may require you — or, for a minor winner, the parent or legal guardian of the winner — to visit the sponsor’s website and create an account or provide identifying information directly to the sponsor. Information provided to the sponsor is governed by the sponsor’s privacy policy, not by this Policy. For prizes that involve a financial account (for example, a funded savings account at a credit union), the sponsor financial institution will collect identification required by federal banking law, including Customer Identification Program requirements.

Be careful of disclosing any personally identifiable information when leaving our Site. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our Site and to read the privacy statements of every website that collects personally identifiable information.

Your Privacy Rights under State Law

Residents of certain U.S. states — including California (under the California Consumer Privacy Act and California Privacy Rights Act), Virginia (under the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act), Colorado (under the Colorado Privacy Act), Connecticut (under the Connecticut Data Privacy Act), and others — have specific rights regarding personal information held by a business, including the right of access, deletion, correction, and data portability, and the right to opt out of certain processing.

Because we do not collect personal information from or about students (as described in the “Our Commitment to Student Privacy” section above), most of these rights are automatically satisfied or inapplicable with respect to students. We have no student personal information in our system to provide, delete, correct, or port. We do not confirm parent-student relationships, so a parent cannot exercise rights on behalf of a student in our system either — such requests should be directed to the student’s school, which is the party that holds any identifying information.

For teachers residing in a state whose law applies, a teacher may exercise applicable rights by contacting us at the address listed in “Questions About Our Privacy Policy and Practices” below. We may need to verify your identity before processing a request, using information you have already provided us; we will not collect additional sensitive information solely for verification. We will respond to verified requests within the timeframe required by applicable law (generally within 45 days, extendable by an additional 45 days if necessary, with notice).

We do not sell personal information within the meaning of the California Consumer Privacy Act or any similar state law. We do not process personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising or targeted advertising. We do not engage in profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects concerning a consumer. Because we do not engage in these activities, any right to opt out of them is automatically satisfied.

Questions About Our Privacy Policy and Practices

If you have any questions about this Policy or our privacy practices, you may contact:

ProperLiving, LLC
3874 Paxton Ave., #9115
Cincinnati, Ohio 45209
513-335-0619
support@budgetchallenge.com