Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how GovLeaders Group LLC, doing business as GovLeaders Academy ("we," "us" or "our"), collects, uses, shares and protects personal information when you use our website at govleadersacademy.com, including learn.govleadersacademy.com (the "Site"), and our courses and services (together with the Site, the "Services").

1. Information we collect

Information you give us

• Account information: name, email address, password, and optional details such as job title, organization and role.
• Purchase information: billing name and address, organization and purchase order details, and what you bought. Card payments are handled by our payment processor; we do not see or store full card numbers.
• Your coursework: knowledge check and exam answers and scores, reflections, course evaluations and other submissions.
• Course evaluation comments: when you finish a course, the course evaluation may ask for your organization and invite a comment about the course. Both are optional. We publish a comment, credited the way you choose, only if you give permission in the form, and we remove it if you ask at support@govleadersacademy.com.
• Messages: questions, support requests, accommodation requests and other communications you send us.
• Newsletter sign-up: your email address, your first name and organization if you choose to give them, and your subscription choices if you subscribe to the GovLeaders Brief or other updates.
• Inquiries: when you contact us through a website form, your name, email address, organization and role, your organization type and approximate number of learners if you choose to give them, and your message.

Information created as you use the Services

• Learning records: enrollments, access dates, progress, attempts, completion dates, contact hours, certificates and study time recorded by the learning platform.
• Technical information: IP address, browser and device type, pages visited, dates and times, and similar log information, collected through cookies and similar technologies (see section 8).

Information from others

• Your organization: if your district, board, agency or employer buys a seat for you, it may give us your name, email address, role and organization.
• Service providers: payment status and fraud-prevention signals from our payment processors.

2. How we use information

We use personal information to:

1. create and manage accounts, deliver courses and track progress;
2. grade assessments, issue certificates, and verify completions when asked;
3. process payments, invoices, refunds and disputes, and keep accounting records;
4. provide support and respond to accommodation requests;
5. send service messages, such as purchase receipts, access notices and course updates;
6. send newsletters and announcements to people who have subscribed;
7. improve our courses, using course evaluations and summary results;
8. keep the Services secure and prevent fraud, misuse and academic integrity violations;
9. maintain training records that may support continuing-education or credit requirements in the future; and
10. comply with law and enforce our Terms.

3. Sharing with your organization

If an organization bought or assigned your seat, that organization and the people it designates (including our Concierge staff working for it) can see your name, email, enrollment, progress, assessment results, completion dates and certificates for the courses it sponsors. Your reflections and evaluations are shared with your organization only in summary form unless you agree otherwise.

4. How we share information

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for targeted advertising. We share it only:

1. With service providers who run parts of the Services for us under contract, including our learning platform (LearnWorlds), payment processing (Stripe), accounting and invoicing (Intuit QuickBooks), email and document storage (Google Workspace), newsletter, contact management and website analytics (HubSpot), and website forms and our certificate verification address (Vercel). They may use the information only to provide services to us.
2. With your organization, as described in section 3.
3. To verify a certificate for a board, agency or employer when you ask us to, or when they present the certificate for verification.
4. For legal reasons: to comply with law, a subpoena or court order, to protect rights and safety, or to investigate fraud or misuse.
5. In a business transfer, such as a merger or sale of all or part of our business, subject to this policy.
6. With your permission.

Information about public officials and public bodies may already be public. Records an organization receives from us about its own officials or employees may be subject to the Texas Public Information Act in that organization's hands.

5. Email choices

Service messages about your account and purchases are part of the Services. Newsletters and announcements are sent only to people who have subscribed, and every one includes an unsubscribe link. You can also unsubscribe by emailing gla@govleadersacademy.com.

6. How long we keep information

• Learning records and certificates are kept for at least 7 years after course completion so that completions can be verified and credit documentation can be supported. We keep certificate verification records for as long as we operate.
• If you leave a course unfinished, withdraw, or receive a refund, we keep the learning record for the same period. A refund ends your access to the course but does not remove the record of what you completed.
• Purchase and accounting records are kept for at least 7 years for tax and legal purposes.
• Account information is kept while your account is open and for a reasonable period afterward.
• Newsletter data is kept until you unsubscribe, plus a record of the unsubscribe so we honor it.
• Support messages and inquiries are kept for up to 3 years.

When information is no longer needed, we delete or de-identify it. Backups are overwritten on a regular schedule.

7. Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards, including access controls, encrypted connections, and limiting staff and service-provider access to what they need. No system is perfectly secure. If we learn of a security breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you as required by law.

8. Cookies and similar technologies

• Cookies the Site needs: our learning platform uses cookies to keep you signed in, protect your account, remember your settings and complete checkout. The platform also counts page views for its own built-in reports, which we use only to understand how our courses are used. Our payment processor sets its own cookies on checkout pages to process payments and prevent fraud. Pages still served from www.govleadersacademy.com use our hosting provider's visit counts, which use no cookies and do not identify you. We also use Google Search Console, which gives us summary reports on how the site appears in Google search; it places nothing on your device.
• Website analytics cookies, only with your permission: when you first visit, the Site asks whether you accept analytics cookies. If you choose Accept, the Site loads HubSpot analytics cookies, which let us see which of our pages you visit and, if you later give us your email address through a form or newsletter sign-up, connect those visits to your contact record. HubSpot's network provider, Cloudflare, may also set a short-lived security cookie on HubSpot's own web addresses to block automated traffic. If you choose Decline, or your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, these cookies are not set and your visit is not sent to HubSpot. You can change your choice at any time with the Cookie settings link in the Site footer.
• We do not use cookies for targeted advertising. Before we add any other cookie or tracking tool, we will update this policy.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, but parts of the Site may not work without them. We treat a Global Privacy Control signal as a choice to decline analytics cookies. We do not currently respond to browser "Do Not Track" signals, because there is no common standard for them; we do not track you across other websites.

9. Your choices and rights

You may ask us to:

1. tell you what personal information we hold about you and give you a copy;
2. correct inaccurate information;
3. delete your information;
4. stop sending you marketing email.

We will respond within 45 days. To protect your account, we may ask you to verify your identity. We may keep information we are required to keep by law, or that we need to verify certificates, resolve disputes or enforce agreements. If your seat is sponsored by an organization, we may refer some requests to that organization. If we decline a request, you may appeal by replying to our decision; we will respond to an appeal within 60 days.

To make a request, email gla@govleadersacademy.com with the subject line "Privacy request."

We will not discriminate against you for using these rights.

10. Age requirement

The Services are for adults 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.

11. Where information is processed

We are based in Texas, and the Services are intended for users in the United States. Information is stored and processed in the United States by us and our service providers.

12. Artificial intelligence

We do not use artificial intelligence services to grade your work or make decisions about you. If we ever introduce AI tools that process your submissions, we will update this policy and give you notice first.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. We will post the new version with a new "Last updated" date and, for material changes, notify account holders by email or on the Site before the change takes effect.

14. Contact us

GovLeaders Academy, a division of GovLeaders Group LLC
5900 Balcones Dr #28835
Austin, TX 78731
Privacy requests: gla@govleadersacademy.com
Questions about your account or a course: support@govleadersacademy.com