Privacy Policy

Effective October 4, 2026 · Governing law: North Carolina · nOS LLC

nOS is software that builds a school's master schedule. This policy covers schools of every level, including elementary, middle and high schools and whole districts, and the people who use nOS or who answer a school's course-request form. It also covers visitors to this website, usenos.org, and the nOS app at nosplanner.com.

The short version. A school's data belongs to the school. nOS handles it only to run the school's schedule, at the school's direction. We do not sell data, we show no ads, we use no advertising trackers, and school data is never used to train AI models.

1. Who is in charge of the data

When a school puts student or staff information into nOS, the school decides what goes in and what happens to it. nOS acts as the school's service provider, and as a "school official" under FERPA, which means we use the data only for the school's scheduling purposes and under the school's control. The agreements schools sign are the Terms of Service, the Master Services Agreement and Order Form and the Data Processing Agreement. If this policy and a signed agreement ever differ for a school's data, the signed agreement controls.

2. What we collect

2.1 From schools

What a school uploads, types in or connects from its student information system. In practice this is:

Students: name, student ID, grade, course requests, and any scheduling needs the school records, such as a team, a pull-out service or a group.
Staff: name, ID, which courses they teach, and when they are available.
The school's courses, sections, rooms, rules and the schedules nOS builds.
The original files the school uploads, which we keep as the school gave them. If a spreadsheet contains columns we do not use, those columns are stored with the file. Please upload only what scheduling needs.

nOS does not ask for Social Security numbers, health records, discipline records or payment card numbers from students, and a school should not upload them.

2.2 From staff who use nOS

Name, work email address, role, the school they belong to, and a password stored only as a one-way hash (or the email of a Google account if they sign in with Google). We also keep logs of sign-ins and actions in the account for security and support, including IP address, browser type and time.

2.3 From students who fill in a course-request form

A school can send students a link to a form where they choose the courses they want. When a student uses that form, nOS collects what the student enters: name, student ID, grade, course choices and rankings, and the answers to any questions the school added, including free-text answers. We also keep a one-way hash of the device's IP address, used only to limit abuse.

This happens at the school's direction and under the school's authority. The school chose to send the form, the school decides who receives it, and the answers go into the school's account for the school's use only. nOS does not contact students, does not use their answers for anything other than that school's schedule, and does not build profiles of them. Please see section 8 on children's privacy.

2.4 From people who visit our websites

On usenos.org we run our own simple analytics: which pages are viewed, for how long, how far a visitor scrolls, which links are clicked, the referring site, approximate city, device type, browser and language. A random identifier is kept in your browser's local storage so a repeat visit can be recognized; it is not a cookie and means nothing on other websites. IP addresses are hashed and not kept. If you submit a form on usenos.org, the contact details you type (name, email, school, role) are recorded with that visit so we can reply; message text and payment details are not recorded. To switch the analytics off in your browser, open any page on usenos.org once with ?nostats=1 added to the address. Our pages load the Inter typeface from Google Fonts, so Google receives your IP address when a page loads.

2.5 From schools we have not met yet

nOS sometimes emails school professionals, such as a registrar, principal or academic dean, to tell them about nOS. We use only their professional contact details (name, work email address, school, job title) taken from the school's own website or a public school directory. We never email students, parents or consumers, and we do not buy email lists. Every message says who we are and how to stop, and anyone who asks to stop, by the unsubscribe link, by reply or by writing to us, is added to a suppression list and not emailed again. Contact details of prospects are kept while the outreach is active and on the suppression list after an opt-out so we can honor it. The full rules are in our Email policy.

3. Cookies and similar technology

The nOS app (nosplanner.com) sets these cookies, and no others:

Session cookie (nos_session): keeps you signed in. It expires when your sign-in does.
Sign-in helper cookies: short-lived cookies used only while you sign in with Google or connect a student information system, to confirm the request came from you. They are removed when that step ends. A further cookie remembers accounts you switch between on one device.
First-visit cookie (nos_ft1, 90 days): when you arrive from a campaign or a link, it records where you came from (the campaign tag, the referring website's name, and the page you landed on) so that if you later sign up, we can tell which of our efforts reached you. It holds no name or email.
Referral cookie (nos_ref1, 90 days): if you arrive through a referral link, it remembers the referral code so the person who referred you is credited if you sign up.

The usenos.org website sets no cookies. We use no advertising cookies, no ad networks, no retargeting and no cross-site tracking.

4. How we use information

To run nOS for the school: import the data, build and check schedules, export results, and send what the school asks us to send.
To sign people in, keep accounts secure, detect abuse and give support.
To bill the school and to tell its staff about their account, renewals and changes to our terms.
To fix bugs and improve nOS using counts and technical diagnostics, not the content of a school's records.
To meet legal obligations.

We do not sell or rent personal information. We do not show advertising. We do not use student data for marketing or to build profiles. We do not use a school's data to train AI models.

5. nOS AI

nOS AI is the assistant inside the app. When a person uses it, nOS sends what is needed to answer to our AI provider, Anthropic: the person's message, the part of the school's schedule data relevant to the question (which can include student, teacher and course names), and any file they attach. Anthropic processes it only to produce the answer, and under our agreement it does not train its models on it. nOS also stores the conversation in the school's account, so people can come back to it. Conversations are kept for up to 730 days, and a person can delete their conversations at any time.

6. Who else handles data

We use a small number of companies to run nOS, including hosting and database providers, our AI provider, an email provider, a live-collaboration provider, billing, rate limiting and error monitoring. Each may handle data only to provide its service to us. The current list, what each one does and where it is, is at usenos.org/legal#subprocessors. We disclose information to others only when a school tells us to, when the law requires it (we will tell the school first where we may), or in a sale or merger of the company, in which case the same promises continue to apply.

7. How long we keep it

While a school is a customer: we keep its data so it can keep using nOS. Schools can export their data and delete things at any time.
When an agreement ends: the school can export its data, and we delete the school's data from production systems within 60 days after the agreement ends.
Free trials that do not become a plan: we email a warning, and delete the trial's data 90 days after the trial ends. Until then it stays available to export.
Backups: our database provider's backups roll off within 35 days, so deleted data also leaves our backups within 35 days.
AI conversations: up to 730 days, or sooner if deleted.
Unverified sign-ups: accounts whose email was never confirmed are deleted after 7 days.
Prospect contact details: as described in section 2.5.

A school can also ask us to delete its data sooner, at bennettmiller@nosplanner.com.

8. Children's privacy

nOS is built for schools, and schools use it for students of all ages, including children under 13. nOS does not offer accounts to children and does not let a child create an account. A student meets nOS only when a school sends the student a course-request link, and the student's answers are given to the school.

For children under 13, the school decides to use nOS and, under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), may give consent in place of a parent for an educational service used only for the school and not for any commercial purpose. That is how nOS works: we collect a child's information only at the school's request, for the school's educational purposes, and for no other purpose. We do not use it for advertising or to build a profile of the child, and we do not share it except with the providers listed in section 6 that run nOS for us. The school is responsible for telling parents about the tools it uses and for deciding what its students are asked, and should not ask students for anything beyond what scheduling needs.

Parents who want to see, correct or delete a child's information should ask the child's school, which controls it. If a parent contacts us, we will send them to the school and help the school act on its decision. If you believe a child has given us information outside a school's request, write to us and we will delete it.

9. Security

We protect data with encryption in transit, encryption at rest by our providers, access limited to what a job needs, and logging of staff access. No system is perfectly secure. If student data is affected by an incident, we notify the affected school no later than 72 hours after we confirm it. Details, with their limits, are on our Security page.

10. Your rights and choices

Students, parents and school staff should ask their school first, because the school controls its data. We will help the school respond to a request to see, correct, export or delete personal information.

For information that nOS holds about you directly (your account, a prospect email, or a form you filled in on our website), write to bennettmiller@nosplanner.com and we will tell you what we hold, correct it, or delete it. You can stop our emails at any time. Residents of some states have additional rights over personal information, such as access, correction, deletion and not being sold to; we honor those requests, and because we do not sell personal information, there is nothing to opt out of.

11. Changes

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we tell schools by email at least 30 days before it takes effect, and we change the date at the top.

12. Contact

Privacy questions and requests: bennettmiller@nosplanner.com. Postal address: available on request at that address.