Privacy Policy

1. Who this policy covers

This policy covers the Slingshot web application at app.slingshotiep.com and the Slingshot iOS app, and three groups of people:

• Parents and guardians with their own Slingshot account, whether they use it on their own or with an advocate or firm. For your account, Slingshot decides how information is used, as described here.
• Families whose advocate or firm uses Slingshot for their case without the family having an account. For those records, the firm decides how they are used, and Slingshot uses them only to provide the service to the firm, on its instructions. Ask the firm about those records; we will help it answer you.
• Advocates and firm staff who use Slingshot for their clients (professional users).

Slingshot is for adults. Parents add information about their children; we do not knowingly collect information directly from children.

2. What we collect

3. How we use it

• To provide the service you, or your firm, asked for: reading documents, organizing your child’s record, and preparing for meetings
• To sign you in, send reminders you opted into, and tell you about activity on your account
• To run Slingshot Plus subscriptions
• To keep the service secure, including the record of who opened your child’s records
• To get better at reading school forms, as described in section 4
• To contact you about the product or ask for feedback, always with a way to opt out

We collect and use health and disability information only as needed to provide the service you asked for, and only after you agree to it. We never sell your information or your child's, never use it for advertising or marketing profiles, and never share it with advertisers.

4. How Slingshot gets better at reading documents

We never train AI models, ours or anyone else's, on your child's information, and we do not copy the text of your documents out of your account to build or test the product.

What we learn from is how a school form is laid out: its section headings, where things sit on the page, and counts, such as how many goals a form lists. When you or your advocate tell us we misread something, we keep a record of the kind of mistake and where on the form it happened, without your child's information, and use it to read that kind of form better for every family. We may also run an improved version of our reader on your documents, without showing you its results, to check that it does better before anyone relies on it.

We may report how well Slingshot reads documents to partners and funders, using counts and rates only, such as accuracy per section.

5. Advocates and firms

Slingshot shares your child's records with an advocate or firm only if you accept its invitation. You can see which firms have access, and end a firm's access at any time in Settings. We record each time someone at a firm opens your child's records, and each document a firm shares with you.

If you have an account, you see Slingshot Plus whether or not you work with a firm. Optional advocacy sessions with Slingshot (section 7) are not offered to families who come to Slingshot through a firm.

When a firm uses Slingshot for a family without an account, the firm controls those records (section 1). If that family later creates an account and accepts the firm's invitation, the records become the family's, and the firm keeps access only as long as the family allows. If a firm's access ends, the family's own copy stays theirs until they delete it.

6. Text messages

If you give your phone number and opt in, Slingshot may text you about upcoming IEP or IFSP meetings, deadlines, and related account notifications. Message frequency varies with your child's meetings and deadlines. Consent to texts is not required to use Slingshot.

Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out at any time, or HELP for help, or contact us at hello@slingshotiep.com.

Your mobile information, including your phone number, will not be shared with third parties or affiliates for their marketing or promotional purposes. We use Twilio, a third party messaging provider, solely to deliver these text messages on our behalf.

7. Optional advocacy sessions

Some accounts include an optional advocacy session. If you book one, Rob Martin, Slingshot's co-founder and a Board Certified Advocate in Special Education (BCASE), will personally review the documents you have added, to prepare for and hold that session. This happens only if you book a session. What he reviews is used only to help you prepare, and is never shared, sold, or used for analytics or marketing. Sessions are not offered to families who come to Slingshot through a firm. See our Terms of Use for what a session includes.

8. AI processing

Slingshot uses Google's Vertex AI, which runs the Gemini models, to analyze documents and help you prepare. If Google's service is unavailable, the same analysis may run on Amazon Bedrock, with Amazon Textract to read photographed pages and Amazon Transcribe for meeting recordings. Our agreements with Google and Amazon bar them from using your information for anything except providing the service to us, including training their models. The companies whose models run on Amazon Bedrock never see your documents or the results.

Where Slingshot shows what a document says, it quotes the document and the page. AI-generated content is there to help you prepare questions and talking points. It is not legal advice, an educational assessment, or a substitute for professional judgment.

9. Who we share it with

We share information only with the firms you approve (section 5), when the law requires it (see the subpoenas section of our Terms of Use), and with these service providers, who process it only on our instructions:

If Slingshot is ever merged or acquired, your information would move only under the commitments in this policy, and we would tell you before it did.

10. How long we keep it

We keep your information while your account is open. You can delete a child's profile, which removes its documents, notes, recordings and everything else about that child, or delete your whole account, at any time in Settings on the web or in the iOS app. You can also email hello@slingshotiep.com.

After you delete something, it can remain in our encrypted backups for up to 35 days before it is overwritten. We keep two things after deletion: a record of who opened which records and when, with no document content, for security; and the record of what you agreed to and when, as proof of consent.

Meeting audio is deleted once its transcript is approved. Records a firm holds for a family without an account are kept and deleted on the firm's schedule.

11. Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to confirm what we hold about you and your child, give you a copy, correct it, delete it, or tell you which third parties have received it. You can also withdraw consent, which means deleting the information, since we cannot provide the service without it. Email hello@slingshotiep.com. We respond within 45 days of a request we can verify.

If we decline a request, you can ask us to reconsider by replying to our answer. If we still decline, you can contact your state Attorney General. For records a firm holds for a family without an account, ask the firm; we will help it answer.

12. FERPA and education records

FERPA gives parents rights over their child's education records. Slingshot does not receive records from schools; you or your firm add records you have the right to access and share. Slingshot is not an educational agency or institution and has no independent obligations under FERPA, but we treat these records with the care FERPA is designed to require.

13. Maryland residents

We follow the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act (MODPA) for every family, whether or not it applies to us by its size thresholds. Information about a child's disability, health, evaluations and services is sensitive data under MODPA. We collect and use it only as strictly necessary to provide the service you asked for, never sell it, and never use it for targeted advertising. You have the rights in section 11. If we deny a request and you disagree, you can contact the Maryland Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division at marylandattorneygeneral.gov.

14. Security

All data is sent over HTTPS and stored encrypted. Sign-in uses signed tokens. Access to production data is limited to authorized people, and every access to a child's records by anyone other than the family is logged. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your information, we will tell you as the law requires, and tell any firm with access to it. If you believe your account has been compromised, contact us immediately.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the product evolves. We will email you before a material change takes effect. If you signed this policy in Slingshot, we will ask you to sign the new version before it applies to you. Otherwise, continuing to use the service after the change takes effect means you accept it.