Privacy

Families can read a published issue without an account or tracking cookies. Red Robot Studios does not sell personal data, use it for advertising, or build profiles of the people who use Ocarino. Smart Assist is the only feature of the service that sends newsletter text to another service for processing.

Red Robot Studios stores three kinds of data through Ocarino:

• Staff sign-in email addresses.
• The newsletter name, logo, colours, and settings.
• The content, images, and reviewed dates in each issue.

Families do not need to sign in or provide personal details to read a newsletter. If a reader turns on notifications, Ocarino stores a browser subscription so it can send a notification when a new issue is published. The subscription does not include a name or email address, and turning notifications off deletes it.

Supabase hosts Ocarino’s database and uploaded images in Ireland, and Google Cloud hosts the application in Belgium. Data is encrypted while it is sent and while it is stored. When Smart Assist is on, some newsletter text may be processed outside the UK and EU as described below.

When Smart Assist is on, Ocarino sends the newsletter name and short excerpts surrounding the dates being reviewed to Google’s Gemini service, which suggests details such as an activity name, time, and location for school staff to check. Images and the rest of the newsletter are not sent.

Google handles this content under its Gemini API terms. Because Red Robot Studios uses the paid Gemini service, Google does not use these prompts or responses to improve its products, although it may keep them for up to 55 days to detect abuse and keep the service secure. Ocarino uses each response only to suggest date details.

Smart Assist is off by default, and a school can turn it off again at any time. While it is off, Ocarino sends no newsletter content to Gemini.

Anyone with the link can read a published issue without signing in. Ocarino asks search engines not to list these pages, asks the services that collect pages to train AI models not to collect them, and does not publish a directory of schools or newsletters. This makes issues harder to find but does not make a link private. A link can be forwarded, just like the newsletter email or PDF a school already sends, and a school can unpublish an issue at any time to remove public access.

A reader can open a link with tools of their own choosing — a browser, a calendar app subscribed to the newsletter’s dates, or an assistant that reads the page for them. These tools work for the reader, see only what the reader could already open, and each published issue includes its reviewed dates in a form they can read accurately.

Guidance about photographs, consent, and public links is available on the Safeguarding page.

Public pages do not set cookies, and signed-in pages use only the essential cookies that keep staff signed in. Ocarino does not use advertising or analytics cookies.

Unpublishing an issue removes public access immediately. Deleting an issue moves it to the Deleted tab, where the school can restore it or delete it permanently, which also removes its images.

To close an account and delete its newsletter, issues, and staff sign-in addresses, email the address at the bottom of this page. Red Robot Studios will complete the request within 30 days, except where the law requires data to be kept longer.

Schools can review and print the Data Processing Agreement for Ocarino. It includes the current list of sub-processors.

The school controls the personal data it publishes, so to correct or remove something in an issue, contact the school that published it. You can also complain to your data protection regulator — in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office.

For questions or requests about data handled through Ocarino, email andrew@redrobotstudios.com.