AI and your child’s data: what to ask before signing up
Children using AI tutors type a great deal about themselves: what they struggle with, what they are interested in, sometimes what is happening at home. It is worth knowing where that goes.
The questions to ask any provider
- Is my child’s conversation used to train AI models? This is the most important one, and the answer should be clearly stated rather than buried.
- Where is the data stored and processed, and under which jurisdiction?
- Who can see it? Staff access policies matter as much as external access.
- How long is it kept, and can I delete it?
- Can I export my child’s data if I leave?
- Is it shared with any third party, and for what purpose?
Be particularly careful with free general-purpose chatbots. They are not built for children, their terms often require users to be older than your child, and the data arrangements are usually less favourable than paid products built for education.
What is different about children’s data
Children’s data has additional protection in most jurisdictions, including the UK GDPR and the Children’s Code, and COPPA in the United States. In practice this means parental consent requirements, limits on profiling and advertising, and an expectation that services designed for children default to high privacy.
A provider that cannot tell you which of these applies to them is not one to hand your child’s conversations to.
What Different Drums does
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. The AI providers we use are configured so that conversations are not used to train their models. Parents can view their child’s conversations, export their data, and delete the account and its data.
Every call to an AI provider is logged for audit purposes, which is what makes it possible to say with confidence what was sent and when. Children’s accounts are separate from parent accounts, with parental oversight built into the structure rather than added on.
What we do not claim: we do not field-encrypt every item of child data, and we do not offer two factor authentication. Both are on the list. We would rather tell you what is actually implemented than describe an aspiration.
Common questions
Should my child use their real name?
There is rarely a need. A nickname works for most services, including ours, and reduces what is identifiable if anything ever goes wrong elsewhere.
What if my child tells an AI something worrying?
This is a genuine consideration and an argument for parental visibility of conversations. Different Drums includes content monitoring that can flag concerning material to parents, but no automated system replaces a parent who reads what their child is saying.
Learning that flexes around your child
Different Drums builds curricula, worksheets, tests and learning records around almost any topic, shaped to your child's pace, interests and your family's values. Core practice in maths and science comes from 200,000+ hand-verified questions. Ages 2-16+, used by families worldwide.
No credit card required. There is also a free guest mode with no sign-up.