PRIVACY
What Checkmate College collects, why we use it, how we share it, and the choices that may be available to you.
Effective Date: September 23, 2026
Last Updated: September 23, 2026
College Checkmate LLC (“Checkmate College,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) respects the privacy of students, parents, guardians, and other individuals who use our website, services, student Board, communications, and related tools. This Privacy Policy explains the types of information we collect, how we use and disclose that information, how we protect it, how long we may retain it, and the choices that may be available to you.
This Privacy Policy applies to personal information collected through CheckmateCollege.com, Checkmate College student and family accounts, the Checkmate College Board, onboarding and intake forms, checkups and assessments, student and coach messaging, scheduling and meeting tools, college planning, Checkmate College in-college support, and accountability services, payment and subscription processes, email and other communications with Checkmate College, and other Checkmate College services that link to this Privacy Policy. It does not govern third-party websites, applications, or services that maintain their own privacy policies.
Checkmate College seeks to collect only information reasonably necessary to provide, operate, secure, administer, and improve our services. Depending on how you interact with Checkmate College, we may collect names, email addresses, telephone numbers, parent/guardian/student status, Student date of birth, grade level, school information, anticipated graduation year, college interests and preferences, college lists, application plans, deadlines, goals, completed and upcoming responsibilities, admissions and enrollment decisions, financial-aid and scholarship planning information, and, when Checkmate College is used, course schedules, assignment and exam deadlines, academic responsibilities, registration or hold information, academic standing or grades voluntarily shared by the Student, professor/advisor/campus-office information, campus-resource needs, housing or campus logistics, major or career-planning information, appointment information, and information voluntarily provided during meetings or through the service.
We may also collect Board messages and questions, coach responses, Move completion information, progress updates, Parent Hub and Parent Assist activity, uploaded files or documents, proof of completed activities, dates and times of activity, feedback, and other communications submitted through the platform.
When a parent, guardian, family member, or payor purchases, authorizes, manages, or participates in Checkmate College services, we may collect that person’s name, contact information, relationship to the Student, billing-related information, communications with Checkmate College, Parent Hub identity information, and information they provide about the Student. For minor families, Checkmate College may record Parent 2 authority/no-known-restriction attestations.
When you access Checkmate College, we may automatically receive limited technical and security-related information such as IP address, browser type, device information, dates and times of access, session information, authentication information, request and security logs, and information used to detect fraud, abuse, or unauthorized access. When legal acceptance evidence is recorded, Checkmate College may store a cryptographic hash of an IP address rather than the raw IP address.
If a Checkmate College Student voluntarily connects an eligible school email/calendar account, Checkmate College may also process the limited provider data described in Section 5A, including permitted email metadata/basic properties, basic calendar event information, OAuth connection information, generic email-derived alerts, and connection consent/audit records.
Payments may be processed by independent third-party payment processors. When payment information is collected directly by a payment processor, Checkmate College does not need to receive or store your complete payment card number, card security code, or other full payment credentials. Checkmate College may receive limited transaction information such as customer name, amount paid, payment status, service purchased, transaction identifier, payment date, and limited payment-method information made available by the payment processor.
Do not send Checkmate College Social Security numbers, full credit or debit card numbers, card security codes, banking passwords, email passwords, school portal passwords, college application passwords, Common Application passwords, FAFSA or StudentAid.gov passwords, FSA ID credentials, security-question answers, authentication codes, or other private account credentials.
Checkmate College may help students understand, organize, or navigate college applications, financial aid, scholarships, enrollment, and related processes. Students and families remain responsible for maintaining control of their own accounts, credentials, submissions, and legally binding certifications. If sensitive information is provided when it was not requested, we may remove, redact, restrict, or delete it when reasonably practicable.
We may use personal information to provide Checkmate College services; create and maintain accounts and Boards; organize college-planning and in-college student-support activities; identify upcoming responsibilities; track student progress; provide coaching and accountability; communicate with students and families; send reminders and service messages; schedule meetings; respond to questions; administer payments; provide support; maintain records; authenticate users; protect accounts; detect and prevent fraud or abuse; diagnose technical problems; improve Checkmate College; enforce agreements; establish, exercise, or defend legal claims; and comply with applicable law.
Checkmate College may offer an optional connection to an eligible school Google or Microsoft account. In the current privacy-first implementation, this connection is available only to a Student whose Checkmate College age record verifies that the Student is 18 or older. A Student must affirmatively choose to connect the account and complete authorization directly with the applicable provider. Checkmate College does not ask the Student to provide the Student’s school email password to Checkmate College.
The connection is designed to request limited, read-only or basic access appropriate to the feature: email metadata or basic message properties, such as sender, subject, and date, and basic read-only calendar event information. The connection is not designed to request access to email bodies or attachments, send or delete email, modify mailbox content, or write to the Student’s calendar. The exact authorization screen is controlled by the provider, and a school or account administrator may restrict or disable the connection.
Checkmate College may process permitted email metadata to identify categories of messages that may deserve the Student’s attention, such as a possible financial-aid, registration, account, academic, deadline, or appointment message. The email-alert system is designed to store a generic signal rather than the raw email sender, raw subject, email body, or attachment. Basic calendar event titles, times, and provider links may be stored so the Student can see upcoming calendar signals on the Board. Imported information is a signal source; it does not automatically become the Student’s Current Move or override the Board’s priority logic.
The Checkmate College coach is not provided a general inbox or calendar browsing interface through this connection. Email-derived alerts remain private to the Student unless the Student affirmatively chooses to share a generic alert with the coach. Sharing a generic alert does not share the original email body, attachment, sender, or raw subject. If the Student wants the coach to review the actual content of a particular email, the Student must separately and deliberately send, paste, forward, or upload that content. This connection does not give a parent or other family member access to the Student’s connected inbox or calendar through Checkmate College.
OAuth credentials used to maintain the connection are stored separately from ordinary Board data and are designed to be encrypted at rest. When the Student disconnects the school email/calendar connection, Checkmate College is designed to delete the stored connection credential and imported email-alert/calendar data associated with that connection. Checkmate College may retain versioned consent, revocation, security, and audit records that document what was authorized, when it was authorized, and when it was disconnected, as reasonably necessary for security, compliance, dispute resolution, insurance, or legal purposes. A provider may also offer its own controls for reviewing or revoking third-party access.
Checkmate College serves Students age 13–17 only after appropriate parent/legal-guardian authorization. A parent/legal guardian who enrolls a minor represents that they have authority to authorize participation and consents to Checkmate College collecting, using, maintaining, and disclosing the minor Student’s information as described in this Privacy Policy and the Client Services Agreement.
A participating parent/legal guardian may receive information concerning a minor Student’s participation, progress, completed and upcoming responsibilities, scheduling, attendance, Parent Actions, Parent Assist, account administration, billing, and overall Checkmate College progress. Communications between a minor Student and Checkmate College are not guaranteed to be confidential from the Student’s parent/legal guardian.
Parent 1 and Parent 2 use separate authenticated identities. Adding Parent 2 does not give that person billing authority. For a minor Student, Parent 1 must affirm authority to connect Parent 2 and that Parent 1 is not aware of a court order, custody restriction, protective order, or other limitation prohibiting the access. Checkmate College does not adjudicate custody disputes and may temporarily freeze family information access when a credible authority, custody, protective-order, or privacy restriction is reported while appropriate guidance or evidence is obtained.
A Student who is 18 or older controls family sharing of Student information. Checkmate College uses the Student’s recorded date of birth to determine the age-18 transition. When a Student reaches age 18, minor-based family access pauses automatically; it does not silently continue because a parent previously had access or pays for the service.
The adult Student may affirmatively choose, separately for each connected family member, whether that person may receive or use: Progress & Position Updates; ASK PARENT; Parent Actions; Team Huddle and scheduling information; and Family messages. No category is required as a condition of receiving Checkmate College services, and an adult Student may keep family access paused. Sharing choices may be changed or revoked prospectively through the Board.
An adult Student may also approve a specific ASK PARENT thread for a particular question without granting standing access to other Student information. The person responsible for payment may continue receiving billing, receipt, cancellation, or account-administration information needed to manage the payment relationship even when Student-information sharing is paused.
Checkmate College may preserve historical consent, revocation, access, message, and audit records as described in this Policy. A legally required or safety-related disclosure does not create ongoing Parent Hub access or a new family-sharing permission.
Checkmate College is not intended for children under 13 years of age. We do not knowingly permit children under 13 to establish or independently use a Checkmate College student account, and we do not knowingly collect personal information online directly from children under 13 in a manner requiring parental consent under applicable law. Checkmate College may use neutral age information to determine eligibility. If we learn that personal information has been collected directly from a child under 13 in circumstances not permitted by applicable law, we will take reasonable steps to address the situation, which may include deleting the information or terminating the account. A parent or guardian who believes a child under 13 has provided personal information directly to Checkmate College should contact help@checkmatecollege.com.
Checkmate College is an independent college planning, in-college student-support, accountability, and support service. It is not a college, university, school district, admissions office, financial aid office, or governmental educational agency. Information voluntarily provided directly to Checkmate College by a student or family does not automatically become an education record maintained by the student’s school merely because the information relates to education. If Checkmate College enters into an arrangement with an educational institution under which particular information becomes subject to FERPA or another education privacy requirement, Checkmate College will handle that information in accordance with applicable law and the relevant agreement.
Checkmate College does not sell personal information or Student information. Checkmate College does not provide unrelated advertisers with access to individual Student profiles for third-party targeted advertising. We may disclose information to service providers performing services on our behalf; to a parent, guardian, family member, or payor when the Student’s age and current authorization permit the disclosure; at the individual’s direction; or when reasonably necessary for legal, security, safety, fraud-prevention, insurance, dispute, evidence-preservation, or enforcement purposes.
When a family-access freeze is active because of a credible custody, protective-order, authority, or privacy concern, Checkmate College may temporarily block family access while preserving billing administration and internal records. Releasing such a freeze does not itself create adult-Student consent or expand a person’s permissions.
Checkmate College relies on third-party technology providers for functions such as hosting, databases, authentication, email, scheduling, payment processing, communications, security, analytics, and support. Providers may change over time as our technology and business needs evolve. When users interact directly with a third-party service, that service’s own privacy policy, terms, and security practices may also apply.
Checkmate College may use cookies or similar technologies reasonably necessary to authenticate users, maintain secure sessions, operate account functionality, remember appropriate preferences, prevent fraud or misuse, protect accounts, and maintain website and application security. Checkmate College may also use a limited age-screening cookie or similar session mechanism when a visitor identifies a student as under 13, to help prevent immediate circumvention of the age screen. If Checkmate College later uses optional analytics, advertising, or other tracking technologies requiring additional disclosure or consent under applicable law, we may provide appropriate notices or choices.
Checkmate College retains personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for legitimate business, operational, security, accounting, contractual, insurance, dispute-resolution, or legal purposes. Retention periods may vary based on the nature and purpose of the information, account status, payment and tax requirements, fraud prevention, security, limitation periods, legal obligations, and the age of a minor Student.
Versioned agreements, legal-acceptance evidence, date-of-birth and age-transition records, Parent 2 authority attestations, adult family-sharing grants and revocations, incident/safety records, and legal-hold records may be retained to document what authority or permission existed at a particular time. A legal hold, insurer instruction, subpoena, investigation, or reasonably anticipated claim may suspend ordinary deletion. Information may remain temporarily within backups, logs, or disaster-recovery systems after removal from active systems.
Checkmate College may create aggregated or deidentified information that cannot reasonably be used to identify a particular individual. We may use such information to understand how Checkmate College is used, evaluate service performance, improve services, develop features, conduct internal analysis, and operate our business.
Checkmate College uses reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures designed to protect personal information against unauthorized access, acquisition, use, disclosure, alteration, destruction, or loss. Measures may include authentication controls, access restrictions, secure session management, technical security safeguards, monitoring and logging, rate limiting or abuse prevention, security-related configuration controls, and limiting access to persons and providers with a legitimate need for access.
For optional school email/calendar connections, Checkmate College is designed to use provider authorization rather than collecting school account passwords, separate encrypted connection credentials from ordinary Board data, use short-lived authorization state, and maintain connection consent and security audit records.
No website, application, communication method, database, computer system, or method of electronic storage or transmission can be guaranteed to be completely secure. Users are responsible for maintaining the security of their own devices, email accounts, authentication links, passwords, and other methods used to access Checkmate College.
If Checkmate College becomes aware of a security incident affecting personal information, we may investigate the incident, take steps to contain and remediate it, preserve relevant information, work with service providers or security professionals, and notify affected individuals or governmental authorities when and in the manner required by applicable law.
Privacy rights vary depending on applicable law and the individual’s location. Where required by applicable law, an individual may have rights to request confirmation of processing, access, correction, deletion, a copy of certain personal information, or another right established by law. Checkmate College may also choose to honor reasonable privacy requests even where a particular request is not legally required. Requests may be limited or declined where permitted by law, including when information should be retained for legal compliance, tax or accounting, payments, fraud prevention, security, dispute resolution, contract administration, legal claims, or protection of Checkmate College or another person.
Checkmate College may require reasonable information to verify the identity and authority of a person submitting a request. Privacy requests may be sent to help@checkmatecollege.com with Privacy Request in the subject line. Where applicable law provides a right to appeal, an appeal may be sent to the same address with Privacy Appeal in the subject line.
Checkmate College may link to colleges and universities, scholarship providers, government agencies, financial-aid resources, application platforms, scheduling services, testing organizations, payment providers, and other education-related services. Checkmate College does not control their privacy, security, availability, content, or practices. Users should review third-party policies before providing sensitive information.
Checkmate College may help students organize or understand activities involving college applications, admissions, financial aid, scholarships, testing, enrollment, course registration, student portals, academic support resources, student accounts, and related services. Unless expressly stated otherwise, Checkmate College is not affiliated with, endorsed by, controlled by, or acting as the official representative of any college, university, admissions office, scholarship provider, testing organization, financial-aid program, or governmental agency. Students and families should enter sensitive credentials directly into the appropriate official service.
Email, text messaging, online chat, and other electronic communications may not always be completely secure. Users should not transmit passwords, Social Security numbers, authentication codes, financial-account credentials, FSA ID credentials, or other unnecessary highly sensitive information through ordinary communications with Checkmate College. Checkmate College may retain communications when reasonably necessary to provide services, maintain business records, document instructions, provide support, resolve disputes, protect users, investigate misuse, enforce agreements, or comply with law.
If Checkmate College is involved in a merger, acquisition, investment, financing, restructuring, reorganization, sale of assets, change of control, bankruptcy, or similar business transaction, personal information may be reviewed, transferred, or acquired as part of the transaction, subject to applicable law and continuing privacy obligations.
Checkmate College may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in services, technology, security practices, service providers, business operations, or legal requirements. When updated, we will revise the Last Updated date. Where required by law, or otherwise appropriate based on the nature of a change, Checkmate College may provide additional notice before a material change becomes effective. Changes do not eliminate privacy rights that cannot legally be waived or retroactively authorize uses of information that require additional consent under applicable law.
College Checkmate LLC
Privacy Contact: help@checkmatecollege.com
Website: CheckmateCollege.com
For privacy-related requests, include Privacy Request in the subject line. For privacy appeals available under applicable law, include Privacy Appeal in the subject line.
© 2026 College Checkmate LLC. All rights reserved.
Version: 2026-09-23-v8