Our Privacy & Security Promise
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As a national nonprofit, LENA has spent over 20 years ensuring our technology is as safe and secure as it is effective.
Here are a few things you should know about our commitments to privacy and security:
How LENA Grow Technology Works
Your child wears a small, safe device once a week during school hours to capture classroom interactions.
- Automated processing: The processing of audio from the device is fully automated and secure, using specialized software to count words and conversational turns. The device does not "listen" like a human, and no humans are involved in processing the audio into numerical counts.
- No understanding of meaning: The system is designed to identify the frequency of talk, not the meaning. It does not understand specific words or generate transcripts.
- No playback: The technology is physically incapable of playing back recorded audio.
Data Security and Deletion
We treat your child's data with the highest level of care.
- No human ears: Our processing is fully automated and secure. No one can hear what was said or how it was said.
- Automatic deletion: The audio from each device is used only to generate word- and conversation-count metrics. Once processed, the audio files are automatically deleted and are never saved or retained.
- Restricted access: Only the people directly helping your child learn, such as their teachers, coaches, and LENA staff, can see the final count reports. We do not sell data to third parties.
- No voice modeling: LENA technology is incapable of 'learning' or 'imitating' a specific child's voice. It only identifies the frequency of speech, not the child’s identity or meaning. It is never put into AI models.
- Other children: The device is designed to prioritize the 'near-field' speech of the wearer. While other voices may be captured in the background, they are processed only as a general category and never associated with any particular child and are subject to the same immediate deletion protocols. The system cannot distinguish individual children’s voices and does not create voice profiles.
Our Information Security Program
LENA maintains a comprehensive Information Security Program that safeguards our people, processes, and technology.
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All encompassing. This program is embedded in our daily work and is applied consistently at every level of the organization and across all technologies we use.
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Yearly proof. To prove that we are secure, LENA maintains Type II SOC 2 compliance and is audited yearly by an independent third-party firm.
- Learn more: LENA's Information Security Program.
Why We Do It
LENA Grow is a professional development program that helps teachers better support your child's learning and development. There are 200+ published research studies using LENA, and we’ve seen that children in LENA Grow classrooms:
• Learn and use more new words.
• Better understand and manage their feelings.
• Are more ready for kindergarten.
