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CIPA Compliance Statement

CodeHS puts student safety first with CIPA compliance tools, strict privacy policies, activity monitoring, and customizable whitelist enforcement tools.

Written by Eli Hernandez

CodeHS is dedicated to the security of the students, teachers, and schools we serve, and we understand district and school requirements to comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). CodeHS has implemented tools to help our users with compliance.

These tools work alongside your district’s existing network filtering, giving you an added layer of control over the content and external websites students can access inside CodeHS programs.

Data Privacy

CodeHS does not sell or rent personal information to third parties. Data generated through student use of our platform — including code, responses, or activity — is not sold or shared for external AI model training. CodeHS does not currently use data from the platform to train internal models. Any such use in the future would be with de-identified or aggregated data.

For more information on our data privacy protections, please review our CodeHS AI Statement and our Privacy Policy at codehs.com/privacy.

Program Privacy

CodeHS HTML programs, including student websites created in CodeHS assignments or the CodeHS Sandbox, are private by default and only viewable by:

  • The student who created the program

  • Their teacher(s)

  • Collaborators on Sandbox programs (if collaboration is enabled)

  • CodeHS team members (for support and debugging)

Student websites stay private unless sharing is permitted by the student’s school and district and enabled by the verified teacher of the student’s Section.

District and School Privacy Controls

Administrators have two additional ways to restrict access to student programs:

  • Disable public sharing. Schools and districts can request that public HTML program sharing be disabled for all their students, or that sharing be disabled for all program types.

  • Use the codehs.io domain for HTML programs. Programs hosted on codehs.io require a login to view and can’t be shared publicly. Switching to codehs.io lets your network block public websites hosted on the codehs.me domain without affecting students’ ability to complete assignments, submit work, or use the Sandbox. Learn more about codehs.io in Using the CodeHS.io Domain for HTML Assignments & Sandbox Programs.

For more information about CodeHS program privacy, see Managing Student Access to Public Programs on CodeHS.

Content Moderation

CodeHS combines automated protections with human review to enforce our Terms of Use. These protections run in the background for all users:

  1. CodeHS Blocklist: CodeHS maintains a blocklist of restricted domains, including known proxy and game sites. If a student runs or saves a program containing a blocked domain, the program becomes inaccessible immediately and is sent to CodeHS moderators for review.

  2. Proxy Domain Detection: CodeHS automatically detects programs that try to act as web proxies or reroute content to bypass school network restrictions and flags them for review.

  3. Teacher reports: Teachers can report programs for review or email the program URL to support@codehs.com.

  4. Human review: CodeHS moderators review every reported or flagged program and take action to enforce our Terms of Use.

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AI Tool Controls

All CodeHS AI tools included with Pro plans are optional. Schools and districts decide which ones are available for teachers to turn on for students:

  • District approval comes first. Administrators can turn any CodeHS AI tool on or off, or disable all AI tools.

  • Teachers decide what students use. Student-facing AI tools stay off until a teacher enables them for a Section or an individual student.

  • Student-facing tools are scoped to coding. Smart Hints uses fixed prompts with no open chat, and Vibe Coding declines topics unrelated to coding.

  • Teachers can review all activity. Teachers can see every hint a student received and every student’s Vibe Coding conversation.

Learn more in Managing AI Settings for School and District Administrators.

Teacher Moderation Tools

CodeHS gives Pro plan teachers tools to monitor and manage student-created websites. Teachers can view the websites their students have published publicly, look up the author and source code of any CodeHS-hosted program, and block their own students’ programs immediately. Programs created by other CodeHS users can be reported for review, and teachers can track the status of every program they’ve reported.

Learn more in Using the Moderation App to Manage Student Website Content.

Whitelist Enforcement

For districts with Pro or District licenses, CodeHS can, upon request from district administrators, enforce whitelists across all teacher accounts in the district. When Whitelist Enforcement is enabled, all external requests made from CodeHS student programs are blocked by default. Teachers cannot turn off district-level Whitelist Enforcement, ensuring your whitelist controls stay consistent regardless of individual teacher settings.

If Whitelist Enforcement is not enabled at the district level, teachers with Pro accounts have the option to turn on Whitelist Enforcement for their Courses and Sections.

Student Website Allowlists

When Whitelist Enforcement is enabled by a district or teacher, teachers can then add approved domains to a Student Website Allowlist at the Course or Section level. This allowlist lets students access legitimate coursework resources without opening up access to the broader web. Any student in the teacher’s Sections is blocked from loading or linking to external content in their programs unless the domain appears on the allowlist.

Learn more about CodeHS whitelist tools in Using Whitelist and Allowlist Tools to Manage Student Access to External Websites.

Still have questions? Contact our team at privacy@codehs.com to learn more!

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