Privacy Policy

Updated November 6, 2026

At a glance: SoundPlay's current instructional activities do not require student accounts, names, email addresses, or school sign-ins. Student projects are created in the browser and are not uploaded to or saved on SoundPlay's servers. Downloaded work stays on the student's device unless they choose to submit it through their school's systems.

Former Film Festival feature

A previously available Film Festival feature received seven student video submissions. The student names and grade levels associated with those submissions were held in a password-protected administrative area on Railway, accessible only to the site owner. This information was not publicly displayed or accessible to other students.

The Film Festival, including submissions, gallery, and voting, has been discontinued. The seven submitted videos and associated student information were deleted with the Railway storage volume used for that feature. The current SoundPlay website does not accept or store student submissions.

Who operates SoundPlay

SoundPlay (soundplay.org) is an independently developed educational website owned, operated, and maintained by Erin Thomas, a music educator. No school district or outside educational company operates the site.

Information requested from students

The current instructional activities do not ask for student names, email addresses, school or district credentials, grades, ages, home addresses, or contact information. Students do not need to register or log in. SoundPlay does not run advertising, analytics, or tracking services.

Student activities and saved work

Students manipulate prerecorded sound effects and musical elements in their browsers. In The Last Bell, students create soundtracks for an original film supplied by the teacher; they do not need to record themselves, classmates, or other people.

Projects and exports are generated in the browser and downloaded directly to the student's device (for example, a project JSON file or completed video). SoundPlay's current server does not receive or retain copies of those student-created projects. A student may choose to submit downloaded work through a school-managed platform such as Google Classroom, which is governed by that platform's privacy practices.

Browser storage and cookies

Some activities may use local browser storage to remember settings, progress, or locally saved work on the device being used. That browser storage is not a SoundPlay server-side student account or submission database. SoundPlay does not set login, session, advertising, or tracking cookies. Browser local storage is separate from cookies, and settings or progress saved there remain on the device.

Hosting, technical logs, and third parties

SoundPlay is hosted by Railway, a US-based cloud hosting provider, using a US West deployment region. GitHub is used to store and manage the website's source code. Neither is used as a repository for SoundPlay student assignment submissions.

Like other website hosts, Railway processes technical request and service logs that may contain IP addresses, request paths, timestamps, and related diagnostic details. Such logs are used for hosting, reliability, security, and troubleshooting, and are not student-created projects. On Railway's Hobby plan, the dashboard displays the most recent seven days of logs, while Railway retains logs for up to 90 days. When students visit from a school network, requests may appear under the network's shared public IP address. These logs do not include student-created assignments. Hosting infrastructure necessarily processes technical connection information to deliver the website.

SoundPlay does not send student projects to AI analysis services or third-party assessment services. The Last Bell uses downloaded recordings, including sounds sourced from Freesound and Mixkit, and edited variations hosted with the SoundPlay project. Those sounds are not streamed from the original source websites. The live site does not use an AI service.

Search engine indexing

SoundPlay sends site-wide instructions asking search engines not to index, follow, archive, or show snippets from its pages. These instructions do not prevent access by someone who knows the direct URL.

Children's privacy and education records

SoundPlay is intended for educational use, including by children under age 13. The site does not ask children to disclose personal information or create profiles. Routine technical identifiers may be processed by the hosting provider for internal website operations.

SoundPlay does not maintain student education records or receive student records from school or district information systems. Teachers collect and assess assignments using their schools' established procedures.

Security

SoundPlay is delivered over HTTPS. Hosting and deployment administration are restricted to authorized access. The site owner maintains application content, software updates, and configuration. No website can guarantee absolute security.

Updates to this policy

This policy will be updated if the site's student information practices or relevant third-party services materially change. The date above identifies the current version.

Contact

Privacy questions may be directed to Erin Thomas, SoundPlay's owner, through the school's established communication channels.