Practice Partner: privacy and safety

This is an AI tutor, not a person. It is a computer program that writes replies using Claude, an AI model made by the company Anthropic. Mr. Alexander, the students' English teacher, set it up and can read every chat.

Who runs it

Mr. David Alexander, English teacher at Him Lam International School, runs Practice Partner for his own classes as a small trial. Students use it in class with him, and later at home for practice.

What it keeps

• A class code for each student, such as 93-ABCD. The system does not know students' names. Only Mr. Alexander can match a code to a student.
• The messages the student and the tutor write, with the time.
• The student's answers to a few first-visit questions about learning English.

It does not ask for names, email addresses, phone numbers, photos or voice recordings. Students are told not to share personal information, and the tutor reminds them if they do.

How messages are used

• To write the tutor's replies. Each message is sent to Anthropic's service to produce a reply. Anthropic's commercial terms say it does not use this data to train its models.
• To keep students safe. Every message is checked for unsafe content. Worrying messages are flagged to Mr. Alexander so he can help the student.
• To help Mr. Alexander see how each student is practising.

Where it is stored, and for how long

Chats are stored on Mr. Alexander's own computer in Vietnam. They are not shared with anyone else, and they are deleted automatically after 120 days.

Safety

• The tutor tells students it is an AI. It only talks about English practice and school-friendly topics.
• It will not write homework or give test answers. It gives hints, so students do the thinking.
• If a student says they are unsafe or might hurt themselves, the tutor tells them to talk to Mr. Alexander, the school counsellor or a trusted adult, and gives the free child helpline 111. Mr. Alexander is alerted straight away.
• There are daily time and message limits.

The law

Practice Partner is designed to follow Vietnam's rules on personal data protection and international good practice for children's privacy (such as the United States' COPPA principles): it collects as little as possible, uses codes in place of names, explains clearly what happens to the data, and deletes it on a schedule.

Parents and students

A parent or student can ask Mr. Alexander at any time to see their chats, or to have them deleted.

Last updated 22 October 2026.