Privacy Policy: Challenge
Auris Tech Limited
Last updated 2026-09-10
Who this addendum is for
This addendum is for parents and guardians who register a child for the National Read Aloud Challenge.
This addendum builds on the Home Users addendum, because children take part through a parent’s or guardian’s own Fonetti account. That document describes your account, your child’s reader profile, and the reading data the app collects. This one adds only what is specific to the Challenge.
Registering for the Challenge means holding a Fonetti account, and the account does not end when the Challenge does. Your child’s reader profile and their reading history stay on it, on the terms in the Home Users addendum, and you can delete either at any time.
Everything else (who we are, how we secure data, where data is stored, international transfers, your rights, and how to contact us) is in the Privacy Policy. That policy and this addendum together are our privacy notice for you.
1. Our role
Auris Tech is the controller for all the personal data we process in running the Challenge.
2. Personal data we process for the Challenge
Your account, your child’s reader profile and the reading data the app collects are covered in the Home Users addendum. For the Challenge we also process:
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Your child’s Challenge results and position | To work out their progress, place the entry in the right age category, and produce the results |
| How your child appears on the leaderboard | Your choice, made when you register. See section 5 |
| The school your child is linked to, where there is one | Set automatically if you registered through your school’s link or code, and yours to turn off. See section 6 |
| Your name and postal address | Only if your child wins a prize that has to be posted. We ask you for it by email at that point rather than holding it on your account. Sections 7 and 8 cover who it goes to and how long we keep it |
We also use the country, region and postcode already held on your account to produce regional results and regional leaderboards. Leaderboards and published results show the region, never your postcode. Whether your child appears by name is your choice, and section 5 covers it.
3. Speech
This Challenge does not record or store audio. The Challenge uses the same technology as the rest of Fonetti. Speech is analysed live while a child reads, so that reading can be verified and progress measured. Section 5.1 of the Privacy Policy explains this in full.
4. Our lawful basis
Taking part is optional, and the choices are separate: entering the Challenge does not decide how your child appears on a leaderboard, and neither of those opts you into publicity.
We rely on the explicit consent of a parent or guardian for entering your child and processing their results, for showing their name on a leaderboard, and for naming them in publicity.
You can withdraw any of these at any time, and section 5 is where the leaderboard and publicity choices are made and changed. If you withdraw from the Challenge itself we remove the entry, though results already counted into a published total cannot be individually unpicked.
We rely on legitimate interests for three things. The school link, because a school needs to know which of its pupils have joined and that is what its code is for, so removing it is an objection rather than a withdrawal and section 6 explains what a school sees and how to remove it. Preventing cheating and manipulation of results, so that the Challenge is fair to everyone who takes part. And keeping our own record of who won, so that we can show a valid award was made.
5. Leaderboards and publicity
You choose how your child appears on the leaderboard when you register them. There is no default.
- Named: a first name or nickname, an initial, and a broad region, for example “Amelia R. West Midlands”.
- As a guest: the entry keeps your child’s real position and score, with no name attached.
Either way your child competes on equal terms and can win a prize, and you can change your choice at any time on the Challenge website at readaloudchallenge.co.uk, where you registered. A named entry will not identify your child to a stranger, though someone who already knows them may recognise it.
We announce the winners, in the same minimal form, because a competition has to show that a valid award was made. This follows your leaderboard choice, so a child shown as a guest is announced as a guest. You can also ask us to reduce what we publish, or to leave your child out of the announcement, at any point before the results are published. We keep our own record of who won either way, so that we can demonstrate the result if the Advertising Standards Authority asks.
Naming a child in full, quoting them, or using a photograph is a separate opt-in. We will ask for explicit parental consent for that specific use and tell you where it will appear. You can withdraw it later, though we cannot always recall material already printed or shared by others.
Separately from the leaderboards, we may publish figures that identify nobody, such as totals by school and by area.
6. Your child’s school link
Whether your child is linked to a school depends on how you registered. If you used your school’s link, code or QR code, your child is linked to that school from the start, which is what the code is for: it is how a school gathers its own pupils into the Challenge. If you registered directly with us there is no link and nothing is shared with any school, though you can add one later.
Your child can take part fully without a link, and competes on exactly the same terms.
You can turn the link off at any time. Switch it off when you register, or email support@fonetti.com afterwards and we will remove it or point it at a different school.
While a link is on, this is what the school gets:
- As soon as you link, your name and your child’s name, so that it knows which of its pupils have joined and can encourage others to take part.
- After the Challenge closes, a report with your child’s age or year group and their reading results, attributed to your child individually rather than aggregated with other children’s.
- Where the school belongs to a trust or reports to a local authority, that body also receives the school’s results, showing the first names of the school’s highest performing pupils with no surname.
Each of them becomes a controller of what it receives, so their own privacy notices and retention rules apply from that point, and anything they hold is a matter for them rather than us.
Turning the link off later stops the report and removes you from the school’s view, but it cannot undo what has already been seen, so if that matters, turn it off at registration rather than afterwards.
7. Who we share Challenge data with
Beyond the service providers covered by section 8 of the Privacy Policy, we share Challenge data with:
- a school, only where you have linked one, and its trust or local authority (section 6)
- the public, only in the minimal or opt-in forms described in section 5
7.1 Prize delivery
Where a sponsor sends a prize out themselves, we ask you for a delivery address and share it with them for that delivery and nothing else. We tell you which organisation it is when we ask, and if you would rather it was not passed on we will make reasonable efforts to get the prize to you another way, however you may be asked to cover any additional delivery fees as a result. Once your address is with that organisation, it is responsible for what it holds and its own privacy policy applies.
8. How long we keep Challenge data
| Data | Retention period |
|---|---|
| Your child’s Challenge entry and results | Held for as long as your child’s reader profile exists, and deleted with it. The results come from their reading record, which we do not delete when the Challenge closes because your child may carry on reading. Section 7 of the Home Users addendum covers the profile itself |
| Year-on-year Challenge figures | Kept indefinitely, so that we can report on the Challenge from one year to the next. These are totals and averages, not records about individual children |
| Your name and postal address, where a prize was posted | Deleted 90 days after the prize is sent, so that we can still help if it does not arrive |
| Opt-in publicity consents | Kept for 6 years as evidence that consent was given |
| Record of who won, and their winning result | Kept for 6 years, so that we can demonstrate a valid award if challenged. This is kept whether or not your child appears in the published announcement |
| Post-Challenge school reports | Our copy is deleted 3 years after the Challenge closes. The school’s own retention applies to its copy |
9. Your rights
Your rights over Challenge data are the same as over everything else, and section 14 of the Privacy Policy sets them out along with how to use them.