Frequently Asked Questions

DidactLabs is a transparent learning environment designed for the AI era. Instead of just detecting AI, our platform shows you the entire writing process, helping you understand how students are using AI and allow you to guide them to use it responsibly - both as a productive tool and a learning tool.

Most AI tools either (a) try to detect AI usage, which is unreliable, or (b) help students generate text without any oversight. DidactLabs is unique because it focuses on process visibility. We provide a safe, controlled environment where students can use an AI assistant, and you see exactly how they interact with it—the questions they ask, the suggestions they take, and the work they do themselves.

You create an assignment and share a simple link. Students click the link and can start writing immediately in their browser—no sign-up, no downloads, and no student accounts needed for them to participate. No student personally identifiable information is required to participate.

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content, like text, images, or code. DidactLabs uses Generative AI in two ways: 1) to power the built-in AI assistant that students can consult, and 2) to analyze the student's entire writing process and provide you with insightful summaries and analytics about their effort and methods.

We follow the GDPR principle of data minimization. We only process the data essential for providing our service. Here’s a breakdown:

• Teacher Data: We collect your name and email to create and manage your account, provide support, and communicate service updates. The legal basis is the fulfillment of our service contract with you.

• Assignment & Student Work Data: We process the assignment instructions you create and the content students write, including the text itself, edit history, and AI assistant interactions. This is the core data required to provide our primary feature: process visibility.

• Student Data (Anonymous by Default): For our Free and Teacher plans, no student Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is required. Students access assignments via a link and do not create accounts, ensuring their privacy by default. For School plans with LMS integration, student identifiers may be passed from the LMS to associate work with a student in your gradebook, processed under the school's legal basis as the data controller.

Yes. All core service data for our European customers is stored and processed exclusively within the European Union.

• Primary Infrastructure: Our backend services and databases run on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) in the europe-west1 region (Belgium). All student writing, process data, and educator content are stored here.
• AI Processing: We use Google Vertex AI, and all AI processing for our European customers occurs within the europe-west1 region (Belgium). No data is sent outside the EU for AI analysis.
• Educator Authentication: We use Auth0 as a secure, third-party identity provider. Our Auth0 instance is hosted in their EU tenant (Germany).
• Sub-processors: We maintain a transparent list of our essential sub-processors. All providers handling core service data are located and process data within the EU. The only exception is for our public marketing website (not the app itself), where we use US-based services like HubSpot for contact forms, which are covered by the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.

Absolutely not. This is a core pillar of our commitment to trust and privacy.

We are explicit in our policy: we will never use student work, writing process data, or AI prompts to train or fine-tune any third-party or proprietary AI models.

The AI assistant within DidactLabs uses the data 'in-context' only to provide an immediate response for that specific assignment. Our agreement with our AI provider (Google) contractually ensures that this data is not retained or used for their model training. Your data is your data, period.

We implement multiple layers of enterprise-grade security to protect your data against unauthorized access, alteration, or destruction.

• Encryption: All data is encrypted in transit using TLS 1.2+ and at rest using the AES-256 standard.
• Access Control: Internal access to user data is strictly limited to authorized personnel on a need-to-know basis for support and maintenance. This access is governed by the principle of least privilege, requires multi-factor authentication (MFA), and is logged and audited.
• Secure Infrastructure: We leverage the robust security architecture of Google Cloud Platform, which includes advanced network protection, intrusion detection, and physical security at its data centers.
• Incident Response Plan: We have a dedicated incident response team and a formal plan to swiftly contain any potential breach, mitigate damage, and notify affected users and authorities promptly, in line with GDPR requirements.
• Secure Development: We use separate environments for development, testing, and production to ensure that testing activities never impact live user data.

Access is tightly controlled and based on defined roles.

• Within Your Institution: Educators can only access the writing and analytics data for assignments they have personally created. They cannot see the work submitted to other teachers. On a 'School' plan, designated administrators can view school-wide analytics but not the content of individual student submissions unless granted specific permissions.
• At DidactLabs: Access is restricted to a small number of authorized engineering staff for the sole purposes of system maintenance, troubleshooting, and direct support at an educator's request. This access is temporary, logged, and subject to strict internal confidentiality and security policies.

Our policies are designed to give you control over your data's lifecycle.

• Retention: Data is retained as long as an educator's account is active. If a subscription ends, the data will be retained for a grace period to facilitate re-subscription. After this period, it is permanently deleted.
• Deletion: As the Data Controller, an educator or institutional administrator can request the deletion of their data at any time by contacting our Data Protection Officer at dpo@didactlabs.com. Upon request, the account enters a 60-day grace period for final data export. After this period, data is permanently removed from our production systems and fully erased from backups within an additional 30 days.
• Export: We support the right to data portability. Educators can request an export of their assignment data from the platform itself or by contacting our support team at support@didactlabs.com.

We support modern, secure authentication and integration standards to fit seamlessly into your school's IT ecosystem.

• Authentication & SSO: Educator accounts are managed by Auth0, a leading identity management platform. This allows for secure login via email/password or Single Sign-On (SSO) with existing Google or Microsoft accounts, which most institutions already use and trust.
• LMS Integration: Our School plan is LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) compliant, the industry standard for integration. This allows DidactLabs to connect directly with all major Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Moodle, Google Classroom, Canvas, and Microsoft Teams, enabling a seamless workflow for creating assignments and viewing results.

We are committed to making the approval process as smooth as possible. We have prepared all necessary documentation to support your internal assessment.

Upon request we can provide a 'DPIA & Security Review Pack' which contains:

• A summary of data flows and processing activities.
• The location of all data processing and a list of our sub-processors.
• Details of our security and encryption measures.
• A copy of our Data Processing Agreement (DPA).
• A comprehensive Trust & Security FAQ.

Your IT team can review this pack, and our Data Protection Officer (dpo@didactlabs.com) is available to answer any further questions to help you complete your assessment efficiently.

Our entire platform is built on a 'privacy-by-design' foundation, fully compliant with GDPR. Here's how:

• Our Role: For student data (their writing and process analytics), we act as a Data Processor on behalf of the educator or institution, who is the Data Controller. We act as a Data Controller only for the educator account information (name, email) and the student's self-chosen nickname.
• Data Minimization: We collect the absolute minimum data required. Students do not create accounts or provide Personally Identifiable Information (PII); they only enter a nickname to identify their work for their teacher.
• Lawful Purpose: All data is processed for the sole purpose of providing the DidactLabs service to the educator and their students. We never build profiles, serve ads, or sell data.
• Student IP: The intellectual property of the content created by students remains with the student and/or their institution, as per the institution's policy. We claim no ownership over user-generated content.

For more information visit our Trust Centre.

We understand that AI usage permissions can vary between students. Here's how DidactLabs handles this:

• No AI Interaction = No AI Data: If a student chooses not to use the AI assistant during their assignment, no AI conversation data is collected or processed for that student. They can complete the entire assignment without ever opening the chat panel.

• Teacher Control: You can disable the AI assistant entirely for specific assignments if needed, ensuring no students have access to it for that task.

• School Plan Flexibility: Our School plan includes the ability to disable AI access for specific students while keeping it enabled for others in the same assignment. This allows you to respect individual permissions while maintaining a unified classroom experience.

If you need to manage AI permissions at the individual student level, please contact us about our School plan options.

Absolutely! The Free and Teacher plans are designed for individual educators. You can sign up and start using it today without any school-wide purchase.

Yes. We are committed to having a powerful free plan to bring AI visibility to as many classrooms as possible. The Free plan allows you to run up to 2 assignments per month.

If you reach the limit on the Free plan, you won't be able to create new assignments until the next month. You can upgrade to the Teacher plan at any time for unlimited assignments and additional features.

AI detectors only analyze the final text and give you a probabilistic 'AI score' that is often wrong and creates distrust. DidactLabs is different: we show you the entire writing process. You see undeniable evidence of what was typed, what was AI-generated, and what was pasted, so you can have constructive conversations instead of accusatory ones.

Our system analyzes writing patterns. A student genuinely writing thinks, pauses, edits, and has a natural typing speed. A student transcribing text from another screen will have a very different, more robotic pattern (e.g., unusually high words-per-minute, fewer edits, consistent pacing).

Our goal isn't to create an uncheatable system, but to make cheating more work than actually doing the assignment. If a student is determined to be dishonest (e.g., having a parent write their essay), they might succeed. However, DidactLabs eliminates the easy, five-minute copy-paste methods and gives you clear evidence of the student's actual effort within the platform.

Yes. With our Teacher plan, you have full control. You can adjust the AI's knowledge level, its writing style, and even limit its help on specific topics (like 'textual interpretation' for a literature class) to align perfectly with your learning objectives.

Yes. When you create an assignment, you can choose to disable the AI assistant entirely. This is perfect for assessments where you want to see the student's unassisted work, or for a 'first draft' stage of a project.

Soon! Our collaborative environment will track the contributions of each student in a group project. This will allow you to see who wrote what, who used the AI, and who contributed the most, ending the age-old problem of 'who did the work?'.

The School plan is for departments, schools, or districts looking for a unified solution. It includes everything in the Teacher plan, plus seamless integration with your Learning Management System (LMS), school-wide analytics, and a dedicated account manager for training and support.

Yes. The School plan is built to be LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) compliant, which is the industry standard for integration. This allows DidactLabs to connect directly with all major LMS platforms, enabling single sign-on and a seamless workflow for teachers and students.

The platform is designed to be multi-lingual. The user interface can be quickly translated, and the underlying AI assistant can be prompted to interact in virtually any language. Let us know your specific needs.

By showing you the process, not just the result. You can see if a student started with their own ideas, how they struggled with a concept, and how they used the AI to overcome it. This gives you a true window into their critical thinking and effort, which is a far better measure of learning than a polished final draft.

DidactLabs is ideal for any course at the secondary or higher education level that involves writing assignments. This includes English, History, Social Sciences, Law, Business, and even STEM courses where students write lab reports or research papers. It's particularly powerful for project-based qualifications like the EPQ or IB Extended Essay.

We've designed DidactLabs primarily for secondary education (ages 13-18) and higher education. This is when students are developing critical thinking and essay writing skills, and also when the temptation to misuse AI is highest. We believe younger students should first focus on foundational skills without AI assistance.

We offer tiered support for our users. Our Free plan includes email support. The Teacher plan comes with priority email support. The School plan includes a dedicated account manager to ensure a smooth onboarding process, training, and ongoing success.

We are constantly working to improve DidactLabs based on feedback from educators like you. If there's a feature you'd like to see, please let us know! We prioritize our development based on what teachers need most to be successful in the classroom.

Our platform is model-agnostic, meaning we can integrate with various leading AI models. We currently use models from trusted, GDPR-compliant providers like Google. This flexibility allows us to choose the best-performing and most secure model for the task, and we can adapt to specific institutional requirements if needed.