1. About this policy

This Acceptable Use Policy (Policy) sets out how the Mark My Words platform (Platform) may and may not be used. It applies to everyone who accesses the Platform, including:

schools and other subscribing organisations (the account holder);
staff users — teachers, school leaders, administrators and support staff;
student users — students given access to the Platform by their school; and
any other person who accesses the Platform under a school’s account.

This Policy is freely available at markmywords.au/legal/acceptable-use-policy and does not require an account or login to read. Schools are encouraged to share it with staff, students and families.

This Policy sits alongside, and should be read with, our:

Where this Policy and those documents overlap, the more specific requirement applies. Nothing in this Policy limits our rights under the Terms and Conditions or the End User Licence Agreement.

2. What the Platform is for

The Platform is an educational tool that helps teachers assess student writing and generate feedback, with the assistance of artificial intelligence. It is intended to be used:

for teaching, learning and assessment purposes;
within a school or education setting;
under the supervision of a teacher or other responsible adult; and
in accordance with the school’s own ICT, child safety and student wellbeing policies.

The Platform is not a counselling, crisis, safeguarding or reporting service, and must not be relied on as one. It is not intended for personal, commercial or recreational use outside an education setting.

3. Accounts and access

3.1 Student accounts are provisioned by the subscribing school. Students must only access the Platform through an account issued to them by their school.

3.2 Users must keep their login credentials secure and must not share them with, or use the credentials of, any other person.

3.3 Schools are responsible for:

deciding which staff and students are given access;
ensuring any consents or notifications required under their own policies and applicable privacy law are in place before students use the Platform;
informing staff and students of this Policy; and
promptly removing access for users who leave the school or no longer require it.

3.4 Users must not attempt to access any account, data, class, cohort or school other than the one they are authorised to access.

4. Acceptable use

You may use the Platform to:

submit, transcribe and store student writing produced for educational purposes;
generate, review, edit and share feedback and assessment information with the student, their teachers and, where the school permits, their parents or carers;
create and manage classes, tasks and assessment activities; and
view reporting and analytics about student writing progress for teaching purposes.

5. Prohibited use

You must not use the Platform to do, or attempt to do, any of the following.

5.1 Unlawful or harmful conduct

Break any law, or encourage or help anyone else to do so.
Bully, harass, threaten, menace, intimidate, stalk, defame or discriminate against any person.
Upload, generate or share material that is unlawful, abusive, hateful, obscene, sexually explicit, violent, or that promotes self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, terrorism or extremism.
Upload, generate or share child sexual abuse material, or any sexualised depiction of a child. We report such material to the relevant authorities.
Impersonate another person or misrepresent your affiliation with any person or organisation.

5.2 Misuse of other people’s information

Upload personal information about any person without the authority to do so.
Upload sensitive information — including health, medical, disability, biometric, criminal record, religious, racial or sexual orientation information — unless it is genuinely necessary for the educational purpose and permitted by the school’s privacy obligations.
Upload identity documents, financial details, government identifiers (such as tax file numbers or Medicare numbers), or images or recordings of any person who has not consented.
Extract, download, publish or share another student’s work, feedback or assessment data outside the school’s legitimate educational and reporting processes.

5.3 Misuse of the Platform or its AI features

Deliberately attempt to make the AI produce material that is inaccurate, offensive, harmful or outside its intended educational purpose, including through prompt injection or similar techniques.
Attempt to circumvent, disable or interfere with any safety, moderation, privacy or access control feature.
Use the Platform to produce work that is then presented as a student’s own unaided writing, or in any other way that breaches the school’s academic integrity policy.
Use the Platform, or its outputs, to make a decision that significantly affects a student — such as a final grade, placement, disciplinary outcome or referral — without meaningful review by a qualified educator.
Use the Platform to build, train, benchmark or evaluate a competing product or model.

5.4 Technical misuse

Introduce viruses, malware or any other malicious code.
Interfere with, disrupt, overload or degrade the Platform or the infrastructure it runs on.
Attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Platform, any account, or any related system or network.
Probe, scan or test the vulnerability of the Platform without our prior written permission. Security researchers should contact us at hello@markmywords.au before conducting any testing.
Use data mining, scraping, robots, screen scraping or similar automated means to extract data from the Platform.
Reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to derive the source code or underlying models of the Platform, except to the extent this cannot lawfully be excluded.
Resell, sublicense, rent or otherwise make the Platform available to any third party without our written consent.

6. Using AI feedback responsibly

6.1 The Platform uses artificial intelligence to help assess writing and draft feedback. AI-generated output is advisory only. It can be incomplete or incorrect.

6.2 A teacher or other suitably qualified staff member must review AI-generated assessments and feedback before they are relied on or shared with a student, parent or carer.

6.3 Staff should exercise professional judgement about what is appropriate to share with a particular student, and edit AI-generated feedback accordingly.

6.4 Users should avoid entering unnecessary identifying information about students or third parties into free-text fields, comments or prompts.

7. Student safety and wellbeing

7.1 Student writing sometimes discloses distress, harm or risk. The Platform is not monitored in real time for disclosures of this kind, and no alert generated by the Platform should be treated as a substitute for a school’s own child safety and wellbeing processes.

7.2 Staff who become aware, through the Platform or otherwise, that a student may be at risk of harm must follow their school’s child safety and mandatory reporting procedures immediately. Responsibility for child protection reporting rests with the school and its staff.

7.3 Where we become aware of content on the Platform that suggests a serious and imminent risk to the safety of a child or any other person, we will notify the relevant school contact and, where required or appropriate, the relevant authorities.

7.4 Students should tell a teacher straight away if they see anything on the Platform that worries, upsets or frightens them.

8. Reporting misuse or a safety concern

If you believe this Policy has been breached, or you have a safety, privacy or security concern about the Platform, please contact us:

Email: hello@markmywords.au
Phone: (+61) 403 651 221
Post: Mark My Words Australia Pty Ltd, 700 Connect, University of Melbourne, Victoria

Please include what happened, when, and which school or account is involved. Do not include screenshots of harmful material unless we ask for them.

We aim to acknowledge reports within 1–2 business days and to respond substantively within 5 business days. Reports indicating a risk to a child’s safety are prioritised and actioned immediately.

Students and families should also raise concerns with their school, which holds the account and controls the data on the Platform.

9. Monitoring and enforcement

9.1 We do not routinely monitor the content of student writing submitted to the Platform. We may access content where necessary to investigate a suspected breach of this Policy, to respond to a report, to comply with the law, or to maintain the security and integrity of the Platform.

9.2 If we suspect a breach of this Policy, we may suspend access to the Platform while we investigate, consistent with clause 8.2 of the End User Licence Agreement.

9.3 Where a breach is established, we may take any of the following steps, proportionate to the seriousness of the breach:

issue a warning to the user and notify the school;
remove or restrict access to the offending content;
suspend or terminate the individual user’s access;
suspend or terminate the school’s account in accordance with the Terms and Conditions; and
report the matter to law enforcement or another regulator where required or appropriate.

9.4 In the first instance, breaches by a staff or student user will normally be referred to the school to manage under its own policies. We reserve the right to act directly where the breach is serious, ongoing, or involves a risk to another person.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. The current version is always published at markmywords.au/legal/acceptable-use-policy with its version number and effective date. Where a change materially affects how schools or users may use the Platform, we will notify the account holder before the change takes effect.

11. Contact

Mark My Words Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 93 662 681 450)
700 Connect, University of Melbourne, Victoria
hello@markmywords.au | (+61) 403 651 221