Terms of Service

Agreement and contracting party

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a contract between 株式会社ＣＳ＆Ｅ (“CS&E,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) and the person or entity that accesses or uses IVY TEST, IVY Academy OS, our student testing and study services, websites, applications, APIs, and related services (collectively, the “Services”).

By creating an account, accepting an order, assigning an account, or using the Services, you agree to these Terms and the Privacy Policy. If you act for a school, academy, company, or other organization (“Institution”), you represent that you have authority to bind it.

An order form, enterprise agreement, data processing addendum, or feature-specific notice may add terms. If they conflict, the signed order or agreement controls for that subject, followed by these Terms.

The Services

The Services support class and roster management, content, assignments, TOEFL®-style and Digital SAT®-style practice assessments, live exam operations, answer collection, audio recording, grading, analytics, reports, communications, interventions, and administrative workflows.

Features vary by plan, role, country, Institution configuration, content license, and technical readiness. Practice scores, predictions, feedback, and reports are educational tools and are not official scores, admissions decisions, professional advice, or guarantees of future performance.

Eligibility, minors, and guardian authority

You must be legally able to enter this agreement or use the Services under a valid Institution or guardian authorization. A learner below the applicable age of digital consent may not create an independent consumer account.

• A parent or guardian accepting for a minor consents to the minor’s use and is responsible for lawful account creation and payment.
• An Institution assigning a minor account represents that it has authority to do so, has delivered required notices, and has obtained guardian consent where required.
• In the United States, direct accounts for children under 13 require a verified COPPA-compliant route. In Korea, processing personal data of a child under 14 requires legal guardian consent unless another lawful basis applies.
• We may pause onboarding until age, identity, guardian authority, or Institution authority is verified.

Accounts, roles, and security

You must provide accurate information, keep credentials confidential, use the assigned role, and promptly report suspected unauthorized access. You may not share a student account, impersonate another person, or use a teacher or administrator account without authorization.

Institutions control their rosters and role assignments. Administrators are responsible for promptly removing access when a teacher, staff member, or student no longer requires it. We may require multi-factor authentication, password reset, device verification, or other security measures.

Managed exams, monitoring, and Speaking audio

A managed exam may use timers, server synchronization, submission receipts, answer-change history, browser visibility or focus events, full-screen state where used, device and network status, recording health, and authorized teacher controls such as pause, resume, time adjustment, reset, retake, end, review, and publication.

IVY TEST does not activate the webcam and does not record a continuous video of the student’s screen. During the Speaking section, the microphone may be recorded continuously from entry through completion or exit, in addition to task-level recordings. This protects against clipping, silence, upload loss, and grading failure and permits authorized review and recovery.

Before beginning a monitored exam, the learner and, where required, the guardian must receive the applicable notice and provide required consent. If consent is not available, the Institution must provide a lawful alternative or not assign that exam.

AI-assisted features and score review

The Services may use Google Gemini and other Google Cloud tools for transcription, preliminary grading, feedback, content checks, analytics, and recommendations. IVY TEST may also use Google Gemini, OpenAI services, and Anthropic Claude services for content development and quality review, including candidate question work. The provider used depends on the task and configuration; we do not send every record to every provider. AI output can be inaccurate, delayed, unavailable, or unsuitable for a particular learner.

Objective answers may be scored automatically. Speaking and writing results may include an AI-generated preliminary score and then an educator’s review, override, or confirmation. Institutions remain responsible for educational decisions and final publication. Users may request human review of a materially consequential automated result.

AI does not determine the final expression of IVY TEST questions. Every published question must be creatively edited and revised by human staff before final approval, and we retain records of that creative contribution. Unreviewed AI output is not published as a finished question.

You must not treat a practice estimate as an official SAT®, TOEFL®, school, university, scholarship, or immigration result. CS&E does not guarantee score improvement, admission, certification, or a particular educational outcome.

Additional Institution terms

An Institution must:

• use the Services only for authorized educational and administrative purposes;
• maintain lawful authority for roster, guardian, educational, accommodation, and communication data;
• assign least-privilege roles and review staff access;
• provide legally required notices and consent flows, including exam monitoring, Speaking audio, children’s data, and international transfers;
• verify scores and reports before high-stakes use or publication;
• respond to learner and guardian requests concerning the Institution’s educational decisions; and
• not upload data or content that it lacks permission to process.

The Institution owns its educational records and user content, subject to our limited processing license. A signed enterprise agreement may define support, availability, security, retention, data export, and fees.

Individual purchases, subscriptions, and refunds

For individual purchases, the checkout page states the seller, product, price, currency, taxes, billing interval, renewal terms, minimum duration, cancellation method, and any trial. Stripe or another disclosed provider may process payment. Payment-card details are entered with the disclosed payment provider; CS&E does not store full card numbers.

• Subscriptions renew only as disclosed at checkout. You may cancel future renewal through the available account or support method.
• Cancellation normally takes effect at the end of the paid period unless the checkout terms or mandatory law provide otherwise.
• Refund eligibility follows the offer-specific refund policy and mandatory consumer law. Nothing in these Terms removes a non-waivable cooling-off, cancellation, conformity, or refund right.
• If you ask for immediate delivery of digital content, a statutory withdrawal right may be affected only where local law permits and the required acknowledgement is obtained.
• Japanese consumer sales may also be governed by a separately displayed Specified Commercial Transactions Act notice.

We may change future prices after advance notice. A price change does not retroactively change a completed one-time purchase.

User content and educational records

You retain rights in content you lawfully upload or create, including responses, teacher feedback, custom questions, messages, and Institution materials (“User Content”). You grant CS&E and its processors a worldwide, non-exclusive, limited license to host, copy, transmit, transform, analyze, display, and otherwise process User Content only to provide, secure, support, and improve the Services, comply with law, and fulfill the relevant contract.

You represent that you have the rights and notices needed for User Content. We do not claim ownership of an Institution’s student records. De-identified and aggregated information that cannot reasonably identify a person may be used to evaluate and improve service quality.

Acceptable use and exam integrity

You must not:

• cheat, impersonate, share answers, bypass timers or monitoring, falsify identity or exam evidence, or interfere with another learner’s assessment;
• copy, photograph, scrape, publish, sell, or distribute protected questions, answer keys, audio, reports, or credentials without permission;
• probe, attack, overload, reverse engineer, or circumvent security or access controls, except to the extent a restriction is prohibited by law;
• upload malware or unlawful, infringing, discriminatory, abusive, or privacy-invasive material;
• use automated extraction, model training, benchmarking, or competitive replication without written permission;
• use the Services to make a solely automated high-stakes decision about a person without lawful authority and appropriate human review; or
• use another user’s personal data outside the authorized educational purpose.

We may preserve relevant evidence and notify an Institution when suspected misconduct affects exam integrity or safety.

If you violate, or are suspected of violating, the prohibitions above, we may restrict or suspend your account without prior notice.

Our intellectual property and test marks

The Services, software, interfaces, documentation, Company Content, rubrics, designs, models, and related materials belong to CS&E or its licensors. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Services during the applicable term for the authorized educational purpose.

“Company Content” means passages, questions, answer choices, explanations, rubrics, and other learning materials produced with the creative involvement of our staff or contractors. Even when AI tools are used during production, we claim copyright in Company Content only where human staff have creatively edited, added to, or revised the final expression.

IVY TEST may refer to test formats, assessed skills, general trends, and target difficulty levels that are not protected by copyright. Before publication, human staff do more than review: they creatively edit and revise the final passages, questions, answer choices, explanations, and related reference materials. Candidates that reproduce or are substantially similar to protected source expression are rejected or rewritten.

We may seek injunctive relief and damages against anyone who reproduces, republishes, sells, or otherwise uses Company Content without authorization.

SAT® is a registered trademark of College Board. TOEFL® and TOEFL iBT® are registered trademarks of ETS. College Board and ETS have not produced, sponsored, endorsed, or approved IVY TEST. References describe the style or subject of independent practice materials only.

Privacy, confidentiality, and data processing

Our Privacy Policy explains personal-data processing, including Speaking recordings, exam telemetry, AI services, children’s data, international transfers, service providers, retention, and rights. Google Cloud Platform supports application infrastructure, the primary production data location is configured in Japan, and Supabase provides hosted PostgreSQL data services.

CS&E does not sell personal data for money or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. Each party must protect non-public information received from the other and use it only for the contract. Institutions must not expose one student’s record to another student or an unauthorized guardian. CS&E will use role and organization controls intended to separate tenants and audiences.

Where required, the parties will enter into a data processing addendum. A conflict about personal-data processing is resolved in favor of the data processing addendum for that subject.

Availability, changes, and beta features

We work to keep the Services reliable but do not promise uninterrupted availability unless a signed agreement states a service level. Maintenance, provider outages, network conditions, device limitations, safety work, or force majeure may interrupt a feature.

We may improve, replace, or discontinue a feature. We will provide reasonable advance notice when a material discontinuation substantially reduces a paid Service, unless urgent security, legal, or provider action prevents advance notice. Preview, beta, experimental, and AI features may change and should not be the sole basis of a high-stakes decision.

Suspension, termination, and data return

We may restrict or suspend access to protect users, exam integrity, payment status, security, or legal compliance, or to address a material breach. When reasonably possible, we will explain the reason and provide a path to cure or appeal.

You may stop using the Services. An Institution may terminate as provided in its order. After termination, access ends and data is retained or deleted under the Privacy Policy and applicable contract. Institutions may request an available export during the contract and for 30 days after termination unless security, law, nonpayment, or the order states otherwise.

Warranties, liability, and responsibility

To the extent permitted by law, the Services are provided “as is” and “as available.” We disclaim implied warranties that can lawfully be disclaimed, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not disclaim warranties or remedies that mandatory consumer law does not permit us to exclude.

Neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential loss, or lost profits, revenue, goodwill, or data, where such exclusion is lawful. For paid Services, CS&E’s aggregate contractual liability is limited to the amount paid for the affected Service during the 12 months before the event. This limit does not apply where prohibited, including liability arising from fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence, death or personal injury caused by negligence, or non-waivable privacy and consumer obligations.

An Institution will defend and indemnify CS&E against third-party claims caused by the Institution’s unlawful User Content, lack of authority, or material breach, except to the extent caused by CS&E. This indemnity does not apply to individual consumers unless enforceable under mandatory law.

Links to third-party websites

The Services may contain links to websites or services operated by third parties. We are not responsible for those third-party websites or services. When using them, please review the applicable third party’s terms of service and privacy policy.

Governing law, disputes, and changes

These Terms are governed by the laws of Japan, without applying conflict-of-law rules. The Tokyo District Court has exclusive first-instance jurisdiction, except that a consumer may bring a claim in another forum when mandatory local law allows or requires it.

Before filing a claim, the parties should try in good faith for 30 days to resolve it through developer@csne.co.jp. This does not prevent urgent injunctive relief, a regulator complaint, a small-claims action where available, or exercise of a non-waivable right.

We may update these Terms. We will notify you of material changes at least 14 days before their effective date, by email to your registered email address or through a notice within the Services. We will obtain separate consent for changes that require it. Continued use of the Services after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms, to the extent permitted by applicable law.