What is Ethics?
In the 5E framework, Ethics is about how an organisation actually operates: what it does with data, what it does with AI, and who is accountable for what the product produces.
This evaluates the company’s responsibility in managing data and governing its systems, particularly when AI is involved. ICEI 5E Standards & Definitions
Our answer is a published document. The Ethical Guidelines describe how we expect everyone on Class2Class to treat each other: teachers, students, parents and guardians, school staff, country coordinators, NGO partners, and our own team.
These are the principles the rest of this page is built on. Every one of them is stated in that document.
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Dignity for everyone
No discrimination, no harassment, no slurs. Assume good faith: the person you are reading may be writing in their second or third language.
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You decide. AI helps.
AI supports people; it does not replace them. A teacher is always the final decision-maker about a class, a student, or a piece of work.
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Cross-cultural respect
Ask rather than assume, and make room for different calendars, holidays, and religious practice. Everyone speaks for themselves, not for their whole country or community.
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Keeping students safe
Students are always reached through their teacher, never privately by an adult. Every student under 13 joins with a parent or guardian’s consent.
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Inclusive participation
Connectivity, device, and bandwidth differences are normal. Projects are designed to work with them, not against them.
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Your work is still your work
Consents let us show what the community is doing. They do not transfer ownership, and they never allow anyone to use your work to train AI models.
Why it matters
A Class2Class project brings classrooms from different countries together around a shared learning experience. Students and teachers may come from different languages, cultures, school systems, regulations, and expectations. Clear ethical principles give everyone a common foundation for how we collaborate, communicate, and treat one another.
How we work on Ethics
Ethics is not a review step at the end. The principles are built into how the platform works and how a project is put together, so a teacher is not left to enforce them alone.
Who can reach a student
- Teachers are the gatekeepers. Students do not sign themselves up, and student communication stays on Class2Class with their own teacher in the loop.
- A teacher from one school must not contact students from another school privately, on or off the platform.
- Students under 13 are added only after their teacher has obtained parental consent and confirmed it in the platform consent flow.
- For students under 13, one-to-one direct messaging is not available. Communication happens in group spaces or is teacher-mediated.
- Parents and guardians can withdraw consent at any time, and can ask for the account and data to be deleted rather than only blocked.
What the AI is allowed to do
- AI suggests, the teacher decides. Every suggestion arrives as an editable draft.
- We do not use AI to make automated decisions about students, not about grades, placements, or behaviour judgements.
- When a feature uses AI, we say so. Where you interact with an AI system directly, it identifies itself as AI before the conversation starts.
- Work, messages, images, and session recordings are never used to train AI models, ours or a third party’s. That commitment is written into our agreements with AI vendors.
- At signup, teachers accept that they will read the AI Literacy and Responsible Use Guide before using an AI feature with students.
How a project is designed to include people
- A project is expected to work across connectivity, device, and bandwidth differences rather than assume them away.
- Extra time, a different format, translation help, or assistive technology can be arranged through a student’s teacher.
- Cameras off is acceptable when there is a reason, including privacy, safeguarding, family preference, bandwidth, or accessibility. Nobody is pressured or punished for that choice.
- Plain instructions over idioms, because idioms do not travel.
What happens when something goes wrong
- Three ways to report a concern, including one that does not record who you are:
- Anything at all: support@class2class.org. Read by our team, including the Data Protection Officer and the safeguarding contact as appropriate.
- From inside the platform: the report button, which reaches the same channel.
- Anonymously: the anonymous reports form. No sign-in, no email captured, no identity recorded, and you get a case reference so you can check status without saying who you are.
- You can also go straight to a competent authority instead, such as the Danish Data Protection Authority (dt@datatilsynet.dk). You do not need to use our channels first.
- No retaliation for a concern raised in good faith. Retaliation against a reporter is itself a breach of the Guidelines.
- The Guidelines are reviewed at least once a year, and sooner when a change in law, a platform change, or an incident requires it.
Ethics from different perspectives
The same principles land differently depending on where you sit. Here is what they ask of each group.
You are the gate
Students reach Class2Class through you, and most of these principles are yours to hold.
- For students under 13, you confirm that a parent or guardian was actually informed and agreed. Do not confirm otherwise.
- Before using an AI feature with a class, try the tool yourself. Verify what it produces before you share or grade it.
- Never paste student names, emails, images, or identifying details into a third-party AI tool.
- Keep the judgement yours. AI does not decide about a student.
- Schedule around religious practice, holidays, and time zones. Keep instructions plain.
- You decide when a hard conversation pauses or moves elsewhere.
- Your project content may be featured to inspire other teachers. Ask us to take a piece down and we will, with no reason required.
What you can expect, and what we ask
You should be treated well here, and the same is asked of you.
- You will be treated with dignity whatever your country, language, religion, or background. Everyone else will be too.
- AI can help you brainstorm, draft, or translate. It cannot think for you, and it is often wrong. If AI helped, say so.
- Check facts before you trust them. A name, a date, or a number from an AI needs a real source.
- Never put someone else’s personal information into an AI tool.
- Your work stays yours, and it is never used to train an AI.
- Camera off is fine when you have a reason. Nobody will be punished for it.
- Do not record or screenshot classmates without permission, and do not post session images outside the project.
- If an adult asks to contact you privately or asks for personal information, tell your teacher and tell us.
- If an AI answer feels unfair or hurtful, tell your teacher. It helps us fix it.
Designing and delivering with us
NGOs, school networks, and institutions work inside the same principles.
- The platform is a learning space. It is not for fundraising, selling, political campaigning, proselytising, or recruiting.
- Students are reached through their teacher, never directly. Teacher-only channels are for teacher-to-teacher networking.
- A project has to work for the under-resourced classroom too. Connectivity and device differences are a design input, not an exception.
- Student-identifying content needs consent before it appears anywhere, including in partner communications. Teacher content is credited where practical.
- Community work is never used to train AI models, in your materials or ours.
- Anyone who represents Class2Class signs a personal declaration to the Code of Conduct.
- You can raise a concern through the same channels as anyone else, anonymously if you prefer.
Where this sits in the SDGs
Ethics is the dimension where our own conduct is on the line rather than the classroom’s, and it lines up with two of the Sustainable Development Goals.
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Goal 10Reduced Inequalities
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Goal 16Peace and Justice Strong Institutions
Goal 16 is about accountable institutions and protecting children from abuse. That is what the safeguarding rules, the named contacts, and the reporting routes that do not run through the person a concern is about exist for. Goal 10 is about non-discrimination: the commitment to treat every person with dignity, whatever their country, language, religion or belief, disability, or economic situation, is the same idea stated for our own community.
Class2Class projects are tagged to the Goals, so a classroom can connect its work to the same framework. Browse the SDG calendar to see what other classrooms are running.
Related resources
The documents behind this page, and the practical guides that go with them.
Ethical Guidelines
The full document. Thirteen sections covering conduct, AI use, cross-cultural collaboration, student safety, and how to raise a concern.
Teacher guideAI Literacy and Responsible Use Guide
Required reading before you use any AI feature with students. Free, public, and short.
PolicyChild Safeguarding
Grounded in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. How we prevent harm, and who is accountable when something is reported.
For studentsPrivacy for Students
A short plain-language summary, written for students, of what we do with their information.
PolicyCode of Conduct
The behavioural standards for everyone who represents Class2Class. Each representative signs a personal declaration.
Teacher guide
Safety & Compliance
Why safety and compliance are treated as a precondition for global collaboration rather than an optional extra.
Ethics is one of five.
Each dimension catches a different way a well-meaning product can fail. They are read together, not in isolation.