Privacy Policy
Last Updated: November 12, 2025
Disclosure
Paradigm, Inc. and its affiliates (“Paradigm,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) understand that your privacy is important to you. We have developed this privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) to clearly explain how we collect, process and share your data as you utilize Paradigm’s websites located at www.paradigm-corp.com and www.cecredentialtrust.com (the “Sites”), as well as its Products (as defined below) and web-based portals offered via the Sites or Paradigm’s associated mobile applications (together with the “Sites,” the “Services”). The Services include the electronic ordering, fulfillment, and delivery of the Products and our electronic communications with you in connection therewith.
This Privacy Policy applies only to information we collect through our Sites and Services that we operate and control and on which it is posted. We only collect and use Personal Data (as that term is defined below) for the specific, limited purposes described herein. This Privacy Policy does not apply to information that we collect from any other source or where it is not posted, including any third-party websites or applications you may access through the Services. Such third-party websites or applications may have their own privacy policies, which we encourage you to read carefully before providing information on or through them.
Please review this Privacy Policy in its entirety. By accessing and using our Sites and Services, or by clicking “I accept” prior to your registration of a user account with Paradigm or requesting the Products, as applicable, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Data by Paradigm as described in this Privacy Policy. If you are acting on behalf of an educational institution or state agency, you agree that you have the authority to bind such educational institution or state agency and that this Privacy Policy shall apply to Personal Data provided by or on behalf of the educational institution or state agency in connection with the Services. If you are an educational institution or state agency, your use of the Sites and Services may also be governed by additional agreements or terms entered into between you and Paradigm, as applicable.
What Personal Data does Paradigm collect?
When you visit, use, or create an account to use the Sites or Services, or communicate with us, you may provide and/or we may collect the following (“Personal Data”):
Information You or an Educational Institution Provides to Us
You or an educational institution or state agency may provide the following categories of information to Paradigm:
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Personal identifiers such as a first and last name, email address, mailing address, job title, and phone number.
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Educational information including information about your institution or other details required for certain Products.
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Such Personal Data may be voluntarily provided to Paradigm when you or another user of the Services fills out a contact form or contacts us, registers an account with Paradigm to use certain Services, such as CeDiploma®, CeCertificate®, CePennant™, ScholarRecord®, as well as paper credentials (collectively, “Products”), or pre-registers to reserve a credential before it is readily available. Certain Personal Data may be provided to us by an educational institution or state agency in connection with the purchase of Products with the knowledge and consent of the data subject. In addition to the above categories, we may also receive student demographic information, student records, student identification numbers, or similar information from educational institutions or state agencies. When we obtain such Personal Data indirectly, we rely on the educational institution’s/state agency’s lawful authority to collect and use such Personal Data and provide it to us so that we can provide the Services on behalf of the educational institution/state agency. Such educational institutions and state agencies are solely responsible for obtaining all required consents and authorizations from the relevant data subjects and for satisfying all obligations or rights owed to such individuals under applicable data privacy laws and regulations.
You can choose not to provide us with certain Personal Data, but then you may not be able to successfully use all the Services or their features, or order certain Products. If you are an educational institution or state agency and provide us with others’ Personal Data, we will only use that information for the specific reason for which it was provided to us (e.g., to process a transaction for requested Products). Do not provide us with any Personal Data or information about others unless you have been expressly authorized by the data subject to do so.
It is important that the Personal Data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please let us know if your Personal Data changes by updating your user account information or emailing us at [email protected]. You may have to contact your educational institution or state agency in order to update certain information, and such Personal Data submitted to Paradigm may be subject to the processes and policies of the educational institution/state agency.
We will use information provided during the user account registration process and/or reservation or purchase of Products to contact you or the relevant individual via phone and/or email and to send notifications about the availability of the requested Products. We may also contact you regarding the Sites, Services or features thereof as they apply to Paradigm or the institution authorizing the credential, or to contact you to request additional Personal Data required for the purpose of providing a credential. You may opt-out of receiving such communications by following the opt-out instructions provided in the communications or by contacting us at [email protected].
Information We Automatically Collect / Technical Information
As you navigate through and interact with our Sites and Services, we and our third-party service providers may use automatic data collection technologies to collect information that may include Personal Data. Information collected automatically may include IP addresses, information about your operating system, browser type, and internet connection, and usage details collected through cookies and other technologies about your interactions with the Sites or Services (such as clickstream information to, through, and from our Sites or Services (including date and time)), products that you view or search for or resources and features that you access and use, page response times, download errors, length of your visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), methods used to browse away from a page, traffic data, and other communication data. We may also use cookies and similar technologies to keep you signed into your user account or to remember your preferences when using the Sites and Services.
Using automatic collection technologies helps us to improve our Sites and Services and to deliver a better and more personalized experience.
The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:
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Cookies. We use “cookies” (small text files stored locally on users’ computers) to help us improve your access to our Sites and identify repeat visitors. Cookies can also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our Sites. Most Internet browsers have configuration settings to disallow the acceptance of cookies. However, setting a browser to reject cookies may, in certain instances, prevent the user from taking full advantage of the site, and the materials, products, and services that are made available on it. PayPal requires that you accept cookies in order for our shopping cart to work properly.
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Web Beacons. Some parts of the Services and our emails or other communication to you may contain small digital files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit Paradigm, for example, to count users who have visited those parts of the Services or opened an email and for other related statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain content and verifying system and server integrity).
Third Party Collection
When you interact with the Services, there are third parties that may use automatic collection technologies to collect information about you or your device. These third parties include analytics providers (such as Hotjar, SEMRush, and Google) which collect information about users’ online behavior but that do not collect or connect such information with any Personal Data that directly identifies you (such as personal identifiers). We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies and you should review their privacy policies and contact the parties directly with any questions.
If you utilize or order Products through our Sites and Services, you may make payment for such products using the secure Stripe portal (www.stripe.com) or will be transferred to PayPal (www.paypal.com). These are third party websites/portals and services not owned or controlled by Paradigm. Paradigm does not collect, store or process financial information such as credit card numbers, but may obtain reports from Stripe and PayPal including non-Personal Data about the transaction (e.g., payment amounts, payment status, transaction numbers, etc.), along with Personal Data such as the contact information you provide to the third party when completing a transaction. Paradigm may use such information and Personal Data related to your transaction in order to help communicate support options and assist in resolving issues related to your purchases.
Aggregated Information
Paradigm may also derive statistical or aggregated data from Personal Data. Such aggregated data does not include any identifiable information and is not considered “personal data” under applicable laws after it has been anonymized and/or aggregated. We provide aggregated statistical information to our clients based on their reporting requirements to provide analytics regarding the Services.
Sensitive Personal Information.
We do not collect “sensitive” personal data as defined under applicable law (such as information relating to religious and political beliefs, biometrics, precise geolocation data, etc.) on or through the Sites or Services. If you send or disclose any sensitive Personal Data to Paradigm while using the Services, you consent to our processing and use of such sensitive Personal Data in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Other
Paradigm does not sell Personal Data or engage in targeted advertising or profiling as those terms are defined under applicable law.
Please contact us at [email protected] if you have questions about our usage of cookies or similar technologies. As noted above, you may be able to adjust your browser’s settings to not allow certain cookies, and/or you may make certain changes to your cookie preferences when you visit our Sites. Please note that some Services or features may be unavailable as a result of not accepting certain cookies or similar technologies.
Why is Paradigm processing my Personal Data?
Paradigm obtains information from you, users, educational institutions, and state agencies in order to provide the Services, credentials and the Products. The following list contains the potential uses for your Personal Data:
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For production and distribution of paper and/or digital documents.
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For notification of credential availability.
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For personalization of Sites and Services offered by Paradigm.
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For display of credential information to recipients or validating entities of the Products.
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For the creation and update of your user account for certain Sites and Services.
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For correction or update of documents (paper and digital)
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To communicate with you when offering support options and to assist in resolving issues.
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To meet regulatory and legal requirements.
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To meet business needs and financial requirements of Paradigm.
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To allow the purchase of products and services by you as offered by Paradigm.
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For marketing of Paradigm products and services. If you do not wish to receive marketing communications from us, you may opt-out of such communications.
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To respond to email, phone or other communications initiated by you.
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To manage authentication and security related to your use of the Sites and Services.
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For any other purpose with your consent.
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Does Paradigm share my Personal Data?
Paradigm does not sell Personal Data for monetary consideration or share Personal Data for targeted advertising or profiling purposes. Paradigm may share Personal Data for the following reasons:
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When a student or educational institution/state agency uses our Services, we obtain certain Personal Data and may transmit, fulfill, or otherwise disclose credentials and related data to such educational institutions/state agencies as authorized by the user requesting the Services/Products. Paradigm may share certain information between it and the educational institution/state agency to process a credential.
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Paradigm may share your information with state, local or federal agencies or other entities as required by law.
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Paradigm may share your information with payment processors to allow you to complete a purchase as described herein.
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Paradigm may share your information within our organization in order to produce documents.
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Paradigm may share your information with vendors working on our behalf.
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Paradigm may share your information to protect lives.
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Paradigm may share your information to protect your interests.
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Paradigm may share your information to protect property, legal rights or Services.
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Paradigm may share your information to investigate fraudulent use or other misuse of its Sites and Services.
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Paradigm may share your information with your consent.
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Paradigm may transfer, or otherwise disclose your information to an acquirer, assignee or other successor entity in connection with the transfer or sale of all or substantially all of the equity, business, or assets of Paradigm to which your information relates, or in connection with an actual or contemplated sale, merger, bankruptcy, reorganization, change in control, or other similar transaction.
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What are my rights with regard to my Personal Data?
Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have the right to make certain requests concerning your Personal Data. Specifically, you may have the following rights:
Right to Access & Correct: You can request access to your Personal Data and to correct or update such information. You may be able to access and update certain information through your user account with Paradigm. You may need to contact your educational institution/state agency directly to access and update or correct certain information, and/or Paradigm may need to contact the institution or agency to facilitate the process. In all other instances, you may contact us at [email protected] to access to and/or to correct or update your Personal Data. In certain circumstances, you may be able to request copies of the Personal Data we have collected from you.
Right to delete: You can ask for the deletion of your Personal Data. If you ask us to delete your Personal Data, we will respect your request and delete your Personal Data, subject to certain exceptions provided by law. We may need to retain certain information in order to provide our Services and Products to you. Additionally, Paradigm may not be able to delete certain information without prior authorization from the administrator (i.e., the educational institution or state agency), and you may need to contact your institution or agency directly regarding deletion of the information.
Right to know: Depending on the circumstances, you can ask us: (i) whether we collect and use your Personal Data; (ii) the categories of Personal Data that we collected in the last twelve months; (ii) the purposes for which the collected Personal Data is used; (iii) whether we sell your Personal Data to third parties; (iv) the categories of Personal Data that we sold or disclosed for a business purpose; (v) the categories of third parties to whom the Personal Data was sold or disclosed for a business purpose; and (vi) the business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling Personal Data. You may also request information about the financial incentives that we offer, if any.
In accordance with applicable law, we are not obligated to provide or delete consumer information that is de-identified/aggregated in response to a consumer request or to re-identify individual data to verify a consumer request.
Right to Limit Sensitive Personal Data
You may request that we limit our use of sensitive data, as applicable.
Right to Opt-Out
You can request that we stop selling or sharing/processing your Personal Data for certain purposes (such as targeted advertising or profiling). As mentioned above, Paradigm does not sell or share Personal Data for monetary consideration, targeted advertising or profiling purposes.
Right to Non-Discrimination for the Exercise of a Consumer’s Privacy Rights
We will not discriminate against you if you exercise any of your privacy rights described above.
Verification process
Upon receiving a request, we may ask that you verify your identity. These verification efforts require us to ask you to provide information so that we can match it with information you have previously provided us. We will only use Personal Data provided in your request to verify your identity or authority to make the request. To the extent possible, we will avoid requesting additional information from you for the purposes of verification. If, however, we cannot verify your identity from the information already maintained by us, we may request that you provide additional information for the purposes of verifying your identity, and for security or fraud-prevention purposes. We will delete such additionally provided information as soon as we finish verifying you.
To exercise these rights, you can contact us by email at [email protected] or our mailing address and phone number included at the bottom of this Privacy Policy.
California Users
The CCPA provides consumers (California residents) with specific rights regarding their Personal Data. See your rights and choices above. If you are a California resident, visit https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa to view supplemental privacy information for California residents.
California’s “Shine the Light” law (Civil Code Section § 1798.83) permits users of our Services that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of Personal Data to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. Paradigm does not disclose Personal Data to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. For more information, please send an email to [email protected].
Other United States Users
For users residing in Colorado, Connecticut, Montana, Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, or Utah, and in other such states not explicitly listed, state law may grant different or additional rights with regard to your Personal Data. You or your legally designated representative may submit requests or questions regarding your rights to [email protected].
As noted above, if your Personal Data was submitted to Paradigm by one of our client educational institutions or state agencies, such information may be subject to the processes and policies of your institution or agency or other applicable state laws.
We will generally respond to consumer requests within 30 days, except where a longer period of reply or an extension is permitted under applicable law. If a request is denied, we will provide you with an explanation in accordance with applicable law. Depending on applicable law, you may also have the right to appeal Paradigm’s decision with respect to a request. Please contact [email protected] for more information and/or to exercise your appeal right.
How do you retain and protect my Personal Data?
Paradigm retains Personal Data for legitimate business purposes and to meet federal, state, local and other legal and regulatory requirements. Paradigm may maintain certain records about Services and Products ordered and provided, including minimal details as necessary about certain credential orders, as permitted under applicable law to process orders and verify credentials. We will retain your other information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you with the requested Services or Products. When Personal Data is no longer needed, it will be securely destroyed or permanently anonymized or de-identified.
We have implemented and maintain reasonable security measures and take precautions to protect your information. Such measures include Paradigm’s compliance with applicable industry-specific security requirements such as those required under FERPA, etc.
Documents provided through the Services, including for certain Products, may contain information that you consider to be confidential or sensitive. This information and such documents that are processed by Paradigm in connection with the Services and Products are securely encrypted and transmitted. Paradigm also takes measures to protect users’ information offline, such as by only providing employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, billing or customer service) access to the information, and keeping our computers and servers in which we store Personal Data in a secure environment with both digital and physical protective measures in place.
While we use encryption and security measures to protect information transmitted online through the Services, no website, mobile application, or system is completely secure, and we cannot 100% guarantee the security of Personal Data or documents that may be processed in connection with the Services. You are also responsible for taking reasonable steps to protect your Personal Data against unauthorized disclosure or misuse, and it is your responsibility when using the Sites and Services to make sure that you maintain the privacy and security of your passwords and other information related to your user accounts and transactions and not share your account information.
Third Party Services
Our Services may include links to other websites, applications, and services not operated by Paradigm. Such third-party websites, applications, and services may have their own privacy policies that differ from Paradigm’s and are not under Paradigm’s control. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any third-party websites you visit. Further, any such third-party links are not an endorsement, authorization, or representation that Paradigm is affiliated with the third party. When you follow a link to a third-party website, you are no longer protected by our Privacy Policy and Paradigm is not responsible for such websites, applications, or services.
Testimonials
We may display personal testimonials of satisfied customers on our Sites or other promotional materials with your consent. Such testimonials may identify you by name. If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, please contact us at [email protected]
Minors
Our Sites and Services are not meant to be used by children under the age of 13 and Paradigm does not knowingly collect Personal Data from users under age 13. If Paradigm unknowingly collects the Personal Data of anyone under the age of 13 through our registration or reservation services without parental consent, please contact us at [email protected] and we will delete or direct you to contact the relevant educational institution/state agency client that provided us with such Personal Data so that the information can be removed. Paradigm does not have actual knowledge that it sells or shares the Personal Data of minors under the age of sixteen (16) for targeted advertising or profiling purposes.
Privacy Policy Updates
Paradigm may change the terms of this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes made are effective as of the listed date of publication and are binding when posted.
AI Services
Paradigm utilizes Microsoft’s enterprise Copilot services (Microsoft 365 Copilot and Dynamics 365 Copilot) to support internal workflows. Any Personal Data processed via these services remains within our Microsoft 365 tenant and is governed by our access, retention, and deletion policies. Personal Data, prompts, and outputs are not used to train or improve any foundation models (including Microsoft’s) or third-party models, and we do not enable optional data-sharing features for model improvement. Use of AI services is further governed by Microsoft’s enterprise privacy, security, and compliance commitments and our data processing agreements with Microsoft and relevant third parties.
International Transfer & Users
Paradigm is located in the United States of America. Because of the nature of the Sites, Services, and Products offered by Paradigm, your Personal Data may be transferred to other countries outside the United States. Paradigm will protect your Personal Data as outlined in this Privacy Policy, but does not guarantee compliance with other jurisdictions’ laws which may be significantly different than those in the United States regarding data protection. Paradigm currently stores its information in the United States. The Services are designed for users in the United States, and other countries may have It is up to the user of the Sites, Services, and Products to know and understand the laws of the countries, provinces, jurisdictions or other authoritative entities to which their Personal Data is being transferred. By using Paradigm’s Sites and Services, you acknowledge and consent that your Personal Data may be transferred to other countries. We do not guarantee that our Sites or Services are available in all countries. Paradigm will take all reasonable measures to ensure that the Personal Data will not be used, transferred, or disclosed for purposes not relevant to the purposes of its collection or as authorized by you and/or its educational institution and state agency clients.
Contact Us
Please contact us if you have any questions about our Privacy Policy or how we use your Personal Data.
For questions regarding your Personal Data, your user account, or if you have privacy concerns or questions, please contact us or our IT Director at [email protected] or the following:
Paradigm
2600 Performance Court,
Virginia Beach, VA 23453
+1 (757) 333-4823