The questions your DPO will ask
Marking.ai processes student work. This section sets out how, where and who else is involved - with the documentation a procurement team needs behind each answer.
Is Marking.ai safe for schools to use with student work?
Marking.ai processes student work in order to mark it, and a teacher approves every mark before a student sees it. Student work is stored in the EU and processed by a named set of sub-processors under Standard Contractual Clauses. We do not train any AI model on student work, and our AI provider is contractually barred from doing so. Our privacy policy, a pre-completed DPIA and a data processing agreement are all available for your assessment.
What we can evidence today
Every line below is something we can put a signed document or a line of code behind. It is not everything a procurement team will ask - if what you need is not here, ask us and we will tell you where it has got to, including where the answer is no.
| Claim | Status |
|---|---|
| Marks handwritten and typed work | Yes |
| Every mark cites the words that earned it | Yes |
| A teacher approves before a student sees anything | Yes |
| Starting a trial requires no payment card | Yes |
| Student work is stored in the EU (Frankfurt) | Yes |
| AI processing and transactional email in the US, under Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK Addendum | Yes |
| Student work is never used to train an AI model, ours or our provider's | Yes |
| A pre-completed DPIA and a standard DPA, for your assessment | Yes |
Every mark cites the words that earned it
Marking.ai marks against the marking guide a teacher uploads, criterion by criterion, and returns the exact words in the student's answer behind each mark along with the page they were found on. That is what makes a mark checkable in seconds rather than taken on trust - and it is a fact about how the system works, not a claim about how often it is right.
- Marked against the teacher's own uploaded guide, not a general standard
- The exact student text and page number returned behind each mark
- A teacher reviews and approves every mark before a student sees it
The short answers, and the documents behind them
One position per area, stated plainly. The full documentation - our DPIA, our data processing agreement and the security overview - is available for a school's assessment on request.
Data protection
What we hold, where it goes, and who processes it.
Safeguarding
How pupil work is handled, and what is flagged to a person.
Platform security
Where the product runs, who can reach it, and how access is controlled.
Responsible AI
Where the model is used, and where a teacher decides.
Built for how schools handle data
- Data stored in the EU
- No training on student work
- A teacher approves every mark
Common questions
Will it replace or deskill teachers?
No. Marking.ai drafts; teachers decide. Nothing is released until a teacher approves it. It removes the repetitive first pass so teachers spend more time teaching and on the judgement only they can make.
Who processes student work?
Marking.ai processes student work in order to mark it, and uses Google's Gemini API to do so.
Do you train AI on our students' work?
No. We do not use student work, marking guides, marks or feedback to train, fine-tune or develop any AI model, ours or a third party's, and our AI provider is contractually prohibited from using it to improve its own models. We keep a small test set to measure marking accuracy, which is testing rather than training and which schools can opt out of.
Assessment terms explained
Plain-English definitions of the vocabulary used on this page.
- AI markingAI marking is the use of artificial intelligence to assess student work against defined criteria - a mark scheme or a teacher's own marking guidelines - and to draft marks and feedback for a teacher to review.
- Assessment for learningAssessment for learning is the practice of using evidence of what students currently understand to decide what to teach next, and to help students see what they need to do to improve.
- Assessment objectivesAssessment objectives are the categories of skill a qualification tests - commonly labelled AO1, AO2 and AO3 - each carrying a defined share of the available marks.
- Comparative judgementComparative judgement is an assessment method in which markers repeatedly choose the better of two pieces of work, and those paired decisions are combined statistically into a rank order.
- Criterion-referenced assessmentCriterion-referenced assessment judges work against defined standards of what a student should know or be able to do, rather than against how other students performed.
- ExemplarAn exemplar is a piece of work - often a real student answer - presented with its marks and commentary to show what a particular standard looks like in practice.
The evidence your DPO will ask for
Ask us for the pack - our DPIA, our data processing agreement and the security overview - and a person will send it. If you would rather be walked through it first, book a demo for your school.
