NCBE Privacy Policy

Last Modified: March 29, 2024

The National Conference of Bar Examiners (“NCBE”) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy describes our practices and procedures as they relate to information we collect through our website www.ncbex.org (the “Site”), however accessed, and information collected when, for example, you provide information to NCBE over the phone or via email, or you participate in NCBE’s examinations (MPRE, MBE, MEE, MPT, or UBE) or other services. 

Note that NCBE’s other websites are subject to their own privacy policies thebarexaminer.org and nextgenbarexam.ncbex.org. Information you supply when requesting accommodations for the MPRE is subject to the NCBE Privacy Policy for Applicants Requesting ADA Accommodations for the MPRE. For health data, NCBE has a Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy, which is applicable to consumer health data in certain states, such as Washington and Nevada.

Information We Collect

The information we collect varies, depending on the way you use our Site, products, or services. We collect and/or receive information in the ways described below.

Personal Information

You are not required to provide any personal information to browse or access the public areas of the Site. However, to access or use certain NCBE services, including through the Site and when you register for and take an NCBE examination, you may be required to provide “personal information”, which is information that is unique to you. We may collect the following types of personal information from you:

  • name, including any formerly used names
  • email address
  • telephone number
  • physical address
  • date of birth
  • Social Security or national identification number
  • credit card or debit card number
  • information regarding your legal education, background, credentials, and related matters
  • information collected with your consent when you create or visit your NCBE Account, including race/ethnicity and other biographic and demographic information 
  • information collected with your consent when you register for the MPRE, including your first and last name, and year started law school 
  • information collected in your character and fitness applications. If you submit a character and fitness application, personal information is collected from applicants and may be used for a background check that includes criminal offenses. Please see the sample form for representative information collected and for requirements. 
  • For exams taken at test centers, examinees may be monitored via video both during check in and during testing to ensure testing integrity and security.

Personal information does not include anonymized, aggregate, or statistical information.

How to Access or Correct Your Personal Information

If you have created an account with us, access to some of your personal information is available through your NCBE Account. You may log in to your account to edit your account profile or to change your password or email address. Please note that we may require additional information to authenticate your identity. For additional guidance on NCBE Accounts, please review the NCBE Account and NCBE Number section in the Website Terms of Use.

Note that Certain NCBE services may have specific processes for correcting or updating personal information, such as information submitted in a character and fitness application or associated with a test registration or a score service. Refer to the specific instructions for those services. For additional guidance you can use the contact us form.

Automatically Collected Information

Our Site automatically collects certain information about your use of our Site that does not personally identify you. This information includes the following:

  • Information about your Site activity. When you browse our Site, we collect IP address (static or dynamic), browser type and language, operating system, domain server, referring and exit pages and URLs, date and time of visit, length of session, the pages you visited while on the Site, and similar data.
  • Information about your device. When you interact with our Site, we collect information about your device including type of computer or device, operating system and version (e.g., iOS, Android, Windows), carrier and country location, and similar data. Additional information collected from your device may include any of the following: Universally Unique ID (UUID), Advertising Identifier (IDFA), MAC address, hardware and processor information (e.g., storage, chip speed), and network type (e.g., WiFi, 3G, 4G, LTE).

How We Use Cookies and Tracking Technologies

NCBE and our service partners may use cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to receive and store certain information whenever you interact with the Site. Cookies are small data files that are stored or accessed on one's browser each time one visits a website. Cookies may store unique identifiers, user preferences, and other information. Cookies are used by NCBE to keep track of your login information while you are logged in to the Site. We use persistent and non-persistent cookies to make it easier for you to navigate the Site. If you reject cookies, you may still use the Site, but your ability to use some areas of the Site may be limited.

Use of Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to track interaction with specific features of the Site. You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

Social Media

We provide social media buttons on our Site that link to NCBE social media pages. If you click on the social media button, you will be taken to our page and a cookie may be set by the social media service to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. These sites are governed by their own privacy and related policies. Please read them to understand how they may use your information.

Information We Receive from Third Parties

NCBE may receive information about you from other sources related to your requests for our products, services or exams. For example, we regularly receive information from bar-admission authorities, third parties (including background check providers) contacted as part of a character and fitness investigation, and organizations under contractual agreements to perform services with or on behalf of NCBE, such as test delivery providers.

How We Use the Information We Collect

We use your information to provide, analyze, administer, enhance, and personalize our Site and the products, and services we provide to you. We also use your information to communicate with you and to conduct our business. Generally, NCBE uses your information to carry out its mission to serve the bar admissions community, and more specifically, uses it to

  • provide services and products requested by you, such as testing services, score services, and character and fitness services; 
  • provide testing, character and fitness, and other services to bar admission agencies and attorney regulatory authorities;
  • register you for a test, product, or service 
  • conduct Character and Fitness reviews and investigations; please view A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act; 
  • conduct fairness and score validity research on our tests and content, considering all groups of examinees, including members of historically underrepresented groups; ensure 
  • maintain a permanent record of examinee performance;
  • maintain statistical data and conduct research related to bar admissions, bar examinations, and the legal industry;
  • create or modify an NCBE Account;
  • respond to an inquiry or message you send us through the contact us form;
  • provide you with updates, reminders, or other information about products and services that you have ordered or that may interest you;
  • analyze and improve our Site or products and/or services; personalize your Site experience;
  • protect you and NCBE from fraudulent transactions, and investigate inappropriate or unauthorized use of NCBE services, products, accounts, examinations or intellectual property or other assets;
  • comply with applicable laws, regulations, or contractual requirements, or respond to subpoenas or government requests; and
  • fulfill any other purpose you request or consent to.

How We Share and Disclose Your Information

NCBE shares and discloses your information for various purposes in order to provide you the Site, products, and/or services and to conduct our business, including as follows:

  • to service providers (including jurisdiction bar-admission agencies, test delivery providers, consultants, payment processors, data hosting and storage providers, and data analytics service providers); 
  • to bar admission authorities that use and/or administer our examinations;
  • for purposes of character and fitness investigations, to bar admission and attorney regulatory authorities, and third parties we contact during the investigation;
  • potentially to non-commercial third parties for researching the fairness of tests, and test content, and test score validity including for members of historically underrepresented groups, through aggregated, anonymous reports that do not identify individual test takers;
  • your first and last name, year started law school, and scaled MPRE score, shared with your law school if you consent during registration for the MPRE; the permissible purpose for law schools using the MPRE Score Data is to assist the law school to establish and evaluate learning outcomes related to students' knowledge and understanding of established standards related to the professional conduct of lawyers, in accordance with ABA Standards 302 and 315 (and to discuss the MPRE Score Data with individual students);
  • when NCBE reasonably believes it is needed to (i) respond to information requests by law enforcement or other governmental authorities; (ii) comply with any law, regulation, subpoena or other legal process, or court order; (iii) investigate and help prevent security threats, fraud, malicious activity, or inappropriate, unauthorized, or illegal activity involving our examinations, services, this Site, or networks; or (iv) enforce or protect our rights and property, including intellectual property;
  • in the event of a corporate sale, merger, reorganization, sale of assets, dissolution, or similar event, as part of the transferred assets; or
  • in accordance with any consent to use or share your information that you provide us or where we have a legitimate interest.

If you use a credit card to make a payment on this Site, we use a third-party payment processor that is PCI-DSS certified. 

We may also share anonymized and aggregate data that does not identify you personally, such as for research and analytics purposes.

Data Retention

Except as set forth in this section regarding your online NCBE Character and Fitness Application, NCBE will retain your personal information consistent with our legitimate interests and to comply with bar admission and assessment industry standards, any applicable laws, regulations, and/or contractual requirements.

We follow the following policies in determining when an online NCBE Character and Fitness Application may be deleted from our website server (and no longer available for you to view or transfer):

  • An unused application may be deleted after 90 days.
  • An application that is never received by NCBE may be deleted after one year of nonuse.
  • An application that is processed by NCBE will remain on our website server for five years from the date we receive the application. As long as your application remains online, you can transfer the data in the application to a new application for a supplemental report to the same jurisdiction or a new report to another jurisdiction (with certain exceptions).

We may also retain information which has been de-identified, anonymized or aggregated such that it can no longer reasonably identify a particular individual.

If you wish to delete your online NCBE Character and Fitness Application from our website server, please contact us to determine whether you are eligible to have it removed. Exam scores are retained permanently consistent with our retention policies. Video recordings of test sessions are retained consistent with our test delivery provider retention policies and applicable law. Also note that we may not be able to delete other information in all instances, such as information retained in technical support logs and other business records. We will not be required to delete any information which has been aggregated, de-identified or disassociated with personal identifiers such that it can no longer be used to reasonably identify a particular individual. We will require verification of your identity for any requests. 

Security

NCBE has physical, technical, and administrative safeguards in place to protect your personal information. Despite our security measures, no data transmission over the internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. As a result, we cannot and do not warrant the security of your personal information.

Messages that you send to us by email, including by use of the contact us form on the Site, may not be secure, and use of email is not recommended for sending us confidential or sensitive information.

Notification of Security Incidents: You are responsible for notifying us immediately of any known or suspected unauthorized use(s) of your NCBE Account, or any known or suspected breach of security, including loss, theft, or unauthorized disclosure of your account credentials, or any other personal information. Any fraudulent, abusive, or otherwise illegal activity on your account may be reported to appropriate law enforcement agencies by us. In the event of a security incident that involves Site user’s personal information, NCBE will notify you, the respective regulator, law enforcement, and/or individuals of such incident as required by applicable law or where NCBE deems appropriate.

California Privacy Rights

California Civil Code Section § 1798.83 (“Shine the Light” Law) permits California residents to opt out of disclosure of personal information to third parties for marketing purposes at any time. Please note that NCBE does not disclose your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes, so no opt-out is needed. Further, please note that NCBE is not subject to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) or to the California Consumer Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) as NCBE is a nonprofit organization. As stated earlier, NCBE does not sell your personal information and we strive to provide clear notices of our privacy practices at the time of collection.

Do Not Track: Some website and platform browsers may be able to send a “do not track” signal to websites. This Site does not respond to do not track signals or similar mechanisms and requests. 

Rights of Data Subjects

Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and its impact on in-person testing, NCBE will offer a one-time administration of the MPRE examination at test delivery provider’s test centers internationally in August 2021. Individuals who wish to test outside the United States at a designated location will need to provide their personal information to the test delivery provider to schedule and administer the exam in the selected location. The test delivery provider will provide your personal information and MPRE responses to its affiliates in the United States and to NCBE in the United States for test administration purposes. 

For Data Subjects as defined by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and under other applicable laws, you have the right to: obtain confirmation as to whether or not your personal data (as defined in the GDPR) is being processed, and access that personal data and the following information: the purposes of the processing; the categories of personal data concerned; the recipients or categories of recipient to whom the personal data have been or will be disclosed, in particular recipients in third countries or international organizations; and where possible, the period for which the personal data will be retained, or, if not possible, the criteria used to determine that period.

You also have the following rights: to request rectification of personal data; to request deletion/erasure of personal data; to request restriction of processing of personal data, or to object to such processing; to request data portability, which is the ability to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, and to transmit those data to another controller without hindrance from us (or have us transmit that data with your permission); and the right to make a complaint to the relevant Supervisory Authority.

If you need further assistance regarding your rights, please contact us and we will consider your request in accordance with applicable law and our lawful bases for processing the personal data. In some instances, our ability to grant these rights to you may depend upon our obligations to process personal information for security, safety, fraud prevention reasons, compliance with regulatory or legal requirements, because processing is necessary to deliver the services you have requested, or where we have a lawful purpose for processing. Where this is the case, we will inform you of specific details in response to your request.

Lawful Bases for Processing: For personal information subject to the GDPR and other applicable laws, we rely on the following lawful bases to process the data as applicable:

  • The processing is necessary to perform our contractual obligations in our contracts with you (such as to provide an examination or to provide another product or service to you);
  • You have given your prior consent, which you may withdraw at any time (such as for cross border data transfers from the EU and other applicable countries, marketing purposes or other purposes we obtain your consent for from time to time);
  •  The processing is necessary to comply with a legal obligation, a court order or to exercise or defend legal claims;
  • The processing is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests, such as in improving and developing the Site and our products and services, preventing fraud and cheating, and promoting safety and security as described in this privacy policy.

If you have any questions about or would like further information concerning the lawful bases on which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us.

Cross Border Data Transfers

NCBE is located in the United States. Personal Information provided to us or our services providers from outside of the United States or its territories will be transferred to NCBE, our third-party service providers, test delivery providers, jurisdiction bar admission agencies, and/or the test center to facilitate the purpose for which it was collected. If you are outside the United States or its territories and sending your personal information to us, our test delivery providers, our service providers or state bar admission authorities, or by taking the MPRE exam outside of the United States at a test center, you understand, acknowledge and consent to (where applicable) the trans-border and international transmission of any personal information that you may choose to provide to us to any country in the world, including countries without an adequate level of data protection. When NCBE’s service providers transfer personal information from the EU and from other international examination locations to other countries, NCBE will ensure there are arrangements in place with those service providers that are designed to ensure your personal information is protected in accordance with applicable legal requirements. Where required by applicable law, NCBE collects data subject to consent through a clear disclosure notice and consent opt-in process to transfer personal information outside of the region where it was collected. By continuing to provide NCBE with personal information or utilize our services after consent has been obtained, a data subject continues to consent to the transfer of personal information until such consent is expressly withdrawn in writing. 

Links to Third-Party Websites

For your convenience, we may provide links to other websites and web pages that we do not control. NCBE does not endorse and is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of any such linked websites. If you submit information to any of those sites, your information is governed by their privacy policies. For information about how other organizations, including jurisdiction bar-admission agencies, may collect and use your personal information, you should review their respective privacy policies when applicable to you.

Children’s Privacy

This Site is not directed to children under 13 years old. Accordingly, we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13 years of age, and persons under 13 years of age should not submit any personal information to NCBE.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

NCBE reserves the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time, so you should review it periodically. If we change our policy, the changes will be posted to this Privacy Policy on the Site and the date of the update will be reflected in the Date Updated above. At our discretion, we may also provide notice in NCBE Accounts and on other pages of the Site as we deem appropriate.

Contact Us

You can submit questions regarding this Privacy Policy by using the contact us form on the Site.

NCBE can also be contacted at

National Conference of Bar Examiners
ATTN: NCBE Privacy Policy
302 South Bedford Street
Madison, WI 53703-3622

Phone: 608-280-8550
Fax: 608-280-8552
TDD: 608-661-1275