A teacher in Marivan told HRW that students had been told that if they were not in the Shad app, their scores would not be approved or sent to the school. Shad was built by the Education Ministry and reported more than 18 million active users in October 2021. HRW concluded that in Iran, Turkey and India, children could not give valid, meaningful consent to the processing of their data by government-mandated platforms, because they could not refuse to use them freely without detrimental effect and had no alternative means to access their education.