Privacy Policy

This policy explains, in plain language, what personal data Facultique collects, why, who can see it, how long we keep it, and your rights. It is written for users in the United States and Canada (including Canada's federal privacy law, PIPEDA, and provincial laws such as Quebec's).

Who we are

Facultique (facultique.com) is responsible for your personal data (the "controller"). For any privacy question or request, email contact@facultique.com.

What we collect

• Account data: name, email address, password (stored only as a one-way hash that nobody can read), phone number, time zone, and whether you are a scholar or a chair.
• Scholar profiles: your CV and optional LinkedIn PDF export, LinkedIn profile URL, photo, a short intro video, education (including where you earned your highest degree), teaching history and the classes you have taught, languages, location (country, region, metro area), self-reported work authorisation, availability, and references if you give them.
• Chair profiles: title, department, institution, location and the disciplines you hire for.
• Chat requests and messages: the reason and message of each chat request, answers, and the messages exchanged after a request is accepted.
• Payments (chairs): the fee, currency and status of each chat request. Card details are handled by our payment provider, Stripe; we never see or store your full card number.
• Early-access sign-ups: if you signed up for early access, we use what you gave us then to set up your account.
• Emails: a copy of the service emails we send you, so we can fix delivery problems. Scholars who haven't finished their profile may get an occasional reminder; every reminder has a link to stop them, and so does your Account page.
• How you found us: if you arrived through one of our tracking links (for example "?ref=" in a link we shared) or from another website, we record that code or website's name on your account when you sign up, so we know which outreach works.
• How you use the site: we keep our own simple usage statistics: which pages are opened, which links and buttons are clicked, and how far people get through the sign-up form. They are tied to a random number in a cookie, not to your name, email address or IP address, are kept for 180 days, and are used only by our team to improve the site and to see which outreach works. We honour your browser's "Do Not Track" and Global Privacy Control settings: if either is on, we record nothing.
• Cookies: one essential cookie that keeps you logged in; one that remembers for up to 60 days which of our links or which website brought you here (see "How you found us"); and one random visitor number, kept for up to 180 days, behind our own usage statistics (see "How you use the site"). We use no advertising or third-party analytics cookies. If a page shows an embedded video, it is served by the video provider (for example YouTube in privacy-enhanced mode), which may set its own cookies when you play it.

Why we use it

• To run the service you signed up for (legal basis: contract): building and showing profiles, sending chat requests, running chats, unlocking contact details and sending service emails.
• To fill in your profile from your CV (contract, only if you opt in): we send your CV and LinkedIn export to an AI service (Google Gemini) that extracts the details. You review everything before you submit. Using AI is never required: if you choose to enter your experience manually, your documents and profile are never sent to any AI service, and only our verification team reads your CV.
• To verify people (legitimate interest): reviewing scholars' CVs, LinkedIn profiles and intro videos (sometimes with a short call), and checking whether a chair's email address belongs to a university.
• To take payments and keep accounting records (contract and legal obligation).
• To keep Facultique safe (legitimate interest): for example, blocking contact details in chat requests before they're accepted, and preventing abuse. Our team may open a chat when needed for support or safety, for example when someone reports a problem.

We never sell personal data and we don't use it for advertising. A person on our team reviews every verification; no automated decisions with legal effects are made about you.

Outreach emails to faculty

We sometimes email faculty members and department chairs at US colleges and universities whose work email address is published in their institution's public directory, to tell them about Facultique (legal basis: legitimate interest). For this we keep only their name, work email address, title, institution and the public page where we found the address, plus when we emailed them and whether they signed up. We don't buy email lists, and we don't combine this information with other data. Every outreach email has a link to stop further emails: we honour it permanently, keeping only the email address on a do-not-email list so we never write to it again. You can also ask us to delete your information at any time by emailing contact@facultique.com.

Who can see what

• Your CV, LinkedIn export and references are seen only by our team. They are never shown to chairs.
• Chairs see scholar profiles without name, photo, intro video, email, phone or LinkedIn link. They do see where a scholar earned their highest degree and the classes they have taught. Other institution names are hidden by default, and we remove names and contact details from free-text fields. We don't show student ratings or publication data.
• Scholars see the institution, department and title of a chair who sends them a chat request, and the chair's message.
• When a scholar accepts a chat request, that one chair sees the scholar's name, photo, intro video and contact details, and the scholar sees the chair's name and contact details. Nobody else does.
• Chat messages are seen by the two participants and, when needed for support or safety, by our team.
• Our team can see the data needed to run and support Facultique.
• Service providers process data for us under contract: hosting and database (Vercel, Neon), email delivery, payments (Stripe) and AI CV reading (Google). We may also disclose data where the law requires it.

International transfers

Our providers may store or process data outside your country, including in the United States. If you are in Canada, your data may therefore be accessible to authorities in the United States under US law.

How long we keep it

• We keep your data while your account is open.
• After you close your account, we delete or anonymise it within 90 days, except records we must keep by law (such as payment and accounting records).
• Early-access sign-ups that never become an account are deleted 24 months after the last activity, or earlier on request.

Your rights

You can ask us to access, correct, export or delete your personal data, to restrict or object to how we use it, and you can withdraw consent at any time. You can edit most of your profile yourself; for anything else, email contact@facultique.com and we'll reply within one month. If you are in Canada, you can also complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or your provincial privacy regulator.

Security

Passwords are hashed, stored secrets are encrypted, the site is only served over HTTPS, and access to personal data is limited to our team.

Children

Facultique is not intended for anyone under 18.

Changes

We'll post any changes here and tell registered users about significant ones.