Your data and privacy

Here's a plain summary of how we handle your data. Our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service have the full details.

Who can see what

• Shepherd profiles are public, so talents can find and book them.
• Talent profiles are visible to approved shepherds once you've finished setting up, unless you switch off Show my profile to shepherds. What shepherds can see about you
• Your talent profile also has a public link: anyone with it can open your page, without an account, and sees only what you choose under What visitors see. Search engines are asked not to list it, and you can switch the link off. Your public profile link
• A shepherd you book always sees your name, photo and whatever you include in that request.
• Your CV, LinkedIn, growth plan and career ladder stay private unless you share them. A CV opens through a link that expires after a few minutes.
• Organisations you follow or show interest in can see your profile. They see how many times their pages were viewed, never who viewed them.
• Ratings are anonymous and company reviews are anonymous by default.
• Our team can access data when we need to run the service, help you or look into a report.

AI features

Growth plans, career ladders and Kofi's summaries are written with AI provided by OpenAI. We send only what each feature needs, and under OpenAI's API terms that data isn't used to train its models by default.

How you use KoffeeChat

To see what works and what the service costs, we record the main things people do, in our own database: for example booking or accepting a coffee chat, sharing a shepherd page, uploading a CV, viewing companies, generating a growth plan, sending a message, and reading or writing reviews. Each record says what happened and when, the kind of page, your approximate country and whether you were on a phone, tablet or computer. When you arrive from another website, we keep that site's domain only (such as linkedin.com), never the page.

• We never record your IP address here, what you type into a search (only how many results it found) or what your messages say.
• Only the KoffeeChat team sees these records. We also note what running a feature for your account costs us, such as AI usage and emails.
• Detailed records are kept for 180 days, then only daily counts, for up to 25 months. They're deleted with your account.
• If your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, we record none of your visits, views, searches or shares. Actions already stored as part of the service, such as a booking or a message, are still counted.
• Visits by someone who isn't signed in are counted with a random id that's deleted when the tab closes. Once you're signed in we don't keep it, so what you browsed before signing in is never linked to your account.

What we don't do

• We don't sell your personal data.
• We don't use advertising cookies or third-party analytics trackers.
• We don't read your messages unless you tell us about them.

How long we keep it

We keep your data for as long as you have an account. When you delete it, we delete your profile, bookings, ratings, reviews and uploaded CVs. Deleting your account

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export or delete your data, and to object to how we use it. To ask for a copy of your data, a correction or deletion, email hello@koffeechat.com. We may need to confirm it's you first.