Privacy Policy
Effective August 25, 2026 · Prelaunch draft
This policy is written in plain language for prototype review. It must be reviewed by a Washington attorney before ScholarLadder accepts payment or stores real student information.
1. Information we may collect
- Account information, contact details and role
- School, academic, career, financial-gap and scholarship-profile information
- Optional adversity, disability, health or family circumstances
- Essays, scripts, documents, recommendation status and video links
- Application progress, reminders, parent flags and support requests
- Payment and transaction records from the payment processor
- Basic device, security and usage logs
2. Why we use it
We use information to create accounts, propose and verify matches, organize applications, save writing, provide requested AI or human assistance, send selected reminders, process payments, prevent abuse and improve the product.
3. Sensitive information
Health, disability, adversity and family-history information is optional. It should be used for private matching only after affirmative consent. It is never inserted into an essay automatically. Washington health-data requirements and consent language must be reviewed before collection begins.
4. AI processing
Only the information needed for a requested AI feature should be sent to the configured AI provider. Students must confirm extracted profile details and suggested edits. We will publish the provider, retention settings and opt-out choices before activating production AI.
5. Sharing
We may share limited information with hosting, database, email, authentication, payment and AI vendors that help operate the service. We do not sell student profile information or use sensitive student information for targeted advertising. Scholarship sponsors receive information only when the student submits through the sponsor’s process.
6. Parents and students
Parent/supporter access does not automatically include every sensitive answer or private essay. Permission boundaries will be displayed in the account. For minors, required parental consent applies; the service does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
7. Storage and retention
Production records will use protected hosted storage, not public pages or device-only storage. Final retention periods, backups and deletion timelines must be published before real data is accepted. Transaction and security records may be retained when legally required.
8. Choices and requests
Users may request access, correction, export or deletion of their information and may withdraw optional sensitive-data or AI consent. Some features may stop working after consent is withdrawn.
9. Security
We use reasonable administrative and technical safeguards, role-based access and service-provider controls. No online system is completely secure. Suspected incidents will be investigated and legally required notices provided.
10. Free-access abuse prevention
To enforce one free Starter Stack per student per academic year, production systems may compare verified account information, limited student profile details and protected security signals. Duplicate-detection keys should be stored in a one-way protected form where practical. A possible match is reviewed by a person so siblings, shared households and school devices are not automatically rejected. Government ID is not required for the free Starter Stack.
11. Changes and contact
We will post the effective date of changes and provide additional notice when appropriate. Privacy questions and requests may be sent to the contact address below.