Privacy notice
Last updated: 19 October 2026
This notice explains what Ascholia collects when you use your Ascholia account and AI coach, why, who helps us run the service, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do.
Who we are
Ascholia LLC, a Florida limited liability company, runs Ascholia and is responsible for your data. Contact us at info@ascholia.com about anything in this notice. We reply within 30 days.
What we collect
| What | Examples | When |
|---|---|---|
| Account details | Name, email address, password (stored only as a secure scrambled version we can't read) | When you create an account |
| Career profile | Job title, type and size of organisation, area of finance, level, years of experience, credentials, team size, assets or revenue you oversee, location, and optionally your employer's name | When you fill in your profile; you can edit it any time |
| Pay and goals | Current base salary and incentive pay, the pay you're aiming for, your career goals in your own words, and a dated record each time you update your pay | When you fill in your profile and goals |
| Coaching conversations | What you and the coach write, the session's goal, your takeaways and commitments | When you use the coach |
| Coaching notes | Short notes about you that the coach proposes after a session. They are used only after you confirm them. | After each session |
| Feedback | Ratings and comments about a session | Only if you give them |
| Membership | Your plan, its status and renewal date. Stripe handles your card; we never see or store your full card number. | When you pay |
| Technical | A sign-in cookie, and your IP address for up to 24 hours to block repeated failed sign-ins | When you visit |
We don't ask for your race, religion, health or other sensitive details, and nothing you mention in a conversation becomes a lasting note unless you confirm it. Names of other people, employer names and exact pay figures are left out of notes. Voice: if you use Speak, your browser's own speech service (for example Google in Chrome, Apple in Safari) turns your speech into text in the message box. We never receive or store audio.
How we use it
- To coach you. Your messages go to our AI provider to write the coach's replies. The coach also sees the career profile and goals you choose to share. By default it sees your pay but not your employer's name; you can change both in your profile.
- To remember between sessions. The coach uses only notes you have confirmed, your open commitments and a short summary of your last session. It never uses old transcripts.
- To read replies aloud, if you turn that on. The coach's reply text is turned into speech by our hosting provider.
- To run your membership: sign-in, billing, password resets and service emails.
- To keep the service safe and working: blocking abuse, fixing faults and checking quality.
We don't sell your data, use it for advertising, or show it to your employer. We don't use your data for research reports or pay benchmarks unless you opt in. The coach makes no decisions about you that have legal or similar effects.
Our legal basis (if you are in the UK or EU): providing the service you signed up for (contract); your consent for anything optional, which you can withdraw any time; and our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure.
Who helps us run Ascholia
These companies process data for us under contract. They may use it only to provide their service to us.
| Provider | What they do | What they handle |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Hosting, database, and the read-aloud voice | Everything in your account; the coach's reply text when read aloud |
| Anthropic | The AI model that writes the coach's replies | Your messages, and the profile and goals you share with the coach |
| Stripe | Payments and the billing portal | Your name, email, card and billing details |
| Resend | Sending password-reset and service emails | Your name and email address |
| Squarespace | Our public website, www.ascholia.com | Nothing from your account |
| Our email inbox, info@ascholia.com | Anything you email us |
Anthropic does not use our data to train its models. It deletes what we send within 30 days, unless a message is flagged for breaking its usage policy, in which case it may keep it for up to 2 years. Your browser's speech service (Google, Apple or Microsoft) is chosen by you, not us, and follows that company's privacy terms.
We would disclose data to anyone else only if the law required it, for example a court order. No online service can promise it is immune to a data breach or a legal demand, so we don't describe Ascholia as confidential without that caveat. Our providers are US companies, so your data is stored and processed in the United States.
How long we keep it
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Full conversation text | 30 days, then deleted automatically. You can delete it sooner, or mark any message or session "don't remember". |
| Confirmed notes, commitments, session summaries | Until you delete them or your account |
| Account, profile, pay history, goals | Until you delete your account |
| Sign-in attempt records (IP address) | 24 hours |
| Password-reset links | 1 hour |
| Billing records | As long as tax and accounting law requires, held by Stripe and in our accounts |
When you delete your account, we delete your account, profile, goals and all coaching data straight away. Copies in our hosting provider's backups are overwritten within 30 days.
Your choices and rights
- See and download your data: "Download my data" on your profile page, and "What I remember" in the coach.
- Correct it: edit your profile, goals and coaching notes yourself.
- Choose what the coach sees: turn pay or employer name on or off in your profile.
- Delete it: delete single messages, notes or sessions, or your whole account, from your account pages.
- Object or withdraw consent, or ask anything else: email info@ascholia.com.
Depending on where you live (for example California, the UK or the EU) you may have further rights, including to complain to your data protection authority. We will not treat you differently for using them.
Security
Connections are encrypted, passwords are stored only in scrambled form, and sign-in is protected against repeated guessing. Only the company's owner can reach member data, through a password-protected admin page, and only to run the service.
Children
Ascholia is for adults. You must be 18 or over to create an account.
Changes
If we change this notice in a way that matters, we will email members before the change takes effect. People who took part in our 2026 tester programme: the tester notice of 20 September 2026 still covers the data collected then. You can read it at the end of this page.
Contact
Ascholia LLC · info@ascholia.com · See also our terms of membership.
Tester privacy notice of 20 September 2026 (for people in our 2026 tester programme)
Last updated 20 September 2026
We collect your details, including your name and exact pay, so the research is accurate. We never share your name or exact pay with anyone: anything that leaves our private records is shown only as ranges or grouped data.
This notice covers the Ascholia coach at www.ascholia.com/coach, used by invited testers with an access code. It explains what we collect, why, who helps us run it, how long we keep it and what you can ask us to do.
Who we are
Ascholia LLC, a Florida limited liability company, runs this career-coaching research project. Ascholia LLC decides what data is collected and how it is used, and is responsible for it.
Contact: info@ascholia.com. Write to us with any question, or to see, correct or delete your data. We reply within 30 days.
What we collect
We collect information directly from you: what you type into the coach and what you tell us in the questions at the end. We don't ask for your employer's name.
| What | Examples | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| Your conversation | Everything you and the coach write, turn by turn | Yes, it is saved as you go |
| Your feedback | Most useful moment, what felt off, ratings (1–5 and 0–10), whether you'd come back | Optional |
| Who you are | Full name, country (and US state), highest education, credentials | Name, country and education are required |
| Your work | Type and size of organisation, sector, area of finance, job title, level, years in finance, tenure, team and budget size | Level and years in finance are required |
| Your pay | Currency, exact base salary, last year's bonus, long-term incentives, carried interest, other incentives, pension, benefits, day rate (contractors) | Base and bonus (or day rate) are required, with a "Prefer not to say" option |
| Your career and views | Job search plans, motivations, why you left your last job, how fairly paid you feel, views on your organisation's sustainability and diversity work, coaching history | Optional |
| Demographics | Age bracket, race or ethnicity, nationality, gender | Only if you choose to answer; you are asked first |
| Your contact details | Your name and email address, which we use to send your invitation | Yes, to invite you |
| Your access code | The code we sent you, which links your sessions together | Yes |
Race, ethnicity and similar details are especially sensitive. We ask them only with your say-so, and you can skip them.
If you don't answer. No law requires you to give us this information, and no Australian law or court order requires us to collect it. You can still use the coach. If you skip a required profile question, your profile isn't saved, but your conversation and feedback still count.
Our hosting provider also keeps short-lived technical logs (such as IP address and browser type) to run and protect the site. We don't add these to your research record.
How we use it
We use your data only to research and improve the Ascholia coach. We never sell it, and we never use it for advertising or to place you in a job.
- To run the coach. Your messages are sent to an AI model to write the coach's replies. The coach does not see your profile answers.
- To judge the coaching. We review each conversation. An AI model also makes a first-pass assessment of each session against our coaching criteria, which we check and override. For that assessment the AI sees the conversation, your feedback and general profile details (such as country, area of finance, level and years in finance), but not your name or pay.
- To link your sessions. Your access code connects a first and second session, so we can see whether the coach remembered well.
- To understand who the coach works for. We compare results across groups, such as level or pay range.
- To build pay benchmarks. Combined, grouped pay figures help us describe pay ranges in finance.
Our legal basis. We rely on your consent, given when you start the coach, for your profile answers. For your conversation and feedback we rely on our legitimate interest in running and improving this research. For sensitive details such as race or ethnicity, we rely on your explicit consent. You can withdraw consent at any time; this doesn't affect what we did before you withdrew.
No automated decisions about you. The AI's first-pass assessment is research only. It makes no decision that affects you, and we review it.
What we share, and what we never share
We never share your name, your exact pay or your conversation with anyone outside the research. Anything we report or show back, including to you, uses ranges and grouped data only.
| Kept private | Shared only as |
|---|---|
| Your name | Never shared |
| Exact base, bonus, incentives, day rate | Ranges, such as "150k to 200k" |
| Years in finance | Ranges, such as "6 to 10 years" |
| Your conversation | Short quotes only, with anything identifying removed, and only if you haven't asked us not to |
| Demographics | Group totals only |
- The coach. It may talk with you about pay you mention, but it says figures back as ranges and never states anyone else's pay.
- The law. We would disclose data only if the law required it.
Three kinds of service provider handle your data for us: our hosting and database provider, our AI provider (Anthropic, below), and our email provider, which we use to send your invitation. They act only on our instructions and may not use your data for their own purposes. We don't disclose your data to anyone else.
About the AI. The coach is an AI, not a person or a certified coach. Under its commercial terms, Anthropic does not use our data to train its models by default. Anthropic deletes what we send within 30 days, unless a message is flagged for breaking its usage policy, when it can keep it for up to 2 years.
Where it is stored. Our providers are US companies, so your data is stored and processed in the United States, and may also be processed in other countries where they operate. If you're in Australia, the UK or the EU, this means your data leaves your country. Our providers' data processing terms include the EU standard contractual clauses, and we take reasonable steps to make sure they protect your data to the standard your local law requires.
How long we keep it
We keep your research record for 3 years after your last session, then delete it. You can ask us to delete it sooner at any time.
- Grouped results (ranges and totals with no names) may be kept longer, because they can't be traced back to you.
- Anthropic's copies are deleted within 30 days, as described above.
- Technical logs at our hosting provider are kept for a short period set by that provider.
Your choices and rights
Email info@ascholia.com to use any of these rights. We reply within 30 days and don't charge.
- Skip or stop. You can leave the conversation at any point, choose "Prefer not to say" for pay, and skip every question not marked required.
- See your data. Ask for a copy of what we hold about you.
- Correct it. Ask us to fix anything wrong or out of date.
- Delete it. Ask us to delete your record, and we will, including any quotes not yet published.
- Take it with you. Ask for your data in a common electronic format.
- Withdraw consent. Tell us to stop using sensitive details, or to stop using your data at all.
- Object or restrict. Ask us to stop or limit a particular use, including any use based on our legitimate interest.
- Complain. Tell us first at info@ascholia.com and we'll respond within 30 days. If you're not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in Australia, the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK, or your local data protection authority in the EU. Residents of US states with privacy laws may have similar rights.
How we protect it
Your record sits in one private database, and only we can open it.
- Access. Only invited testers with an access code can use the coach. The research dashboard needs a separate private key that only we hold.
- Encryption. Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and at rest by our hosting provider.
- Separation. Your name and pay are kept apart from what the coach sees, and out of the coach's session summaries.
- No side copies. Your name and email sit only in our invitation list and our email. We don't keep your profile, pay or conversation in spreadsheets, notes or email. Any download for analysis uses the range columns, not exact figures, and is deleted when done.
- If something goes wrong. If a breach puts your data at risk, we'll tell you promptly and explain what we're doing about it.
Changes to this notice
If we change how we use your data, we'll update this page and change the date at the top. For any significant change, we'll email the testers we have contact details for before it takes effect.