Privacy notice: Ascholia coach
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.