Privacy policy

1. Who is responsible

Kuabo is the controller of your data for mentor.kuabo.co. For any question about this policy, write to mentors@kuabo.co.

2. What we ask you for

Only what appears in the application form. Nothing is collected in the background except the last two lines, which exist to prevent abuse.

• Your email address — to recognise you, send you the verification code, then tell you whether your application is accepted.
• Your first and last name — to know who we are talking to. Only your first name and the initial of your last name will be visible to members.
• Your phone number — to reach you if we have a question. It is never shown to a member.
• Your date of birth — to check that you are of legal age. We keep the date, not a document.
• Your postal address — to know who we accept, and to be able to act if something goes wrong. A mentor talks privately with people who are often on their own and far from home. It is also the address on your tax form the day we pay you. It is never shown to a member.
• Your country of origin — to improve matching: all else being equal, a mentor from the same country comes first.
• The countries and types you lived through — this is the heart of the service: we only offer you members who match.
• Your photo — see section 4.
• The site language — to write to you in your language.
• Your IP address and browser — to limit how many applications come from one machine and to spot abuse. Nothing else.

3. What we do not ask you for

These are choices, not oversights:

• No identity document. No passport, no card, no licence.
• No immigration status. We do not ask for your visa, your residence card or your administrative situation.
• No document of any kind.
• No bank details at application time. They will only be asked for when you actually mentor someone, and in order to pay you.

4. Your photo

We ask for a photo of your face, and it is required: a member trusts their departure to someone, they need to see who.

Your photo is resized in your browser, before it leaves. This is not only about file size: that operation erases the EXIF metadata — in particular the GPS coordinates of where the photo was taken, which for a profile picture is often home. What reaches us is an image, and nothing else. We never receive the original file.

The photo is stored in a closed space. It has no public address: nobody can reach it with a link, even by guessing. Only the Kuabo team can open it, from the admin.

5. Why we need it

• To review your application — a person reads it.
• To match you with the right members, on the countries and types you ticked.
• To contact you about your application and your mentoring.
• To prevent abuse: automated applications, email address spoofing.
• To pay you, if you become a mentor.

We never sell your data. We do not rent it. We pass it to no advertiser and no data broker.

6. What becomes visible if you become a mentor

Nothing is visible until your application is accepted. Once you are a mentor, a member sees:

• Your photo
• Your first name followed by the initial of your last name — never your full name
• The countries and types you mentor, and your year of arrival

Never visible to a member, nor to another mentor: your full name, your email, your phone, your date of birth and your postal address. Those never leave the Kuabo admin.

7. Where it is stored

On Google's servers (Firebase), in the United States. Application data and the photo sit in closed spaces: no app, no browser can read them directly. Everything goes through our server functions.

The verification code you receive by email is never stored in clear text, nor is your address at that moment: we keep only a fingerprint of both, for the time of the verification, and it expires after ten minutes.

8. Who else has access

Three providers, each for one thing only:

• Google (Firebase) — hosting the data and the photo
• Resend — sending the emails (verification code, answer to your application)
• Vercel — hosting the site you are reading

Nobody else. No analytics tool, no advertising cookie, no third-party tracker on this site.

9. How long we keep your data

• Application refused — 90 days, then we erase your photo, your phone, your address, your date of birth and your name. We keep only an identity-free trace (date, country, type) for our statistics.
• Application pending — for the time of the review. If it stays unanswered for more than 90 days, it follows the rule above.
• Application accepted — for as long as you are a mentor. If you stop, your data is erased within 90 days, except what the law requires us to keep, in particular the records of amounts paid to you.
• Verification code — ten minutes.
• IP address — for the time of the anti-abuse limit, a few hours.

This erasure is not an intention: it is done automatically, every day, by a dedicated function.

10. Your rights

• See what we hold about you
• Correct what is inaccurate
• Erase your application and your photo, at any time, without having to explain
• Get your data back in a readable file
• Withdraw your application even before we have reviewed it

One address for all of it: mentors@kuabo.co. We answer within 30 days, usually well before.

11. Security

• Everything runs over HTTPS.
• Application data is readable by no browser and no app: only our server functions can read it.
• Your photo has no public address.
• Before telling you anything about your account, we check that the email address is yours. That is what stops someone from discovering who is a Kuabo member by typing addresses at random.
• An application cannot be submitted unless the email was verified just before.
• The form only accepts being called from this site.

12. Minors

Being a mentor requires being of legal age. We check the date of birth when the application is submitted, and an application from a minor is refused automatically.

13. Changes

If we change this policy, the date at the top of the page changes. Material changes are announced to mentors by email.

14. Contact us

Kuabo · mentors@kuabo.co · kuabo.co