Privacy Policy

Last updated: 9 October 2026

Career Platform (careerplatform.co.uk) is a free, invitation-only early-access beta that helps people in the UK explore careers, understand routes into them, plan their development and keep track of their skills and qualifications. This policy explains, in plain English, what personal information we use, why, who else handles it, and your rights.

1. Who is responsible for your information

Career Platform is operated personally by Harris Charles as an individual, not through a registered company. Harris Charles is the data controller for the personal information described here. Privacy enquiries: privacy@careerplatform.co.uk. Postal address: 80 Henderson Road, Portsmouth, PO4 9JG, United Kingdom.

2. What we collect and why

Apart from the details needed to create an account, everything is optional, though some features won't work without it. We don't intentionally collect special category information (such as health, religion or ethnicity). Please don't include it in free-text boxes or uploads.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed them against your rights. You can object at any time (section 9).

3. What we don't do

• We don't sell your personal information or use it for advertising.
• We don't share your profile with employers. Employer search, recruitment tools, job listings, course marketplaces and paid plans are future plans and are not part of the current service.
• AI does not make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects. Recommendations and Coach replies are suggestions for you to consider.

4. AI features

The beta uses AI in four places:

• AI Career Discovery turns what you write about yourself into suggested questionnaire answers. You review and edit them before any recommendations are made. Recommendations are always ranked by our own career-matching rules, not by the AI.
• Discovery explanations rewrite the reasons behind your matches in plainer language. If you reach the daily limit, the standard written reasons are shown instead.
• AI Career Coach answers your questions using your selected career, roadmap progress, skills, qualifications and Career Fit results. It can't change your records.
• Document reading reads subjects, grades and other details from qualification documents you upload, for you to check before saving. It can also compare a document with the details you entered.

To do this, the relevant text, profile context or uploaded document is sent to the Lovable AI Gateway (operated by Lovable), which passes it to an AI model provider — currently OpenAI and Google. Their replies are returned to us. We don't save AI Coach conversations: once you leave the page, the conversation is gone. We do keep your AI Discovery text, the suggested answers and explanations with your discovery profile, and document-check results with your qualification, so you can see them later. [To be supplied: confirmed retention, training-use and processing-location terms of Lovable and the AI model providers]

AI output can be wrong or incomplete. Check important information with official sources before relying on it. Reading a document with AI is not verification: it doesn't prove a document is genuine, and it can never mark a qualification as officially verified.

The configured fair-use limits are up to 30 Coach questions, 10 AI Discovery readings and 10 AI explanations per person per day, resetting at midnight UTC. End-to-end enforcement still needs testing. AI document scans are currently affected by a usage-limit configuration issue; manual qualification entry remains available.

5. Qualification evidence and verification

Each qualification shows one of these statuses:

• Self-declared — entered by you, no evidence.
• Evidence uploaded — you've attached a document.
• Document checked — an automated check found the document consistent with what you entered. This is not official verification.
• Verified by institution / Digitally verified — reserved for confirmation from an authoritative source. These can't be set by you or by AI. No external verification service is connected during the beta.

Uploaded documents are stored privately. Only you can open them, plus Career Platform administrators where needed to review evidence or handle a support request.

6. Who receives your information

We use service providers (processors) who handle data on our behalf, only to provide the service:

• Lovable — builds and hosts the website and provides Lovable Cloud and the AI Gateway.
• Supabase (through Lovable Cloud) — database, sign-in, account emails and file storage. Our database is located in the EU (Ireland region).
• OpenAI and Google — AI model providers, reached through the Lovable AI Gateway, for the AI features above.

Some of these providers, or their sub-processors, may process data outside the UK, for example in the United States. Where that happens, we rely on the safeguards in those providers' terms. [To be supplied: the specific transfer safeguards (e.g. UK International Data Transfer Addendum or UK–US data bridge) confirmed from each provider's data processing terms]

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect the safety and rights of users or others.

7. How long we keep it

• Account, profile, career, skills, qualifications, documents and discovery records: while your account is open. You can edit or delete most items yourself at any time.
• Removed photos and documents: deleted from storage when you remove them.
• Early-access requests: currently retained after a decision unless removed, including when you delete your account. Our proposed policy is to retain resolved requests for up to 6 months, then delete or genuinely anonymise them unless there is a documented lawful reason to retain them longer. This time-based deletion schedule is not yet implemented or tested.
• AI usage counts and product usage events: currently have no automatic age-based deletion schedule. We propose reviewing user-linked records for deletion or genuine anonymisation after 24 months, and sooner where a shorter period meets the purpose. This is a proposed review point, not an operational deletion deadline. Records should be kept only as necessary for security, service operation, abuse prevention and product improvement. AI usage counts are deleted when you delete your account.
• Usage events: linked to your account while it's open. When you delete your account, the account link is removed. The remaining event records (such as which careers were viewed or searched) are kept for aggregate statistics, currently without an automatic deletion deadline. Removing the account link does not establish that these records are anonymous.
• Backups and logs: deleted data may remain in our providers' backups and system logs for a limited period before being overwritten. [To be supplied: backup and log retention period confirmed from Lovable Cloud]

8. Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time from Account settings. This permanently deletes your uploaded documents and profile photo, then your profile, discovery answers, AI usage records, experience, links, career selections, roadmap progress, skills, qualifications and their evidence records, any subscription record, your early-access request and finally your login. Usage events are kept without the link to you, as described above.

9. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• access a copy of your personal information;
• have inaccurate information corrected (most of it you can edit yourself);
• have your information deleted;
• restrict or object to how we use it, including use based on legitimate interests;
• receive information you gave us in a portable format.

To use these rights, contact us at privacy@careerplatform.co.uk. We'll reply within one month. If you're unhappy with how we handle your information, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

10. Security

Data is encrypted in transit. Database access rules mean each user can reach only their own records. Uploaded documents and photos are kept in private storage. Administrator access is limited to designated accounts. No system is completely secure, so please use a strong, unique password and let us know straight away if you suspect a problem.

11. Cookies and similar technologies

We don't use advertising or third-party analytics cookies or trackers. To keep you signed in, we store a sign-in token in your browser's local storage. This is strictly necessary for the service, so it doesn't need consent. Our usage events (section 2) are recorded on our own systems and don't use cookies. Our hosting provider may use technical cookies or scripts needed to deliver the site securely. [To be supplied: confirmation of any cookies or scripts set by the hosting provider on the published site]

12. Age

The controlled beta is for adults aged 18 or over. People under 18 must not create an account or submit personal information. If you believe someone under 18 has provided information, contact privacy@careerplatform.co.uk so we can investigate and take appropriate action. This eligibility rule does not mean we have verified every user's age.

13. Changes

We'll update this policy as the beta changes, and tell you about significant changes by email or in the app.