Legal

Privacy policy

Last updated 24 October 2026

This policy explains what personal data SweatEquityHub (“we”, “us”) collects when you use sweatequityhub.com, why we collect it, who can see it, how long we keep it and the rights you have. We do not sell your personal data or share it with advertisers.

Who is responsible. SweatEquityHub is an early-stage project that is not yet incorporated. It is responsible for the personal data described here (the “data controller”) and can be contacted at admin@sweatequityhub.com. When a company is formed to run SweatEquityHub, we will name it here and tell members.

1. What we collect

• Account: your name, email address, account type (company, contributor or advisor) and your password, which we store only in scrambled (hashed) form.
• Profile: anything you add to your profile, such as a photo, headline, skills, location and links, a CV if you upload one (kept private and only shared with companies you apply to), and company details you save to reuse in listings.
• Projects and applications: listings you post, applications you send (including cover letters and CVs you upload) and their status.
• Messages: the messages and files you exchange with other members, private notes you keep on a conversation (only you can see them), and members you block.
• Agreements and milestones: proposed and agreed terms, every revision, the typed name and title you sign with, the time of signing, review notes, milestone updates and evidence files you upload.
• Advisor applications: for professional advisors, your profession, jurisdictions, licence or registration details and professional email.
• Security records: failed login attempts (the email or username tried, and the time), used to block password guessing for 15 minutes; and technical error records (the page address and error message, without your identity).
• Visitor statistics: daily counts of page views, of visitors and of the websites that linked to us. To count each visitor once per day, we combine your IP address and browser type with a secret that changes every day and keep only the scrambled result for two days. We do not store your IP address, use tracking cookies or build a profile of you.

2. Why we use it

• To provide the service you signed up for: your account, listings, applications, messaging, agreements and milestones (performance of our contract with you).
• To email you about activity on your account, such as new messages, applications and agreement changes. You can turn these emails off on your account page; we will still send essential emails such as email confirmation and password resets.
• To keep the platform safe: confirming email addresses, preventing spam and fraud, handling reports and enforcing our Terms of use (our legitimate interest in a trustworthy platform).
• To understand, in total numbers only, how the site is used so we can improve it (legitimate interest).
• To meet legal obligations and to establish or defend legal claims.

3. Who can see your data

• Everyone: open project listings and, for verified advisors, your directory entry.
• Companies on SweatEquityHub: if you turn on “Show my profile in Find talent”, your name, picture, headline, skills, country, availability, experience, languages and summary (never your email). You can turn this off at any time on your profile.
• The other member involved: a company sees the applications sent to its projects (including CVs); both parties see their messages, agreements, signatures and milestones.
• Independent reviewers you invite see the agreement you share with them through a one-time link.
• SweatEquityHub administrators can see account and listing details to run and protect the platform. Messages are private: an administrator can open a conversation only after one of its participants reports it, and every such opening is recorded.
• Service providers: our hosting provider (StablePoint, servers in Frankfurt, Germany) stores the site, its database, files and backups, and our own mail server sends our emails. They process data only on our instructions. Our source code is stored at GitHub; it contains no member data, except for encrypted backup copies that cannot be read without a key that only we hold.
• Authorities, where the law requires it.

4. How long we keep it

• Your account and profile: until you close your account. You can do this yourself on your account page, either straight away or with 30 days to change your mind.
• Agreements that were never signed (withdrawn, or abandoned during negotiation): 3 years after they ended, then anonymised.
• Signed agreements, with their revisions, signatures and milestone records: these record who owns or is owed what, and disputes about that can arise many years later, typically when a company is sold. We therefore keep them for as long as equity or other rights under the agreement exist (for example while the shares or the company exist). Once the company records that no such rights remain, we keep the record for 10 more years and then anonymise it.
• An agreement involved in a dispute or legal claim is kept in full until that is resolved.
• Closing your account does not shorten these periods, because the other party relies on the record: the name you signed with stays on documents you signed, while the rest of your personal data is removed.
• Anonymised means we remove names, signatures, contact details and evidence files and keep only the terms and outcome of the deal, which no longer identify anyone. We may keep anonymised data indefinitely, for example for statistics about how sweat-equity deals work.
• Messages: kept while the conversation exists, so both people keep their record; when you close your account the files you shared are deleted and your messages stay for the other person, shown as from “Former member”.
• Failed login records: 24 hours. Error records: 30 days. Visitor hashes: 2 days (daily totals are kept).
• Backups: daily backups are kept for up to 30 days and then deleted.

5. Cookies

We use only cookies that the site needs to work: one that keeps you logged in (30 days, or until you log out). We do not use advertising or tracking cookies, so we do not show a cookie banner.

6. Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict or object to how we use it, and to receive it in a portable format. Most of your data can be viewed and edited directly on your account and profile pages, and you can close your account there at any time (records we must keep are explained in section 4). For anything else, email admin@sweatequityhub.com and we will reply within one month. If you are in the EU, EEA or UK you can also complain to your local data protection authority.

7. Security

Connections to the site are encrypted, passwords are stored only in hashed form, private files (CVs, milestone evidence) are only available to the members involved, and access to the administration area is restricted and logged. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your data we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

8. Age

SweatEquityHub is for people aged 18 or over. We do not knowingly collect data about children.

9. Changes and contact

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will tell members by email or on the site before the change takes effect. Questions: admin@sweatequityhub.com.