Legal

Pathfinder is an online career alignment platform designed for young people aged 16 to 25, operated by Valentine Stockdale and delivered in partnership with Synapse Health. Where this policy refers to "we", "us", or "our", it means the Pathfinder service and its operators.

Our service is likely to be accessed by young people under the age of 18. We take our obligations under the UK Children's Code (Age Appropriate Design Code) seriously, and this policy reflects the elevated standard of care that applies to the processing of their data.

We collect the following categories of personal data:

Application data collected when you submit the application form: your first name, last name, email address, age range, country of residence, current situation, educational institution (if applicable), and your responses to the direction and aspiration questions.

Programme data collected during your use of the platform: the four Ikigai lists you submit (what you love, what you are good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs), and the career alignment report generated from that data.

Survey responses collected before and after your report is generated: clarity, confidence, and motivation scores.

Workshop data: your selected workshop session and attendance-related information.

Usage data: how you interact with the platform. This is used to improve the service and is not used for profiling or advertising.

We collect only the data necessary to deliver the service. We do not collect special category data and we do not use tracking cookies for advertising purposes.

Your data is used exclusively to:

• Deliver your Pathfinder experience, including generating your personalised career alignment report
• Send you workshop confirmation, reminder, and access emails
• Understand the impact of the programme through anonymised aggregate analysis
• Improve the platform based on usage patterns and feedback
• Comply with our legal obligations

We do not use your data for advertising, profiling for commercial purposes, or any purpose unrelated to delivering the Pathfinder programme.

AI processing: Your Ikigai list data is processed by an AI model to identify career alignment themes and generate your personalised report. This processing is described in our AI Policy tab. The AI generates a report based exclusively on data you submitted — it does not access external information about you. The report is a tool to support your own thinking, not a binding recommendation.

We process your personal data on the following lawful bases under UK GDPR:

Consent — for receiving marketing communications (optional) and for the processing of your Ikigai data to generate your report. You provide this consent when submitting the application form. You may withdraw consent at any time.

Contract — for delivering the programme you have applied for, including sending workshop and access emails.

Legitimate interests — for anonymised usage analytics used to improve the platform, where those interests do not override your rights.

Pathfinder is designed for young people aged 16 to 25. We comply with the UK Children's Code (Age Appropriate Design Code) as published by the Information Commissioner's Office.

In the UK, young people aged 13 and above may provide their own valid consent for online data processing. Our service is available to users aged 16 and above.

In accordance with the Children's Code, we:

• Collect only the minimum data necessary to deliver the service
• Apply the highest privacy settings by default
• Do not use data for commercial profiling or targeted advertising
• Present privacy information in plain, accessible language
• Do not use dark patterns or manipulative design
• Do not share data with third parties except as necessary to deliver the service

Your personal data, including your Ikigai lists and generated report, is retained indefinitely for as long as you have an active account. This is intentional: a key feature of Pathfinder is that your report remains accessible to you years into the future.

If you request deletion of your account and data, we will delete all personal data within 30 days. Survey response data used in aggregate programme analysis will be anonymised rather than deleted.

Workshop and access email logs are retained for 12 months.

We use the following third-party services to deliver Pathfinder:

Supabase — our hosting and database infrastructure. SOC 2 Type II certified and fully GDPR compliant. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest.

Google LLC — AI processing for report generation. Certified under the UK-US Data Bridge. Your data is processed under a formal Data Processing Agreement. Google does not use your data to train public AI models.

Resend — transactional email delivery. Used solely to send programme-related emails.

We do not sell your data. We do not share your data with third parties for their own marketing or commercial purposes.

Under UK GDPR you have the right to access, correct, delete, and port your personal data. You may also object to processing, withdraw consent at any time, and request human review of any AI-assisted output.

To exercise any of these rights, contact your programme coordinator at Synapse Health. All data protection enquiries are handled within 5 working days.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

All data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest. Access to personal data is restricted to those who need it to deliver the service.