Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Interstack Ltd ("Interstack", "we", "us"), a company registered in England and Wales with company number 16321411, is the data controller for the personal information described in this policy. It covers our website, enquiries about our software development services, and Interstack Stories, our community where members build profiles, share career stories, message each other and post or apply for jobs.

2. What we collect

2.1 What you give us

• Account: your name, email address and password. If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address, Google account ID and profile picture from Google.
• Profile: anything you add, such as your headline, bio, experience, education, skills, location, links, photo, CV, phone number, address, and birth month and year or age.
• Stories: the videos and written stories you submit, and any recordings our team prepares with you.
• Messages and calls: the messages you send, when they were read, and the calls you schedule. Video calls connect your browser directly to the other person's. We do not record calls.
• Jobs: jobs you post, and applications you send, including any cover letter.
• Ratings: ratings and comments you leave on other members' profiles.
• Safety: people you block, reports you make, and reports made about you.
• Enquiries: what you send through our contact forms, live chat or newsletter sign-up.

2.2 What we collect automatically

• Device and browser details, IP address, and the approximate location worked out from it
• Pages you visit and actions you take, to keep the service working and improve it. To count how many different people visit, we keep a scrambled code made from your connection and browser, never the IP address itself, and delete it with the visit after about a year. No cookie is used for this.
• Whether you are online, and when you were last active, so we can show your online status in conversations and decide whether to email you about new messages

3. Who can see what

• Signed-in members, while "Visible to members" is on: your profile, including your headline, bio, experience, education, skills, location, links, photo, CV, stories, the ratings others have left you, and a short AI-written summary of your profile. They can also message you.
• Your contact details, meaning your email address, phone number and address, are only shown to members who can see your profile, and only while "Share my contact details" is on. If you joined before Interstack opened to everyone, we turned this off for you.
• Anyone on the internet, while "Show my stories publicly" is on: your approved stories on the public Stories pages, with your name, headline, location, bio, skills and links to your CV, LinkedIn, GitHub and portfolio if you have added them. Search engines can list these pages.
• Anyone with your public profile link, if you create one from Share my profile: your bio, experience, skills, location and CV. The link stops working while your profile is hidden, and search engines only list it while your stories are public.
• People you message see your name, profile picture and headline, whether you are online, and when you have read their messages.
• People whose jobs you apply for see your profile and your application.
• People you rate, and anyone who can see their profile, see your name next to your rating.
• People you block can no longer see your profile or contact you. They are not told that you blocked them.
• People you report are not told who reported them.
• Our team can see your account to run the service, review stories, and deal with reports and support requests.

You can change any of these settings at any time in Visibility and privacy.

4. How we use it, and why we are allowed to

• To run your account and the service, including your profile, stories, messages, calls, jobs and emails about activity on your account. We do this to provide the service you signed up for (contract).
• To keep Interstack safe: checking for spam and abuse, limiting how many new conversations a member can start, handling blocks and reports, and suspending accounts that break our rules. When something is reported, we may look at the profile, content or conversation involved. We do this because we have a legitimate interest in keeping members safe, and to meet our legal obligations.
• To review stories before they appear on the public Stories pages, and to share public stories on our own channels to promote Interstack Stories (legitimate interests, and the choices you make in your settings).
• To help you with AI features, such as drafting your profile from your CV and writing a short summary of your profile (contract, and legitimate interests).
• To reply to enquiries and provide support (legitimate interests, or steps before a contract if you ask us about a project).
• To send newsletters, only if you sign up (consent, which you can withdraw at any time).
• To understand and improve the service through usage analytics (legitimate interests).
• To meet legal obligations, such as keeping records of payments for our former paid plan (legal obligation).

5. Cookies

We use cookies to keep you signed in, remember your preferences and keep forms secure, and some third-party services set their own cookies. Our Cookie Policy has the details and lets you change your choices.

6. Sharing your information

We do not sell, trade or rent your personal information. Apart from what other members can see as described in section 3, we only share it with the service providers below, when the law requires it, to protect people's safety or our rights, as part of a sale or merger of our business, or with your consent.

We use these providers to run the website and our products. Each receives only what it needs for its purpose.

• Anthropic (Claude), AI processing: messages sent through our contact forms are checked automatically to filter out spam and nonsense. If you use the CV import or profile drafting features, the CV and profile details you provide are processed to suggest profile content for you to review, and your profile and story are used to write the short summary shown on your profile. When you share a story, its title, summary, text or transcript, cover image and a few still frames from any video are checked against our community rules before it is published, and if you upload a video, its transcript is used to suggest an edited version, a title and a summary for you to review.
• Groq, speech to text: the sound from videos you upload as stories is sent to Groq to produce a transcript. The transcript is used for captions, the suggested edit and the community check, and is shown with your story.
• OpenAI, AI processing: used in our internal tools to help draft newsletter and job listing content.
• Google: sign-in with Google if you choose it, and Google's public servers that help two browsers find each other at the start of a video call, which see your IP address.
• Google reCAPTCHA, security: protects our forms from bots by analysing how the form is used and information about your device and browser.
• Tawk.to, live chat: runs our live chat. It is only loaded when you open it from a Live chat link, and then receives any messages you send through it, along with basic device information. Pages do not contact it otherwise.
• Email delivery and hosting providers: send our emails and host the website and its data.

Some of these providers are based outside the UK, including in the United States, so your information may be processed there. Where this happens, we take steps to make sure appropriate safeguards are in place.

Automated checks: the spam check on our contact forms can stop a message from being sent if it does not look like a genuine enquiry, and the daily limits on new conversations and new stories are applied automatically. Stories are checked automatically against our community rules: a story that passes is published straight away, and one that does not is held back and we tell you why. You can edit and resubmit it, or ask a person on our team to review the decision from your story page. Decisions to suspend an account are always made by a person. If you think a check got it wrong, email hello@interstack.net and we will review it.

7. How long we keep it

• Your account, profile, stories and ratings: until you delete them or your account.
• Messages: for as long as both accounts exist, so both people keep their conversation history. Deleting your account deletes your conversations for both people.
• Job listings and applications: until the listing or your account is deleted.
• Blocks: until you unblock the person or either account is deleted.
• Reports and suspensions: for as long as we need them to keep the service safe and handle any dispute.
• Payment records for our former paid plan: as long as the law requires.
• Enquiries and newsletter sign-ups: until we have dealt with your enquiry, or until you unsubscribe.

We may keep backups for a short time after deletion, and some information where the law requires it.

8. Your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask us to:

• give you a copy of your information (you can also download it yourself from Account settings)
• correct it if it is wrong
• delete it (you can also delete your account yourself from Account settings)
• limit how we use it, or stop using it where we rely on legitimate interests
• send it to you or another service in a portable format
• stop sending you newsletters, or withdraw any other consent

Email hello@interstack.net to use any of these rights. If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk, but please talk to us first.

9. Security

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information, and you can turn on two-factor authentication for your account. No system is completely secure, so please use a strong password and tell us straight away if you think your account has been misused.

10. Children

Interstack is not for anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly collect information from children. If you think a child has given us information, please tell us and we will delete it.

11. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when the service changes, and change the date at the top. If a change affects who can see your information, we will tell you by email or in your dashboard before it takes effect.

12. Contact us