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LEGAL · TRADESBRIDGE

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Privacy Policy

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Effective July 1, 2026

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SECTION 1

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Who we are

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TradesBridge is a mobile and web platform operated by The TradesBridge Network Inc, a Connecticut nonprofit corporation recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) public charity under section 509(a)(2) (determination effective July 1, 2026). Throughout this policy “we,” “us,” and “TradesBridge” refer to that organization. “You” means anyone who visits the site, downloads the app, or creates an account.

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Our contact address for privacy questions is info@thetradesbridgenetwork.com.

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SECTION 2

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What we collect

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We collect the following categories of information:

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Account data — name, email, password (hashed with bcrypt), role (student / employer / supplier / school faculty / management), and, where applicable, organization or school name, trade or career interest, grade level, graduation date, phone, city, and state.
Application data — scholarship applications (household size, income band, employment status, reason, essay PDF), portfolio items, certifications, letters of recommendation, mentor requests, apprenticeship applications, and community board posts / comments / votes you submit.
Payment metadata — order line items, amounts, tier, and Stripe / PayPal session references. We do not receive or store full card numbers; those are handled directly by Stripe and PayPal on their own PCI-compliant surfaces.
Support & concierge data — contact-form submissions, ticket replies, and chatbot session messages (used to answer follow-up questions and improve the concierge).
Device & usage data — anonymous visit counter, crash logs, and API request timestamps used for rate limiting and diagnostics. We do not sell or share this data with advertisers.

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SECTION 3

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How we use it

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We process the data above to:

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Operate your account, portal access, and role-based features.
Match students with sponsors, mentors, apprenticeships, and scholarships.
Process orders, sponsor pledges, tax-deductible donations, and payouts.
Send transactional and account emails (receipts, verifications, review status).
Respond to your support tickets and concierge questions.
Prevent fraud, brute-force login attempts, and abuse.
Comply with tax, audit, and nonprofit reporting obligations.

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SECTION 4

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Who we share it with

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We only share your data with the third-party service providers that keep TradesBridge running. Each vendor is contractually bound to protect it. We do not sell your personal data.

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Stripe, Inc. — payment processing for tool orders, sponsor pledges, and donations.
PayPal, Inc. — alternative payment method offered inside Stripe Checkout, and direct-donation flow on the About page.
Resend — transactional email delivery and inbound-reply routing for our Ticket Hub.
Anthropic (via Emergent LLM aggregator) — powers the “Ace” virtual concierge chatbot. Only the content of your chatbot messages is sent to the model provider; it is not used to train foundation models.
Google Sheets (via service account) — used for read-only bidirectional syncing of program-level reporting data (aggregate stats only, not individual identifiers).
MongoDB Atlas / hosting provider — encrypted-at-rest database used to persist your account data.
Law enforcement — we may disclose data when compelled by a valid subpoena, court order, or to protect the safety of a minor or the platform.

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SECTION 5

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How long we keep it

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We retain account data for as long as your account is active and for up to 7 years after closure to comply with nonprofit tax-recordkeeping requirements. Scholarship applications, sponsor pledges, and donation receipts are retained for the same period. Chatbot messages older than 12 months are automatically purged.

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SECTION 6

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Your rights

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Regardless of where you live, you can email info@thetradesbridgenetwork.com to:

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Access a copy of the data we hold about you.
Correct anything that's inaccurate.
Delete your account (subject to the retention rules above).
Withdraw consent for optional communications.
Request that we not share your data (subject to legal obligations we cannot waive).

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California residents have additional rights under the CCPA / CPRA (right to know, right to delete, right to opt out of sale — we do not sell). EEA/UK residents have equivalent rights under GDPR. Contact us and we will respond within 30 days.

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SECTION 7

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Minors

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TradesBridge is intended for individuals age 13 and older. Students under 18 who register for a Future Aces account are asked to confirm parental / guardian consent during the scholarship-application flow. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, please email us and we will delete it.

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SECTION 8

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Security

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Passwords are hashed with bcrypt. Session tokens use JWT with server-side secret rotation. Data in transit is protected by TLS 1.2+. Sensitive fields (uploaded documents, essay PDFs) are stored as base64 blobs in an encrypted-at-rest MongoDB cluster. No system is perfect — if you suspect a security issue, please write to us immediately.

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SECTION 9

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Cookies & local storage

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On the web we use a single first-party cookie / local-storage entry to keep you signed in and to remember your concierge session id. In the native app we use device-secure storage for the same purpose. We do not use third-party advertising cookies.

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SECTION 10

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Changes to this policy

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Material changes will be announced in-app and by email at least seven days before they take effect. The current effective date is shown at the top of this page.

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SECTION 11

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Contact

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Questions? Corrections? Data requests? Write to us at info@thetradesbridgenetwork.com. We read every message.

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Registered 501(c)(3) public charity

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Determination effective July 1, 2026

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