Privacy Policy

This policy explains what information Profile.af collects, how it is used, and the choices you have. We have kept it short and in plain language.

1. What we collect

Account information. To create an account we need a username and an email address. You then choose how you sign in: with a password, with a Google account, or with both. If you set a password it is stored only as a hash — it is not readable by us, it is never shown on your profile, and nobody will ever ask you for it. We also keep security information tied to your account: when and from roughly where you signed in, the devices used, and whether sign-in codes are on.

Signing in with Google. If you choose that route, Google tells us an identifier for your Google account, your email address, your name and your profile picture. We keep the identifier because it — not the email address — is what recognises you next time, and we use the picture as a starting avatar until you upload your own. We never receive your Google password. You can connect or disconnect Google from your settings at any time.

Profile information. Everything after that is your choice: your name, headline, bio, links, work experience, education, skills, projects, services, certificates, awards, languages and any testimonials you choose to publish, together with the files and images you upload. You may also add contact details — a public email address and a phone number — and a location.

Messages. If someone writes to you through your profile’s contact form, we store that message so you can read and reply to it.

Payments. Paid plans are arranged manually. We keep a record of the payment request, what was activated and when. We do not store card details.

Invitations. If you join through someone’s invitation link, we record that they invited you. They can see that you joined, the date, and how far your profile has progressed toward their reward. They see your name only once your profile is public; until then they see a shortened form of your username. They never see your email address or anything you have kept private. To recognise duplicate or repeated sign-ups we keep a one-way, keyed fingerprint of your email address and of the network you signed up from, not the address itself.

2. What is public and what is not

Your profile is private until you choose otherwise. Two settings under Privacy in your dashboard control the page itself: one makes it reachable at its own link, and the other lists it in Explore, in search results and in the sitemap. A profile is also reviewed before it becomes publicly reachable, so turning the first setting on does not publish it immediately.

Individual fields have their own controls. This is not all or nothing. Your public email address and phone number are hidden unless you turn them on, and your city and country are shown unless you turn them off. Those four choices apply everywhere a stranger can see you — your profile page, every theme, Explore, search, and your public CV — because they are applied once, when the data is read, rather than by each page deciding for itself.

Your full address is never published. The location field you can fill in for your own use is internal. No setting publishes it, and the most a visitor can see is your city and country, each subject to its own switch above.

Your CV is two different documents. The one you download for yourself can contain contact details you have chosen to keep off your public profile. The one published at your public CV link is filtered by exactly the settings above, so it can never contain more than your profile does.

Hiding a field also makes it unsearchable: a detail you have turned off cannot be used to find you in Explore.

Your account email and password are never shown on your profile. A contact email appears there only if you add one yourself and switch it on.

3. How we use it

To operate the platform and provide its features, to keep accounts secure, to prevent fraud and abuse, to understand how the service is used so we can improve its performance and reliability, and to contact you about your account. We also use it to review profiles and images before they are published, as described in the Terms.

4. Technical and usage information

As with any website, a limited amount of technical information is processed when you visit — the kind of device and browser you are using, the pages you view, and an approximate location, at country, region or city level, derived from your connection. We use this for security, fraud and abuse prevention, analytics and performance. It is never precise location data, and we do not store raw IP addresses in our analytics.

Security records are different, and they do contain your IP address. Sign-in attempts, messages sent through a contact form, feedback, reports about a profile, and administrative actions are each stored with the address they came from. These records exist to stop abuse, to investigate it when it happens, and to keep a trail of what was done to an account. They are held apart from the usage statistics described above and are not used to build a picture of what you browse.

We use a small number of our own cookies: one keeps you signed in, and others help us tell repeat visits apart and recognise the devices you sign in from. If you open an invitation link, one more cookie remembers the invitation for up to 30 days so it still applies when you finish signing up. We do not use third-party advertising or tracking cookies.

If your profile is public you can see aggregated statistics about visits to it, such as the countries visitors came from. Profile owners never see a visitor’s identity or address.

5. Sharing

We do not sell your personal data. We rely on a small number of trusted providers to run the service — hosting, email delivery and payment handling — and they may only use your information to provide that service to us. We may disclose information where the law requires it, or where it is necessary to protect the platform and the people using it.

6. Security

Passwords are hashed. You can turn on sign-in codes, review the devices and recent activity on your account, and end every session at once. Internal access is limited to what is needed to operate and support the service, and administrative actions on accounts are recorded. No online service can guarantee complete security, but we treat it seriously and act promptly when something needs attention.

7. Your choices

From your dashboard you can review and update your account and profile information, add or remove individual items such as projects, skills and uploads, change what appears publicly at both the page and the field level, preview your profile as a visitor sees it, export your CV, and delete your account. If you need help with any of this, please get in touch.

8. Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time. Access ends and your public profile stops being visible immediately. There is then a limited restoration window — shown to you when you delete — during which signing back in restores everything.

After that window your account can no longer be restored by you. Your information is retained for a further minimum period before personal fields are replaced with anonymous placeholders. We keep that limited set of records for longer only where we need to: to meet legal and accounting obligations, to protect the security of the platform, and to prevent fraud and abuse. Records that must survive for those reasons — such as a payment record — are kept without the personal details attached to them.

9. Changes

We may update this policy as the service develops. If we make a significant change we will make it clear on this page and update the date at the top.

10. Contact

If you have a question about privacy or your data, email hello@profile.af.