1. Overview & Scope
This Privacy Policy explains how Defynance, Inc. ("Defynance," "GROW," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects personal information when you use the GROW career coaching website and application (the "Service"), including defynancegrow.com.
This Policy applies to visitors, registered users, and anyone who interacts with our AI career coach. By using the Service, you agree to the practices described here. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.
2. Who We Are
Defynance, Inc. is the entity responsible for GROW and acts as the data controller of the personal information described in this Policy. If you have questions or requests regarding your privacy, contact us at:
- Email: support@defynancegrow.com
3. Personal Data We Collect
We collect the following categories of information:
- Identifiers: name, email address, password (hashed).
- Coaching content: the goals, career and income details, challenges, and questions you share with your GROW coach.
- Coach memory: tokenized summaries derived from your sessions that your coach uses to personalize future conversations (see Section 5).
- Usage data: pages viewed, features used, session timestamps, device and browser type, and approximate location (derived from IP address).
- Payment data: payment details for paid plans are collected and processed by our third-party payment processor; we do not store full card numbers on our own servers.
- Communications: messages you send to our support team.
We do not intentionally collect sensitive categories of personal data (such as health information, racial or ethnic origin, or religious beliefs). Please see Section 5 for important guidance on what not to share with your coach.
4. How and Why We Use Your Data
We use personal data only as needed to provide, personalize, secure, and improve GROW:
| Data We Collect | Why We Use It | Legal Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Account info (name, email, password) | Create and secure your account; communicate with you | Contract (providing the service) |
| Career & goal inputs you share with your coach (career situation, income, goals, challenges) | Power the coaching conversation and give relevant advice | Contract; Legitimate interest (delivering personalized coaching) |
| Coach memory (tokenized summaries of past sessions — goals, career/income context, advice given) | Let your coach continue where you left off instead of asking you to repeat yourself | Legitimate interest (personalized, continuous coaching) |
| Usage & device data (pages visited, session length, browser/device type) | Improve GROW, fix bugs, understand feature usage | Legitimate interest (product improvement) |
| Payments data (via our payment processor) | Process subscription/purchase | Contract |
| Support communications (emails, chat messages to us) | Respond to your questions and requests | Contract; Legitimate interest |
5. Coach Memory
To make coaching more useful, your GROW career coach remembers relevant details from your previous sessions — the goals you've shared, your career and income situation, and advice you've discussed — so it can continue where you left off instead of asking you to repeat yourself.
Coach memory is on by default. We protect it in three ways:
- Tokenization. Personal identifiers such as your name are replaced with tokens before anything is stored, so the memory itself does not contain them.
- Our own infrastructure. The memory is held on infrastructure we operate and secure, not on a third-party memory service.
- Contractual protection where your information is processed. Where personal information is involved, the AI providers that help process it operate under data-processing agreements that prohibit using your data to train their models and require that inputs and outputs are not retained beyond serving your request (see Section 6).
We rely on this memory to provide and improve a personalized coaching service (our legitimate interest in delivering the product).
You can turn coach memory off at any time in Settings → Coach Memory. Doing so permanently erases everything the coach has remembered about you.
Please don't share sensitive information such as health or medical details with the coach. To exercise your data rights, contact support@defynancegrow.com.
6. AI Processing & How We Choose Providers
GROW's coaching features are powered by third-party AI providers. When you interact with your coach, your messages and relevant coach memory are sent to these providers to generate a response. We limit what is shared to what's needed to power the coaching conversation.
Some GROW features also process your information in ways that do not involve your personal details:
- Web search. Your coach can look up current, real-world information (for example, salary ranges or company details) to answer you accurately. Search queries are stripped of personal identifiers before they are sent, and our search provider operates under zero-data-retention terms and does not use the queries to train models.
- Matching and recommendations. To match you to relevant roles and opportunities, we convert job and profile content into numerical representations. This process operates on content stripped of direct identifiers.
How we screen and govern AI providers. We do not choose AI providers on capability alone. Before any provider handles your personal information, we require:
- A data-processing agreement that prohibits using your data to train or improve their models;
- A zero-retention commitment — inputs and outputs are not retained beyond what is needed to serve your request;
- Independent security attestation (such as SOC 2) and appropriate technical and organizational security measures.
Providers that have not met the data-processing bar above are used only for processing that does not involve your personal information — never for content that identifies you.
We deliberately do not list individual vendor names in this Policy, because our providers change as the technology does, and a stale list serves no one. If you would like the current list of our AI sub-processors, email support@defynancegrow.com and we will provide it.
7. Data Retention
We retain personal data only as long as necessary for the purposes described in this Policy, or as required by law:
| Data Type | Retention Period |
|---|---|
| Account information | For as long as your account is active, plus 30 days after deletion to allow recovery |
| Coach memory | Retained until you turn Coach Memory off in Settings, or delete your account — either action permanently erases it |
| Session/conversation content | 90 days, then deleted or fully de-identified |
| Usage & analytics data | Up to 12 months, then aggregated or deleted |
| Support communications | Up to 2 years for quality and legal purposes |
| Billing records | 7 years, for legal and tax compliance |
8. Sharing & Disclosure
We do not sell your personal information. We may share personal data with:
- Service providers who help us operate GROW (for example, cloud hosting, AI model providers, analytics, and customer support tools), bound by contract to use data only as we instruct. For the current list, email support@defynancegrow.com.
- Payment processors, to process transactions.
- Legal & safety: where required by law, regulation, legal process, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Defynance, our users, or others.
- Business transfers: in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, subject to the protections of this Policy.
9. Security
We use technical and organizational measures designed to protect your personal data, including:
- Tokenization of personal identifiers (such as your name) before coach memory is stored.
- Storage of coach memory on our own secured infrastructure.
- Contractual no-training and no-retention terms with the AI providers that process personal information.
- Encryption of data in transit and at rest.
- Access controls limiting who at Defynance can access personal data.
No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
10. Your Privacy Rights
Depending on your state of residence, you may have rights under laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA) and similar state privacy laws, including the right to:
- Know what personal data we collect, use, and disclose about you.
- Access a copy of your personal data.
- Correct inaccurate personal data.
- Delete your personal data — including coach memory specifically, without deleting your account, via Settings → Coach Memory.
- Opt out of the sale or sharing of personal data (Defynance does not sell personal data).
- Non-discrimination for exercising these rights.
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@defynancegrow.com. We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling a request. If you are located outside the United States, you may have additional or different rights under local law (e.g., GDPR); contact us and we will address your request under the applicable framework.
11. Children's Privacy
GROW is intended for users who are 18 years of age or older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have collected personal data from a user under 18, we will delete it promptly. If you believe a minor has provided us with personal data, contact support@defynancegrow.com.
12. International Users
GROW is operated from the United States and primarily serves users located in the United States. If you access the Service from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States, where data protection laws may differ from those in your jurisdiction.
13. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you (e.g., by email or an in-app notice) and update the "Last updated" date above. Your continued use of GROW after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.
14. Contact Us
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your data, contact us at:
- Email: support@defynancegrow.com