Privacy Policy

Ariadne is a mobile app that helps university students prepare for careers in finance: practice questions, interview preparation, firm tracking, networking and a recruiting calendar. This policy explains what personal data Ariadne collects, why, who it is shared with, how long it is kept and the rights you have. It covers the Ariadne apps for iOS and Android and the website getariadne.xyz.

In short: we collect what you give us to run the app for you. We do not sell your data, we do not show ads, we do not use your data for advertising, and we do not use your data to train AI models.

1. Who is responsible

The controller of your personal data is Ariadne, operated by Ksawery Bednarek — contact@getariadne.xyz ("Ariadne", "we", "us"). For anything about your data, write to contact@getariadne.xyz.

2. Data we collect

Account and sign-in

• Email and password sign-in: your email address and a password (stored only as a secure hash by our authentication provider).
• Sign in with Google: we receive your name, email address, profile picture URL and your Google account identifier. We request only the basic openid, email and profile scopes. We do not access your Gmail, Google Drive, contacts, calendar or any other Google data.
• Sign in with Microsoft: your name, email address and Microsoft account identifier.
• Sign in with Apple: your email address (or Apple's private relay address) and, if you share it, your name.

Profile you fill in during onboarding

First and last name, university and degree programme, year of study and expected graduation, the finance tracks and recruiting cycles you target, preferred locations and languages, internship experience, rough ranges for your grades, networking and events, how you heard about Ariadne and any referral code. We also ask for your date of birth and your countries of birth and residence; we use these only to show which locations may need visa sponsorship and to tailor timelines. You can skip optional questions and change your answers in Settings.

What you create in the app

• Practice answers, scores, written stories and, if you choose to record them, voice recordings of your answers (stored privately; only you can play them).
• Weekly to-dos, firms you track and your notes about them, application status updates.
• Calendar events you add, interview details and post-interview reports (questions asked, difficulty, how it went).
• Networking contacts you add: names, roles, firms, schools, email addresses, LinkedIn links and your notes. These are personal data of other people; add only what you are entitled to keep, and we use it only to show it back to you.
• Wall of Fame: if you submit an offer, the entry (display name, school, role, firm, track, quote and optional LinkedIn link) is reviewed and, once approved, shown publicly to other Ariadne users.
• Questions you submit for the question bank and bug reports, including any screenshot you attach.

Activity and device

• Activity in the app (answers, reads, streaks, experience points and skill scores) to track your progress.
• Your time zone, so reminders arrive at the right local time.
• A push notification identifier for your device, if you allow notifications.
• If you turn on calendar sync, Ariadne creates its own "Ariadne" calendar on your phone and writes your Ariadne events to it. It reads back only that calendar, to pick up edits you make there. It does not read your other calendars.
• Home-screen widgets show a summary of your streak, today's tasks, upcoming events and preparedness. That summary is stored on your device, together with a revocable access key that lets the widget mark a to-do done or postpone a follow-up without opening the app.

We do not use advertising identifiers, third-party analytics or tracking SDKs, and we do not collect your precise location.

3. How we use your data

• To create and secure your account and sign you in.
• To provide the app: personalised practice, your preparation plan, firm pages, calendar, networking reminders, progress and widgets.
• To send the notifications you asked for (practice reminders, follow-ups, deadlines, news and deal alerts for firms you track), and transactional emails such as sign-up confirmation and password reset.
• To review Wall of Fame entries and question submissions before publishing them.
• To fix bugs you report and keep the service secure and free from abuse.

Firm news in the app comes from public press releases and news sources and is matched to firms you track. No personal data is used to produce it. If AI summaries of news are turned on, only public news text is sent to the AI provider, never your personal data.

4. Google user data

This section explains exactly how Ariadne handles data it receives when you choose "Continue with Google".

What we access

Ariadne requests only the basic Google sign-in scopes openid, email and profile. Through them we receive: your name, your email address (and whether Google has verified it), your profile picture URL and your Google account identifier. We do not request or receive access to Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Contacts or any other Google service or data.

How we use it

• Your Google account identifier and email address are used to create your Ariadne account and to sign you in on later visits.
• Your email address is used to contact you about your account (for example, a reply to a support request) and is shown to you in Settings.
• Your name is used to pre-fill your profile and to greet you in the app. Your profile picture URL is stored with your sign-in record and is not shown to other users.

We use Google user data only to provide and improve these user-facing features. We do not use it for any other purpose.

How we store and protect it

Google user data is stored in our authentication database run by Supabase in the European Union (Ireland). It is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest, protected by row-level security so that only your own signed-in account can read it, and accessible to our staff only where needed to provide support or keep the service secure. Sign-in tokens are kept in your device's secure storage (iOS Keychain, Android Keystore).

How we share it

We do not sell Google user data and do not share it with anyone for advertising. It is processed only by Supabase, which hosts our database and sign-in on our behalf under a data processing agreement. We may disclose it only if required by law, or to protect the safety and rights of users, and never to data brokers or information resellers.

How long we keep it and how to delete it

We keep Google user data for as long as your Ariadne account exists. When you delete your account in the app (Settings → Danger zone → Delete account), your Google user data is deleted immediately, and any copies in our provider's backups expire within 30 days. You can also email contact@getariadne.xyz to request deletion. You can remove Ariadne's access to your Google account at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions; this stops future Google sign-ins but does not delete your Ariadne account.

Limited Use

Ariadne's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. In particular, we do not:

• use or transfer Google user data for serving advertisements, including retargeting, personalised or interest-based advertising;
• sell Google user data, or transfer it to data brokers or information resellers;
• use Google user data to determine credit-worthiness or for lending purposes;
• use Google user data to develop, improve or train generalised or non-personalised AI or machine-learning models;
• allow humans to read Google user data, unless you give your consent, it is necessary for security purposes such as investigating abuse, it is required to comply with applicable law, or the data is aggregated and anonymised for internal operations.

5. Legal bases (EEA and UK)

• Contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR): running your account and the features you use.
• Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)): push notifications, calendar sync, microphone recordings, photos for bug reports and publishing a Wall of Fame entry. You can withdraw consent at any time in the app or in your phone's settings.
• Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)): keeping the service secure, preventing abuse and fixing errors.
• Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)): where the law requires us to keep or disclose data.

6. Who we share data with

We use these service providers to run Ariadne. They process data only on our instructions.

Where data leaves the EEA, the transfer is covered by the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses. We do not sell personal data and do not share it for advertising. We may disclose data if the law requires it or to protect the rights and safety of users.

7. How long we keep it

• Your account data is kept while your account exists.
• When you delete your account (Settings → Danger zone → Delete account), we delete your profile, everything you created and your files straight away. Copies in our provider's backups expire within 30 days.
• Revoked widget access keys and sent notification records are deleted with your account.
• Bug reports are kept until the issue is resolved and for up to 12 months after.

8. Your rights

You can access, correct, export or delete your data, object to or restrict its processing, and withdraw consent at any time. Most of this you can do in the app (edit your profile, turn notifications and calendar sync off, delete your account). For anything else, email contact@getariadne.xyz; we answer within one month. You can also complain to your data protection authority; in Poland this is the President of the Personal Data Protection Office (UODO), uodo.gov.pl.

9. Security

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access is restricted by row-level security, so each account can read only its own data. Voice recordings and screenshots are stored in private storage. Widget access keys are stored only as one-way hashes and can be revoked by signing out.

10. Children

Ariadne is meant for university students and is not directed at anyone under 16. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 16; if you believe a child has given us data, contact us and we will delete it.

11. Changes

We will update this page when our practices change and change the date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use your data, we will tell you in the app before it applies.

12. Contact

Ariadne, operated by Ksawery Bednarek — contact@getariadne.xyz