Privacy Policy

1. Who Is Responsible for Your Data

The AI Fellowship is the data controller for personal data collected through theaifellowship.com and related platforms.

Contact: hello@theaifellowship.com

If you have a data protection concern you cannot resolve through the above, you have the right to contact your national data protection authority.

2. What Data We Collect and Why

We collect only what we need to run the community:

We do not collect sensitive categories of personal data (health, political opinions, religion, etc.) and we do not collect payment information.

3. Our Community Platforms

The AI Fellowship operates across multiple platforms. Each has its own terms and privacy practices in addition to ours:

• Discourse Forum (community.theaifellowship.com) — self-hosted; governed by these policies
• Discord — governed by Discord's Privacy Policy
• WhatsApp Channel & Community — governed by WhatsApp's Privacy Policy (Meta)

We recommend reviewing those policies for data handled directly by those platforms.

WhatsApp Community roster. Because The AI Fellowship started as a WhatsApp community, we maintain a list of the phone numbers of people who joined that community. We use this list only to verify the Founding Member badge claim — i.e. when a member enters their WhatsApp number on their profile, we check whether it is in the roster. We process this list under legitimate interest (GDPR Art 6(1)(f)): identifying our existing community members and recognising their early contribution. If you do not want your number used this way, email us and we will remove it from the roster.

WhatsApp verification. When you claim the Founding Member badge, we send a one-time code to the number you enter via WhatsApp Cloud API (Meta). The verified number is stored on your member record so you don't have to verify again, and so we have a record of which Founding Member claim corresponds to which roster entry. We do not message you on this number except for verification.

Public member directory. As an active member with a Fellowship ID, your first name, last name, profile photo, city, country, and bio (if you've added one) appear in our public member directory at theaifellowship.com/profile and on an individual page at theaifellowship.com/profile/<username>. Your email, phone number, Discord ID, and Fellowship ID are never shown publicly. We publish this directory under legitimate interest (GDPR Art 6(1)(f)) so members can find and connect with each other across chapters. If you would prefer not to appear, email hello@theaifellowship.com and we will remove you from the directory.

4. Lawful Basis for Processing (GDPR)

• Performance of a contract — Processing your name, email, LinkedIn URL, Fellowship ID, and linked accounts is necessary to provide you with membership (Article 6(1)(b)).
• Legitimate interests — We may process certain data (forum activity, access logs) to maintain security and integrity of the community (Article 6(1)(f)). The public member directory at /profile is also published on this basis: members joined a curated community where being findable by other members is a reasonable expectation. You can opt out at any time by emailing us.
• Consent — For optional communications such as newsletters. You can withdraw consent at any time.

5. LinkedIn OAuth

When you sign in with LinkedIn, we receive your name, email address, LinkedIn profile URL, and public profile photo. We use this only to create and maintain your Fellowship membership. We do not access your LinkedIn connections or messages.

If you separately click Share badge on LinkedIn from your dashboard, we store a short-lived LinkedIn access token (expiring after 60 days) so we can post the badge image you requested. We never post without your action, and you can revoke this access at any time from your LinkedIn settings or by emailing us.

If you close your account with us, we delete the LinkedIn-sourced data within 30 days.

6. Communications

We may send you:

• Transactional emails — welcome email, account notices, responses to your requests. These are necessary for membership.
• Community updates — announcements and newsletters. These require your consent and include an unsubscribe option.

We send email via Mailtrap/SMTP. Your email is shared with Mailtrap solely for delivery and is not used for their own marketing.

7. Where Your Data Is Stored

All personal data is stored on infrastructure hosted in Azure West Europe (Netherlands). While data is stored in the EU, The AI Fellowship operates under UK GDPR (the UK's retained version of GDPR). We apply encrypted connections, access controls, and regular backups.

8. How Long We Keep Your Data

We keep your personal data for as long as you are an active member. If you close your account, we will delete your personal data within 30 days, except where required by law or where data is anonymised and cannot be linked back to you.

9. Sharing Your Data

We do not sell your personal data. We do not share it with advertisers. We share limited data only with:

• LinkedIn — as required for OAuth authentication
• Discord — your Discord ID, for bot-managed membership roles
• WhatsApp/Meta — through your participation in our WhatsApp spaces, and for sending one-time verification codes via WhatsApp Cloud API
• Mailtrap/SMTP — your email, for sending you emails
• Azure — our infrastructure provider, operating under a Data Processing Agreement

10. Your Rights Under GDPR

• Access — Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Rectification — Ask us to correct inaccurate data
• Erasure — Ask us to delete your data ("right to be forgotten")
• Restriction — Ask us to stop processing while a dispute is resolved
• Portability — Request your data in a structured, machine-readable format
• Object — Object to processing based on legitimate interests
• Withdraw consent — For any processing based on consent, at any time

To exercise any right: email hello@theaifellowship.com. We will respond within 30 days. You may also lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) — the UK's data protection supervisory authority.

11. Cookies

We use only the cookies necessary to keep you logged in (session cookies). We do not use tracking cookies, advertising cookies, or third-party analytics that profile your behaviour.

12. Children

The AI Fellowship is not directed at anyone under 16. If you believe a child under 16 has provided us with data, please contact us and we will delete it.

13. Changes to This Policy

If we make material changes, we will notify you by email before the change takes effect.

14. Contact

The AI Fellowship
hello@theaifellowship.com
theaifellowship.com · United Kingdom

Terms of Service · theaifellowship.com