Privacy Policy

1. What we collect

Information you provide directly

Your name, phone number, email address, and password when you create an account. Your work history, skills, education, and career goals that you share with Poppy during onboarding and subsequent conversations. Any feedback, testimonials, or communications you send us.

Sensitive information you choose to share

Searchburst is built for people who face real barriers in the job market. To surface the most relevant opportunities for you, Poppy may ask about circumstances that affect your job search. You are never required to answer any of these questions. If you choose to share them, here is exactly what we collect and why:

Disability status or accommodation needs: collected when you choose to share it, used only to prioritize employers with documented accommodation practices and accessible workplace environments. Never shared with employers without your permission.

Criminal justice involvement or reentry status: collected when you choose to share it, used only to prioritize employers who have formally committed to fair chance hiring through programs like the Second Chance Business Coalition. Never shared with employers, never used to screen you out of opportunities, never disclosed to any third party.

Immigration status, visa requirements, or work authorization: collected when you choose to share it, used only to prioritize employers with documented history of sponsoring work visas or accepting the authorization type you hold. Never shared with employers or immigration authorities without your explicit consent.

Foreign professional credentials: collected when you choose to share it, used to surface roles you qualify for now while credential recognition processes happen, and to provide information about the relevant recognition pathway for your profession. Never shared with licensing bodies or employers without your explicit action.

Age-related concerns or long career history: detected from your work history and conversation, used only to prioritize employers who are members of the AARP Employer Alliance or have documented age-inclusive hiring practices. Never used to screen you out of opportunities.

All sensitive information is stored securely, never sold to any party, and can be deleted at any time from your account settings.

Information generated by your use

Your conversation transcripts with Poppy. Jobs you save, apply to, and outcomes you report. Documents generated for you including resumes, cover letters, and interview prep materials, stored in your account so you can access them later. Feedback you provide on job matches. Your subscription and billing history processed through Stripe.

Automatically collected information

Your approximate location derived from your IP address, used only to surface locally relevant job results. Standard server logs including timestamps and error data. We do not use cookies for tracking and we do not track you across other websites.

Security monitoring information

Searchburst uses automated detection to identify attempts to manipulate, exploit, or bypass Poppy's intended function, such as prompt injection or attempts to extract the system's underlying instructions. If this detection triggers during your conversation, the specific message that triggered it, along with your account email, name, and a timestamp, is logged internally and flagged for manual review. This is a security and platform integrity measure, not a general monitoring practice. It only activates on messages that match specific manipulation patterns. This information is used solely to protect the platform and other users, is visible only to Searchburst's founder and any authorized administrators, and is never shared with third parties, used for advertising, or used to make any decision about your job search or account standing beyond the specific review of that flagged conversation.

Company and employer intelligence data

Searchburst maintains databases of employer information including degree flexibility scores, fair chance hiring commitments sourced from the Second Chance Business Coalition, visa sponsorship history sourced from Department of Labor H-1B disclosure data, and age-inclusive hiring practices sourced from the AARP Employer Alliance. This data is collected from public sources and organizational pledges and is stored at the employer level, not tied to your personal account. It is used to match you with employers who are more likely to consider your full background. This process does not involve your personal data being shared with employers.

What we do not collect

We do not collect your race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin. We do not track your activity across other websites or apps. We do not build advertising profiles. We do not sell your data. Ever.

2. How we use your information

To power Poppy's conversation and build your personalized job feed. To generate resumes, cover letters, and interview preparation materials. To improve your feed based on your feedback on job matches. To match you with employers whose practices align with your situation, using our employer intelligence databases. To send you emails about your feed, your application activity, and platform updates you have opted into. To process your subscription and handle billing through Stripe. To maintain platform security and prevent fraud, including the security monitoring described above. To improve the platform's AI systems in aggregate, without using your personally identifiable conversation content.

We do not use your conversation content to train external AI models. We do not share your career data with employers without your explicit action. We do not use your data for any purpose other than providing you with a better job search experience.

Aggregate platform intelligence

Searchburst derives anonymized aggregate insights from conversations across the platform, including patterns in how users describe their skills, career histories, employment barriers, and goals. These aggregate insights are stripped of all personally identifying information and cannot be used to reconstruct your individual conversation. They are used to improve the platform's matching algorithms, scoring systems, and career intelligence capabilities. This aggregate data is proprietary to Searchburst and is not shared with third parties. Your personal conversation content is never included in any aggregate dataset in a form that could identify you.

3. How we share your information

Service providers

We share information with vendors who help us operate the platform. Supabase stores your account data and conversation history. Anthropic processes your conversation content to generate AI responses through Poppy. Vercel hosts the platform infrastructure. Stripe processes subscription payments. Resend delivers email notifications. Each service provider is bound by data processing agreements and may only use your data to provide their services to us.

Institutional partners

If you access Searchburst through a workforce nonprofit, community college, or employer program, your institution may receive aggregate usage data such as how many users completed the Poppy conversation or applied to jobs. They do not receive your name, your conversation content, your resume, your cover letters, any sensitive personal information, or any personally identifiable information without your explicit written consent.

Employers

If you opt into employer visibility, employers may see your confirmed skills and work experience titles only. No conversation content, sensitive information, disability status, justice involvement, immigration status, or personally identifying details are visible to employers without your explicit permission. You control this setting and can turn it off at any time.

Legal requirements

We may disclose your information if required by law, court order, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Searchburst, our users, or others. We will notify you of such disclosures where legally permitted.

Business transfers

If Searchburst is acquired or merges with another company, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you before your information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

4. How long we keep your information

Your account information is retained for as long as your account is active. Conversation transcripts are retained for 24 months from the date of the conversation to allow returning users to build on prior sessions. Job application records and document history are retained for 12 months. Feedback and usage data is retained for 6 months. Security monitoring records related to platform manipulation attempts are retained for as long as necessary to protect the platform and are reviewed periodically. Billing records are retained for 7 years as required by law.

When you delete your account, all personal data is permanently removed from our systems within 30 days, except for billing records which we are legally required to retain. Anonymized aggregate data derived from your usage may be retained indefinitely as it cannot be used to identify you.

5. Your rights

You have the following rights over your data regardless of where you live. California residents have additional rights described below.

Right to access

You can request a copy of all personal data we hold about you at any time by contacting support@searchburst.net. We will respond within 30 days.

Right to correct

You can update your profile information, work history, and career preferences at any time from your account settings. If you believe we hold inaccurate information that you cannot correct yourself, contact us and we will correct it within 14 days.

Right to delete

You can delete your account at any time from your account settings. This permanently removes all personal data from our systems within 30 days. You can also request deletion of specific data elements such as sensitive information or conversation transcripts without deleting your full account.

Right to opt out of communications

You can unsubscribe from any email communications at any time using the unsubscribe link in any email we send you or from your account notification settings.

California residents (CCPA)

California residents have the right to know what personal information we collect and how it is used, the right to delete personal information, the right to correct inaccurate personal information, the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information (we do not sell or share personal information), and the right to non-discrimination for exercising these rights. Sensitive personal information collected by Searchburst, including disability status, criminal justice involvement, immigration status, and foreign credential information, is used solely to provide you with a more relevant job search experience and is never used to make adverse decisions about you. To exercise any CCPA right, contact us at support@searchburst.net. We will respond within 45 days as required by law.

6. Data security

We use industry-standard security measures to protect your information including encrypted storage through Supabase, HTTPS for all data in transit, row-level security policies that ensure users can only access their own data, rate limiting on all API endpoints to prevent unauthorized access, and automated detection of attempts to manipulate or exploit the platform's AI systems as described above. No system is perfectly secure. If you believe your account has been compromised, contact us immediately at support@searchburst.net.

7. Children's privacy

Searchburst is not directed at individuals under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from minors. If we become aware that a minor has created an account, we will terminate the account and delete all associated data promptly.

8. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by email at least 14 days before the changes take effect. The date at the top of this page reflects the most recent update. Your continued use of the platform after the effective date constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.

9. Contact

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or want to exercise any of your rights, contact us at:

Searchburst
Angel Valdovinos
1363 W Valencia Dr, Apt 3
Fullerton, CA 92833
support@searchburst.net

We take privacy questions seriously and will respond within 5 business days.