Privacy Policy

1. Core Principles

We treat your personal information and your intellectual life with the highest degree of care:

• No advertising or data sales: We never sell, rent, or license your personal data, reading choices, or reading histories to advertisers, data brokers, or commercial third parties.
• Minimal collection: We collect only the information strictly necessary to facilitate live seminars, process tuition, and maintain platform security.
• No tracking pixels: We do not employ third-party surveillance beacons, social network tracking pixels, or intrusive behavioral analytics.

2. Information We Collect

We collect information you provide directly when using our platform:

• Account Identification: When signing in via our secure passwordless authentication service, we record your email address and full display name.
• Faculty Applications: Scholars applying to teach provide academic titles, institutional affiliations, disciplinary focus, biographical sketches, and profile links for review by our academic admissions committee.
• Seminar Participation: We store records of your seminar enrollments, reservations, suggested topic proposals, and community upvotes.

3. Payment Processing & Card Security (Stripe)

Tuition transactions are processed exclusively through our payment infrastructure partner, Stripe, Inc.

• Cardholder data isolation: When you pay for a seminar, your credit card number, expiration date, and security code are entered directly into Stripe's PCI-DSS Level 1 compliant hosted checkout.
• Zero card storage on our servers: The Sophia Forum servers never process, capture, store, or transmit your credit card credentials. We receive only a secure token, transaction ID, and confirmation of successful charge.
• Faculty payouts: Instructors receiving honoraria onboard via Stripe Connect Express. Bank account numbers and tax identification documents are transmitted directly to and stored securely by Stripe.

4. Communications & Contact Exchange

We use transactional email via Resend solely to deliver essential operational updates concerning your seminars:

• Enrollment confirmations & receipts: Detailed itinerary, meeting schedule, syllabus references, and video meeting links.
• Roster contact exchange: Because seminars are small, collaborative cohorts, confirmed students receive their instructor's contact email, and instructors receive enrolled students' emails on their teaching room roster to coordinate readings and discussions.
• Schedule changes & cancellations: Critical notices regarding session times, rescheduled dates, or refunds.

5. Service Providers & Infrastructure

We partner with trusted technical providers to host and secure the forum:

• Supabase: Encrypted cloud database infrastructure with strict PostgreSQL Row Level Security (RLS) policies protecting your account and enrollment records.
• Stripe: Payment processing and scholar honoraria.
• Resend: Secure transactional email delivery.
• Vercel: Cloud application hosting, SSL/TLS encryption, and privacy-preserving performance telemetry.

6. Cookies & Session Management

We use strictly essential HTTP-only cookies necessary to authenticate your session, verify your identity, and safeguard against cross-site request forgery (CSRF). We do not use third-party advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

7. Your Rights & Data Deletion

You have the right to inspect, correct, or request the permanent deletion of your account and personal information at any time. To exercise your privacy rights, request an archive of your data, or ask questions about our privacy stewardship, contact:

The Sophia Forum — Privacy Secretariat
Email: privacy@thesophiaforum.com