Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

GoodWord is run by GoodWord Technologies Private Limited, Tower 4, NESCO, Goregaon East, Mumbai. Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 we are the Data Fiduciary for the personal data described here.

This policy covers the GoodWord app at app.goodword.tech. The waitlist on goodword.tech has its own policy on that site.

2. The short version

• We collect what a reference report needs and nothing more.
• We never sell your data. We never share it with advertisers, data brokers or any business that has nothing to do with hiring.
• You agree once. You can download or delete everything whenever you like.
• Recruiters see referees by their role, such as Direct Manager, unless a referee chooses to be named.
• If you are a student and your college works with GoodWord, its placement cell sees how far you have got, never what anyone wrote. You can stop this at any time.

3. What we collect

What we hold depends on how you use GoodWord.

If you are a candidate (you are building a report):

• Your name and email address. If you sign in with Google, we receive your name and email from Google and never your Google password.
• Your current designation and the roles you are aiming for.
• If you are a student: your college, your degree, the year you graduate and your internships (company, role and length). If your college works with GoodWord, which college you are linked to and whether you have stopped sharing your progress with its placement cell.
• If you choose to add them: your last organisation, your city, your LinkedIn profile and a short bio.
• How you heard about us.
• The people you ask for a reference: their name and email address, how you worked together, for how long and any note you write to them. Once they respond you add their LinkedIn profile, company and role, and a phone number if you wish.
• If you pay for a report: the amount and a payment confirmation from our payment partner. We never receive or store your card or bank details.
• If you earn a referral reward: the UPI ID you give us for the payout and, where tax law requires it, your PAN.
• The network address and browser you use when you are signed in, and when you take a link to share with a referee yourself. We use them only to check that you did not answer a reference in your referee's place.

If you are a referee (someone asked you for a reference):

• Your name and email address, given to us by the candidate so that we can write to you.
• What you write in the reference and your answers about how you know the candidate.
• Your choices: whether you want to be named on the report and whether we may contact you to verify your reference.
• Signals that help us confirm a reference is genuine: when the form was opened and submitted, the network address it came from and the browser used. These are never shown to the candidate or to recruiters.
• Whether you answered from our email or from a link the candidate shared with you, for example on WhatsApp, and, if it was a shared link, whether you confirmed it was you.

If you work in a college placement cell that uses GoodWord:

• Your work email address, given to us by your college so that you can sign in.
• A record of the reminders you send to students and the lists you download.

If you open someone's report (for example as a recruiter):

• Your name, your work email address and the one-time code we send to confirm it is yours.
• When you opened the report and how many times.

For everyone who visits:

• Cookies that keep you signed in, remember a verified report reader for 7 days and record which link or campaign brought you here.
• Google Analytics, which tells us which pages are visited and which steps people complete, such as inviting a referee or unlocking a report. It receives no names, email addresses or report content, and we do not use it for advertising. It is switched off on shared reports, referee links and public report pages.
• Short-lived counters that stop misuse, such as too many attempts from one network. They hold no names.
• A record of the emails we send and whether they arrived, kept for 90 days, so we can tell a candidate when a request did not reach their referee.

4. Why we use it

• To collect references and build the candidate's report.
• To show that report to the people the candidate sends it to.
• To send the emails the service depends on: reference requests, reminders to referees, confirmations and notices about your report.
• To send you a small number of notes that help you finish setting up: from our founder, or from GoodWord if you are a student. Each one has a link that stops the rest.
• To link a student to their college when they sign in with a college email, and to show that college's placement cell how far they have got.
• To help you if you message us on WhatsApp. We see your number and messages only because you wrote to us, and we use them only to reply.
• To check that references are genuine and to prevent misuse. When a referee answers from a link the candidate shared, we email that referee once to confirm it was them, and we remove a reference that came from the candidate's own device or that the referee says they did not write.
• To tell a candidate who has opened their report.
• To ask candidates whether GoodWord helped them, so we can improve it and say honestly what it does.
• To understand which channels bring people to GoodWord.
• To meet our legal obligations.

The written summary at the top of a report is drafted with the help of an AI model. Only the referees' answers and their role are sent to it. Names, email addresses, companies and LinkedIn links are not. Our provider's terms do not allow it to train its models on this data.

5. What we will never do, and what may come later

We will never sell your data. We will never share it with advertisers, data brokers or any business that is not about helping people find or get a job.

Today your data is used only to build your report and to show it to the people you choose to send it to.

Hiring is moving towards tools that look at how people actually work. In future we may let your GoodWord work with hiring tools, applicant tracking systems and employers, so that it can help you get hired in more places. Any such use will be for helping you find or get a job and for nothing else.

Before any new use of this kind begins, we will tell you what would be shared and with whom, and you will be able to say no.

A referee's email address and phone number are never part of this. Only what already appears on a report can be.

6. Your consent

We process your data on the basis of your consent, and we ask for it once.

• Candidates agree when they complete their profile.
• Referees agree when they submit their reference.
• People who open a report agree when they confirm their work email to read it.

For students whose college works with GoodWord, sharing their progress with the placement cell is part of the consent they give when they complete their profile, and the profile says so. They can stop it at any time from Data and Privacy, and it stops at once.

You can withdraw your consent at any time. Candidates can delete their data from Data and Privacy in the app. Referees can withdraw a reference with the link we give them when they submit, or by writing to us. A referee who did not write a reference sent in their name can tell us from the email we send, and we remove it. Withdrawing does not affect anything done before you withdrew.

7. Who sees what

• The candidate reads every reference on their report. They chose their referees and can see who has responded, so a referee should assume the candidate will know which reference is theirs.
• Recruiters see each referee by role, such as Direct Manager, and not by name, unless that referee chose to be named.
• A report says when a reference was answered from a link the candidate shared, and how many references were removed after a check. It never says whose. The candidate is told which reference was removed and why.
• A person the candidate sends the report to can read it after confirming a work email address. They see the candidate's name and the references. They do not see a referee's email address or phone number.
• The candidate sees the name and company of each person who opened their report. They never see that person's email address.
• A candidate's public page, the one their LinkedIn card links to, says only that a GoodWord report exists and gives its headline facts. It does not open the report.
• A student's college placement cell sees their name, degree, graduation year, how many people they invited, how many references are in and whether their report is live. It never sees anyone's email address or what any referee wrote.
• A small number of GoodWord staff can access records to give support, investigate misuse and keep the service running.

To be plain about it: a reference is anonymous to recruiters, not to the candidate.

A candidate can download their report as a PDF. Once a PDF or a link has been sent to someone, what that person does with it is outside our control.

8. Who helps us run GoodWord

We use a small number of service providers. They act on our instructions and may only use your data to provide their service to us.

• Supabase: our database and sign-in.
• Vercel: hosting.
• Resend: sending email.
• Anthropic: the AI model that helps draft report summaries.
• Google: sign-in if you choose it, plus usage analytics.
• Our payment partner, once paid plans begin.

Some of these providers store or process data on servers outside India. We use only countries that the Government of India has not restricted.

9. How long we keep it

• Your account, your referees and your report stay until you delete them.
• A report is valid for 12 months. After that it is no longer shown to others. It stays in your account until you delete it.
• A reference request that is not answered stops working after 30 days.
• A one-time code for opening a report expires after 10 minutes.
• Counters that prevent misuse are removed when they expire.
• If an account is not used for 24 months, we may delete it. We will email you before we do.

When a candidate deletes their data, their profile, referees, references, reports and the list of who viewed them are erased together in one step. Shared links stop working at once. Copies in routine backups are overwritten on our provider's normal cycle.

Two things are kept after deletion because the law requires records. One is a minimal log of administrative actions, such as a report being revoked, which holds a report reference, the action and the date. The other is the record of any referral reward we paid you, including the payout details you gave us, which we keep for as long as tax law requires.

10. Your rights

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act you can:

• See what we hold about you. Candidates can download it from Data and Privacy in the app.
• Correct anything that is wrong.
• Have your data erased.
• Withdraw your consent.
• Nominate someone to exercise these rights for you if you die or are unable to act.
• Raise a complaint with us and, if you are not satisfied, take it to the Data Protection Board of India.

Referees and people who have opened a report do not have an account. To use any of these rights, write to grievance@goodword.tech from the email address concerned.

11. Children

GoodWord is for adults: working professionals and students in their final year of college. You must be 18 or older to use it. If you believe someone under 18 has given us their data, tell us and we will delete it.

12. Security

We use reasonable safeguards to protect your data against loss, misuse and unauthorised access. Report links cannot be guessed, a report opens only after a work email is confirmed and access to our records is restricted.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal data, we will tell you and the Data Protection Board as the law requires.

13. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will post the new version here with its date. If a change affects how your data is used, we will tell you by email before it takes effect.

14. Contact

Questions about the product or this policy: hello@goodword.tech.

Data requests and complaints: Amulya Nidhi, Grievance Officer, grievance@goodword.tech. We reply within 15 working days.