Confidentiality policy

Why this exists

A mentoring relationship works because both sides can be honest. That only happens if what you write down about your sessions stays private. This page explains exactly what "private" means on this platform — not as a vague promise, but as a specific, checkable set of rules.

The promise

Your notes are private to you and your mentoring partner.

Only platform superadmins can ever read the body of a session note. Every read is logged. You will be told.

No chapter chair, programme manager or regional lead can read your notes — not with permission, not in an emergency, not at all. They can see that a note exists, who wrote it and when. They cannot see what it says.

A platform superadmin can request temporary access to one specific relationship, for one of seven defined reasons: a safety concern, a conduct investigation, a formal dispute, your own request, a legal obligation, assembling your own data on request, or diagnosing data corruption. Every request needs a second person to approve it, expires automatically, and is recorded. You are told who read it, in what role, and why, at the moment it happens.

There is one exception and it is narrow. If telling you immediately would put someone at risk, or would destroy evidence in a safety or conduct investigation, telling you can be delayed — never cancelled. A delay needs two named approvers, lasts at most 30 days, can be extended once, and ends in you being told. Nothing else withholds it.

One thing we deliberately do not promise: that nobody will ever read your notes. A platform superadmin can, under the conditions above. We would rather tell you exactly who can and under what seven reasons, than make a promise we could not keep.

What your chapter chair sees, and does not see

Your chapter chair (and program manager, and regional lead) can see standing, ongoing information about your match: that it exists, its status, whether sessions have happened, whether an agenda was agreed, and whether notes were written and roughly how long they are. This is enough for them to notice a relationship is struggling. It is never enough to know what was actually said.

These roles have no way at all to request access to a note's content — not with special permission, not in an emergency. That access is limited to a small number of platform administrators, under the rules above.

What you and your mentor/mentee agree to

As a mentee, at enrolment you agree that:

• Your notes and goals are visible to you and your mentor, except notes you mark author-only.
• Authorised administrators cannot read your notes routinely.
• In the defined circumstances above, an authorised administrator can obtain temporary access.
• You will be told who accessed your notes, when, and why (with the narrow delay exception above).
• You can see your own access history at any time.
• Your mentor may not disclose your notes outside the relationship, use them commercially, or keep a copy outside the platform.
• Meeting and note-writing metadata (not content) is visible to your chapter chair.
• Notes are retained until 12 months after your cycle completes, then the text is permanently redacted.

As a mentor, you additionally agree that:

• You will not disclose, repeat, or use your mentee's disclosures outside the relationship.
• You will not store your mentee's content outside the platform, including in personal notebooks or third-party apps, and you will not screenshot or export it.
• You will not use anything you learn for commercial advantage, investment, recruitment or introduction without your mentee's explicit permission.
• If you become concerned about your mentee's safety, you will raise it with the chapter chair — this is a deliberate, narrow exception to the confidentiality obligation above.
• These obligations continue after the mentoring relationship ends.

A note on international access

Today, every person with any administrative role in the pilot is part of the same EU-based chapter. If the platform later includes chapters outside the EU, chapter-level roles will still only ever see the same metadata described above — never note content — regardless of where they are. Any access to note content will continue to be limited to the small superadmin population and the rules on this page, wherever that person is located.

Your rights

You can see your own access history, and you have the same data protection rights over your notes as over any other data we hold — see the privacy policy. To ask about your access history or exercise a right, contact privacy@eo-mentorship.com.