Privacy Policy
Effective date: 2026-11-10
This policy explains what information Lend a Mind collects, why, who it's shared with, how long it's kept, and the choices you have. We've tried to keep it specific: if something here doesn't match what you see in the product, please tell us.
Who is responsible for your information
Lend a Mind (lendamind.com) is run by Huy Dao, an individual (there is no company yet). Huy Dao decides how and why your information is used, which makes him the "controller" under laws such as the EU and UK GDPR. In this policy, "we" and "us" mean Huy Dao as the operator of Lend a Mind.
Contact for anything about your privacy: hello@lendamind.com.
The short version
- We collect what's needed to run free sessions between clients and pros: your email, your name, your timezone, a pro's profile and availability, session details, the client's question, and short check-in answers after a session. If you ask us to suggest an expert, we also keep your request and our reply. Once a client and a pro have booked a session together, the client can keep an action plan and the pro can keep notes. Match requests, action plans and notes are being introduced and may not be available to you yet.
- A client's question goes only to the pro they booked. Check-in answers are seen only by us, never by the other person. A match request is seen only by you and our admin, never by a pro. A client's action plan is seen only by the client, and a pro's notes only by the pro. A pro can choose to share a written summary with the client, and can stop sharing it at any time.
- Sessions that use our built-in video calls take place in a private call run for us by Daily. Those calls aren't recorded or transcribed, and we don't store what's said, shown, or typed in them. Sessions that use a pro's own meeting link happen on that service, which we don't join or record.
- We don't sell your information, we don't show ads, and we use no advertising or tracking cookies. The only cookies we set are the ones that keep you signed in.
- Your information is stored in the United States (Oregon).
- You can download your data and delete your account yourself, in Settings. Everyone has the same rights, wherever they live.
What we collect
When you create an account and sign in
- Your email address. You sign in with a 6-digit code we email you, which also confirms the address is yours.
- Your name (you choose it, 1 to 100 characters) and your timezone.
- Sign-in codes. We store a code only as a keyed hash (never the code itself), next to your email address, until it's used or expires 5 minutes later.
- Sign-in records. While you're signed in, we keep a record of the sign-in with your device's IP address and browser type (the "user agent"). A cookie in your browser links you to it.
- Security counters. To stop people guessing codes or flooding the sign-in system, we count sign-in requests by IP address, and code requests and wrong codes by a keyed hash of the email address. When you're signed in, we also count how many change requests your account sends each hour (for example bookings, profile edits, device registrations, cancellations and admin decisions), so no account can flood the service.
- Your role (client, pro, or admin) and whether free bookings are paused on your account.
If you're a pro
- Your profile: headline, bio, areas of expertise, planned hourly rate and currency, timezone, the free time you offer each month, and the session lengths you offer.
- Your weekly availability and, if you add one, your meeting link. The link is optional, except that you can't remove it while you have a session that uses it and hasn't ended yet (sessions booked before we added video calls use it). It's also used as a backup if a video call can't start.
- Your review status and, if your profile was declined, the reason we gave you.
Your public profile shows your name, headline, bio, expertise, planned rate, timezone, the session lengths you offer, how much free time you have left this month, and whether you're taking bookings. Your meeting link is never public. A client with a session booked with you sees it only if that session uses your link, or on the session page as a backup if the video call can't start. Your email address isn't shown to clients.
When you book or have a session
- Session details: the pro and client, date, time, length, status, who cancelled and when, how many times it was moved, and whether it happened (attendance).
- The client's question and optional context. These go only to the booked pro. The client sees them too. Our admin screens don't show them.
- A pro's reason for cancelling, which the client sees.
- Check-in answers after a session: whether it happened; for clients, whether it clarified a useful next step, what that step was, what was missing, and later whether they acted on it; for pros, whether the question was a good fit and whether they'd offer time again. These answers are visible only to us. They're never shown to the other person or published.
When you ask for a match
Match requests are being introduced and may not be available to you yet.
If you can't find the right expert, you can ask us to suggest one ("Ask for a match"). Sending a request doesn't book a session.
- Your request: the decision you need help with (20 to 500 characters), any context you add (up to 2,000 characters), up to three areas, and when you need help, if you say. You can't attach files or edit a request after sending it.
- Our reply: one message and up to three suggested pros. We also record which admin took and answered your request.
- Its status and times: when you sent it, and when it was taken, answered, closed or withdrawn, and why it was closed (after a reply, without a reply, or automatically after 30 days without a reply).
- What we look at to suggest someone: besides your request, our admin sees your name, how many free sessions you've used this month, and which pros you've already had a free session with. We already hold this information; we don't collect anything new for it.
Your request and our reply are seen only by you and our admin. Pros never see them, including the pros we suggest, and we don't tell a pro about your request. They don't appear on public pages, in product events or in our application logs, and the emails we send about a request don't repeat it. Please don't include sensitive or confidential information in a request.
Action plans and notes
Action plans and notes are being introduced and may not be available to you yet.
Once a client and a pro have booked a session together, each of them has a private page for working between sessions: the client's action plan and the pro's notes. There's one page for each client and pro, whichever of their sessions it's about, and a cancelled or missed session doesn't remove anything from it. Everything on it is plain text: there are no attachments, and nothing on it is recorded, transcribed, or written by AI.
- The client's action plan: a decision (up to 1,000 characters) and up to 20 actions. Each action has its text (up to 300 characters), an optional owner (a name the client types, up to 100 characters, not linked to anyone's account), an optional due date, and whether it's done. We use the client's timezone to show which actions are overdue.
- The pro's private notes: up to 5,000 characters.
- The pro's summary draft: a summary (up to 2,000 characters) and up to 10 suggested next steps (up to 300 characters each).
- A shared summary: a copy of the pro's draft that the pro has chosen to share with the client, with when it was first shared and when it was last updated.
Who sees what:
- The client's action plan is seen only by the client. The pro never sees it, or whether the client has one.
- The pro's notes and draft are seen only by the pro. They're never shown to the client.
- Sharing is the pro's choice. Nothing the pro writes reaches the client until the pro chooses to share the saved draft and confirms exactly what will be shared. The client then sees that summary, with the pro's name and the date it was shared. Later edits to the draft don't reach the client until the pro shares again. We don't email the client about it; they see it on the page. A shared summary can't be answered on Lend a Mind.
- Copying steps. The client can add a suggested step to their own plan. The copy becomes part of the client's plan and stays there even if the pro later stops sharing or deletes their account.
- Stopping. The pro can stop sharing at any time. The shared summary is then erased, and the client stops seeing it the next time they load or refresh the page; a page the client already has open keeps showing it until then. The pro keeps their draft. Deleting the draft doesn't stop sharing; only "Stop sharing" does.
- Not shown to our admin. Our admin screens don't show action plans, notes, drafts, or shared summaries, and being an admin gives no access to them. Huy Dao's technical access to the database as the operator is described under "Who sees your information".
Action plans never use your check-in answers. What you write in a plan, notes, or a summary never appears in check-ins, our admin screens, product events, admin and security records, our application logs, or error reports.
Video calls
Sessions take place in a private video call on the session page, run for us by Daily (see "Service providers"). Some sessions, such as those booked before we added video calls, use the pro's own meeting link instead.
- What we give Daily. To let you into a call, we give Daily your name (as the other person sees it on the session page) and whether you're the pro or the client. We don't give Daily your email address, your question, or your check-in answers.
- What passes through Daily during a call. Your audio, video, any screen you share, and any text you type in the call's chat travel through Daily while the call is live. Recording, transcription, live captions, live streaming, and phone dial-out are switched off. Chat isn't kept in the call: someone who joins or rejoins later doesn't see earlier messages. Lend a Mind doesn't store the call's audio, video, screen sharing, or chat.
- What Daily records. Daily also processes technical information to run the call: your IP address, browser, device and connection quality, and a record of each call (when it started, how long it lasted, and when each person joined and left, with the name we gave it).
- What we store. For each session we keep a random room name, when the call opens and closes, whether it's ready, and the details needed to set up and remove the room (see "How long we keep it"). We record when a request to join is allowed or refused, with your role (pro or client) or a fixed reason, but not your name. We don't store whether or how long you were actually in the call. Being in a call doesn't decide attendance; that still comes from check-ins and, where needed, our admin.
- Camera and microphone. Your browser asks for permission only after you choose to join, and they stop when you leave the call or the page.
- No other messaging. Apart from chat during a video call and a summary a pro chooses to share (see "Action plans and notes"), there's no way for clients and pros to message each other on Lend a Mind. If you ask for a match, we send you one reply; you can't answer it on Lend a Mind, but you can email us.
Emails
We send emails about your account and sessions: sign-in codes, booking confirmations with calendar invites, reminders, changes, check-ins, and attendance decisions. If you ask for a match, we email you a confirmation and our reply (our message and links to the suggested pros, never your request), and we email our admin that a new request is waiting, without your name or your request. These are all transactional; we don't send marketing emails. For session and match-request emails, we keep a record of which kind of email went to which account and when (not the email's text). Sign-in code emails aren't stored at all. If you email us at hello@lendamind.com, or reply to one of our emails, we receive your message and address.
How the service is used
- Product events. We record key steps (for example a booking confirmed, cancelled, or moved, a reminder sent, a check-in answered, a match request sent, answered, closed or withdrawn, an action plan saved or deleted, notes or a draft saved, a summary shared or no longer shared, a sign-in) with internal ID numbers, the time, and fixed labels such as "early" or "late". These events never contain your name, email, question, match request, action plan, notes, summary, or links. For action plans they hold only counts and fixed values: how many actions a plan has and how many are done, whether it has a decision, whether a pro saved notes or a draft, how many steps a shared summary has, and whether sharing was a first share or an update.
- Page statistics. On our public pages only (the home page, the expert directory, expert profiles, and sign-in), Vercel Web Analytics counts page views without cookies. It receives the page address (without anything after a "?" or "#"), the referring page, browser, operating system, device type, and country, and Vercel derives a short-lived identifier that changes daily. Signed-in pages, such as your sessions and settings, aren't counted.
Technical information
- Error and performance monitoring. When something goes wrong, our servers and your browser send technical details to Sentry: the type of error, where in our code it happened, the time, and the browser or platform. We've set error reports to leave out names, email addresses, cookies, form contents, request contents, and web-address query strings. For a sample of page loads, Sentry also receives performance timings and the page or route involved, and your browser's security reports (which include the page address) go to Sentry too. Because your browser connects to Sentry directly, Sentry also sees your IP address.
- Server logs. Our hosting provider, Vercel, keeps request logs that include IP addresses, the addresses requested, and browser types. Our own application logs record error codes, not your content.
What we don't collect
No payment details (sessions are free). No recordings or transcripts: video calls aren't recorded or transcribed, we don't join them, and we don't store what's said, shown, or typed in them. Sessions that use a pro's own meeting link happen on that tool, which we don't join or record. No advertising or cross-site tracking. We don't ask for sensitive information such as health data, and please don't include it in a question, a match request, an action plan, or notes.
Why we use it, and our legal bases
| Purpose | What it uses | Legal basis (GDPR terms) |
|---|---|---|
| Creating your account, signing you in, and keeping it secure | email, name, timezone, sign-in codes and records | Performing our agreement with you (the Terms) |
| Listing pros and letting clients book, change, and join sessions | pro profile, availability, meeting link (if the session uses it, or as a backup), session details, question | Performing our agreement with you |
| Running private video calls through Daily | name and role (given to Daily), call audio, video, screen sharing and chat (passing through Daily, not stored by us), technical call information, room details | Performing our agreement with you |
| Sending session emails and calendar invites | email, name, session details, a link to the session page, meeting link (only for sessions that use the pro's own link), question (to the pro) | Performing our agreement with you |
| Applying the free-session rules: one free session per pro, two per month, cancellation and move limits, and pausing free bookings after two confirmed missed sessions | session details, check-in attendance answers, admin decisions | Performing our agreement with you, and our legitimate interest in keeping free sessions fair |
| Answering match requests: reading your request, suggesting pros, and sending our reply | your request, our reply, your name, the free sessions you've used this month and the pros you've already met | Performing our agreement with you |
| Keeping action plans and notes, and showing the client a summary the pro chooses to share | the client's action plan, the pro's notes, draft and shared summary, the client's and pro's names, the client's timezone (to show overdue actions) | Performing our agreement with you |
| Reviewing pro profiles before they're listed | pro profile, email | Our legitimate interest in listing only profiles we've reviewed |
| Preventing abuse and protecting the service | security counters, sign-in records, server logs | Our legitimate interest in security |
| Understanding whether sessions help and improving the service | product events, check-in answers (counted in aggregate), match-request statuses, times, areas and suggestion counts (counted in aggregate, never what you wrote), action-plan counts (how many actions and how many are done, whether there's a decision, how many steps were shared; counted in aggregate, never what you wrote), page statistics | Our legitimate interest in running and improving a useful service |
| Fixing errors | error and performance monitoring, logs | Our legitimate interest in a working service |
| Answering your messages and requests | your emails to us | Our legitimate interest in supporting you, or a legal obligation when you exercise a privacy right |
| Meeting legal obligations and handling disputes | the records needed | Legal obligation, or our legitimate interest in establishing or defending legal claims |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we've weighed them against your rights and kept the data to what's needed. You can object (see "Your rights").
Automated rules. The free-session limits are applied automatically by fixed rules, and the booking page tells you when one applies. A missed session counts against you only after a person (our admin) reviews it.
Who sees your information
- The other person in your session sees your name and the session details. The pro sees the client's question and context. The client sees any cancellation reason and, if the session uses it or the video call can't start, the pro's meeting link. In a video call, the other person sees and hears what you share: your camera, microphone, screen, and chat messages. Neither sees the other's email address or check-in answers. The client never sees the pro's notes or unshared draft, and the pro never sees the client's action plan. The client sees a summary the pro shares until the pro stops sharing it or either of them deletes their account.
- The public sees approved pros' public profiles (listed above).
- Our admin (Huy Dao during the private alpha) uses admin screens to review pro profiles (including the pro's email address), see sessions and attendance answers, decide reported missed sessions, lift pauses, and read and answer match requests. The admin screens don't show the questions or context clients write when they book a session, or any action plan, note, draft, or shared summary, and being an admin doesn't let anyone join a session's video call. As the operator, Huy Dao also has technical access to the database and to the Daily account, and uses it only to run and support the service, investigate abuse, or meet legal obligations.
- Service providers that store or process information for us (below).
- Authorities or others if the law requires it, or if it's needed to protect someone's safety or our legal rights.
- A future company. If Lend a Mind is transferred to a company (for example one Huy Dao sets up), your information would go with it, under this policy. We'll tell you first.
Service providers
| Provider | What they do for us | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Vercel | Hosts the website and servers; provides page statistics (Web Analytics) | Servers in the US (Portland, Oregon); content is delivered through Vercel's global network |
| Neon | Hosts our database | US (AWS us-west-2, Oregon) |
| Resend | Sends our emails and receives email sent to hello@lendamind.com | US |
| Sentry | Error and performance monitoring | US |
| Daily | Runs the private video calls on the session page, including in-call chat and screen sharing; keeps call records and technical logs | Main processing in the US. Live audio and video go through Daily's server nearest to the participants, which may be outside the US (for example in Europe) |
We'll update this list before adding a provider that handles personal information.
Daily processes call information for us as our service provider, under its terms and privacy policy. Daily uses its own providers to run and connect calls, listed on its sub-processors page.
AI. Lend a Mind doesn't use AI to process your information today. We plan to add optional AI assistance later. Before any of it goes live, we'll update this policy to explain what it does with your information and which provider is involved.
Signing in with Google or LinkedIn. This isn't available yet. If we add it, we'll update this policy first to explain what we receive from those services.
Where your information is stored
Our database and servers are in the United States (Oregon), and our service providers are based in the US. If you use Lend a Mind from outside the US, your information is transferred to and stored in the US, where data-protection laws may differ from those where you live. During a video call, audio and video pass through the Daily server nearest to the participants, which may be outside the US. For transfers out of Europe, Daily relies on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, including its UK and Swiss extensions, and otherwise on standard contractual clauses and the UK Addendum.
How long we keep it
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| Account details, pro profile, availability | Until you delete your account (see below for what happens then) |
| Sign-in codes (keyed hash, with your email) | Until used, or expired after 5 minutes and then removed |
| Sign-in records (IP address, browser type) | Until you sign out or delete your account. A sign-in stops working after 7 days without use |
| Security counters (IP address per sign-in route; keyed hash of the email) | Deleted about one hour after the last request, by a cleanup job that runs every 5 minutes |
| Activity counters (account ID, type of change, hour, count) | Deleted one to about two hours after the request, by the same cleanup job. Removed straight away if you delete your account |
| Sessions, questions, check-in answers | While your account exists. When you delete it, your questions and check-in answers are erased, and session records are kept in de-identified form (see below) |
| Match requests: what you wrote and our reply message | Hidden from you and our admin 90 days after the first of these: we reply, you withdraw the request, or it's closed. A later close doesn't restart the 90 days. We then erase it from our database within 24 hours. A request with no reply is closed automatically 30 days after you send it, without an email, and its 90 days start then. Erased text may remain in our database provider's backups for a short period until they're overwritten. |
| Match requests: the rest of the record (status, times, areas, when you needed help, close reason, suggested pros, and the admin who handled it) | Kept with your account, in your history and our admin screens, until you delete your account. It stays linked to your account; it isn't de-identified |
| Action plans, pro notes, summary drafts, and shared summaries | Kept with no fixed end date for now: until the person who wrote it deletes it, or deletes their account (see below). A client can delete their plan, and a pro can delete their notes or draft, at any time. A shared summary is erased when the pro stops sharing it. Steps a client copied into their plan are part of the client's plan. Deleted text may remain in our database provider's backups for a short period until they're overwritten. |
| Records of emails sent (kind, account, time) | Kept with no fixed end date for now; they hold internal IDs, not email content |
| Product events | Kept with no fixed end date for now, for measurement; your ID is removed from them if you delete your account |
| Admin and security records (for example reviews, attendance decisions, match-request actions, when a pro shares, updates, or stops sharing a summary, account deletions, data downloads) | Kept with no fixed end date for now, so we can show what happened and why |
| Emails you send us | As long as needed to answer you and keep a record of the request |
| Page statistics, error reports, server logs | Kept by Vercel and Sentry under their own retention settings |
| Video-call room and cleanup details (random room name, call open and close times, status, and when and how many times we tried to set up or remove the room; no call content, names, or entry passes) | Kept with the session record. When a session is cancelled or moved, or an account is deleted, we stop letting anyone new into its call and ask Daily to close and delete the room, retrying if that fails. An entry pass issued just before the change works for at most a minute. If Daily can't be reached, anyone already in the call may stay connected until its original closing time, 5 minutes after the scheduled end. After that time, we make a limited number of further attempts to delete the room from Daily, and we're alerted if they all fail |
| Call audio, video, screen sharing, and chat | Not stored by us. Recording and transcription are switched off |
| Daily's call records and technical logs | Kept by Daily under its terms. Its call-quality logs and metrics are kept for 1 day on our current Daily plan |
We'll review the "no fixed end date" items and set limits as the service grows.
When you delete your account
When you delete your account in Settings:
- your upcoming sessions are cancelled, and the other person is emailed; we stop letting anyone into their video calls and ask Daily to close and delete the rooms, retrying a limited number of times and alerting us if that fails, and we keep the room and cleanup details described above (no call content, names, or entry passes);
- your name, email address, timezone, pro profile, availability, and meeting link are erased; your sign-ins and linked devices are removed and you're signed out everywhere;
- your questions, check-in answers, and (for pros) cancellation reasons are erased, as is any reason we gave for declining your profile;
- your match requests are deleted, with what you wrote and our replies, and emails about them that haven't been sent yet are cancelled;
- your action plans, private notes, and summary drafts are erased, and so is any shared summary, whether you shared it as a pro or received it as a client;
- the people you had sessions with keep their own action plans or notes and can still edit or delete them. If you're a client, a pro you booked keeps the private notes and draft they wrote, which may mention you, until they delete them. If you're a pro, a client keeps only the suggested steps they copied into their own plan;
- your past sessions stay in the other person's session history, shown as "Deleted user", and their action plan or notes page no longer shows your name;
- we keep de-identified records: session times, statuses, attendance outcomes, product events, and admin and security records, linked only to an internal ID that no longer points to your name or email. We keep them so the other person's history, our free-session rules, and our measurement stay accurate.
Copies of emails already sent stay in the recipients' inboxes and in our email provider's logs for its retention period. Daily keeps its records of past calls, including the name we gave it, for its own retention period. Deleted information may also remain in our database provider's backups for a short period until they're overwritten.
Free-session history after deletion: not active
We've built, but not switched on, a feature to keep the free-session rules fair when someone deletes their account and signs up again. If it's ever turned on, deleting an account would leave a record for 12 months of which experts the person had free sessions with and in which months, their confirmed missed sessions, and any pause on free bookings. The record would hold no name or email, only keyed hashes (coded versions) of the email address and linked sign-in accounts, so it could be matched only if the same email or sign-in is used again. Records would be deleted automatically after 12 months.
It stays off until counsel has approved this policy. Before turning it on, we'll update this section and tell existing users.
Cookies
We use only the cookies needed to sign you in and keep you signed in. We use no advertising, analytics, or tracking cookies; our page statistics work without cookies. The video call on the session page runs in a frame from Daily, which may use its own browser storage or cookies to run the call, for example to remember your camera and microphone choices.
Your rights
Everyone has these rights, wherever you live:
- Access and download. Settings > "Download my data" gives you a file (JSON) with your account details, linked sign-in methods, pro profile and availability, sessions (with your own questions and context, and whether each uses a video call and its call status), your own check-in answers, your match requests (what you wrote, our reply message, the suggested pros' IDs, areas, status and times; text erased after 90 days shows as empty), your action plans and notes (as a client: your plan and any summary a pro is sharing with you, with its date; as a pro: your notes, your draft, and any summary you're sharing, with when you first shared and last updated it; each with the other person's name and whether you're the client or the pro), and devices. You can download up to 3 times an hour. For anything not in the file, email us.
- Correct. Change your name and timezone in Settings, and your pro profile on your profile page. To change your email address, email us.
- Delete. Settings > "Delete my account" (you'll be asked to type DELETE MY ACCOUNT to confirm). What we keep afterwards is described above.
- Object or restrict. You can object to our use of your information based on legitimate interests, or ask us to limit it, by emailing us.
- Complain. You can complain to the data protection authority where you live. We'd appreciate the chance to help first.
To use a right by email, write to hello@lendamind.com from the address on your account (or tell us how to reach you if you no longer have one), so we can confirm it's you. We'll reply within one month. We won't treat you differently for using your rights.
We don't sell your personal information or share it for advertising.
Security
We take practical steps to protect your information: connections use HTTPS; sign-in codes are short-lived, limited to 3 attempts, and stored only as keyed hashes; sign-in requests are rate-limited; each session's private details are shown only to its two participants; a match request is shown only to the person who sent it and our admin; a client's action plan is shown only to the client, a pro's notes and draft only to the pro, and a shared summary only to that pro and client; each of our built-in video calls is a private room that only those two people can enter, using entry passes that expire within a minute, and it closes 5 minutes after the scheduled end; and error reports are set to exclude personal content. No system is perfectly secure, so we can't guarantee security. If a breach affects your information, we'll tell you and the authorities as the law requires.
Children
Lend a Mind is for people aged 18 or older. If we learn an account belongs to someone younger, we'll delete it.
Changes to this policy
We'll post any update here with a new effective date. If a change matters to how your information is used, we'll tell you by email or on the site before it takes effect.
Contact
hello@lendamind.com