Privacy Policy

1. What data we collect

Forja is a product of Design Glyphe LLC. When you use this website, interact with Forja, or interact with Design Glyphe LLC services, we may collect the following categories of personal data:

• Contact information, including name, email address, phone number, and country, when you register interest, submit an application, or enquire about partnerships
• Business information, including startup name, subsector, business stage, team structure, founder equity breakdown, and customer details, provided during application or registration forms
• Competition performance data, including scores, rankings, deliverable submissions, judge evaluations, Integrity Quotient assessments, and advancement decisions, collected during Stage One and Stage Two
• Financial data, including revenue figures, customer transaction records, and investment documentation, submitted as part of competition verification or prize disbursement processes
• Media data, including photographs, video recordings, audio recordings, and other media captured during competition events, particularly during Stage Two
• Usage data, including pages visited, time on site, device information, browser type, IP address, and interaction data, collected automatically via analytics
• Communications data, including the content of emails, messages, support requests, and enquiries you send to us

We do not collect sensitive personal data such as government identification numbers, biometric data, health information, or political opinions through this website. Where government identification is required for travel, visa, or legal compliance purposes related to Stage Two, it will be collected separately under specific consent and stored with additional safeguards.

2. How we use your data

We use the personal data we collect for the following purposes:

• To process interest registrations and evaluate competition applications
• To verify eligibility, including paying customer claims, business stage, and Integrity Quotient compliance
• To administer the competition, including scoring, rankings, advancement decisions, and prize disbursement
• To produce, edit, and distribute media content in accordance with signed media release agreements
• To fulfil investment and funding obligations for prize recipients, including due diligence and SAFE agreement execution
• To send competition updates, application status notifications, and relevant announcements via email
• To respond to partnership enquiries, support requests, and general communications
• To improve the performance and usability of this website through analytics
• To comply with legal and regulatory obligations

We do not sell your personal data to third parties. We do not use your data for automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects without human review (see Section 8 below).

3. Legal basis for processing

Under UK GDPR and applicable data protection law, we process your personal data on the following legal bases:

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have conducted a balancing test to ensure our interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests at any time.

4. Data retention

We retain personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected. Specific retention periods are as follows:

You may request deletion of your data at any time by contacting us. Deletion requests will be honoured unless retention is required by law or necessary for the performance of a contract.

5. Your rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right of access. You can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to rectification. You can request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
• Right to erasure. You can request deletion of your personal data, subject to legal retention requirements.
• Right to data portability. You can request your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
• Right to object. You can object to processing based on legitimate interests at any time.
• Right to restrict processing. You can request that we limit how we use your data while a complaint or objection is being resolved.
• Right to withdraw consent. Where consent is the legal basis, you can withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the details in Section 15. We will respond within 30 days. In complex cases, we may extend this period by up to two additional months, and will notify you of any such extension within the initial 30-day period.

6. Children's privacy

Forja, a product of Design Glyphe LLC, is a business competition for startup founders. This website and the competition are not directed at individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 18. If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected data from a person under 18, we will delete that data promptly and take reasonable steps to prevent further collection.

If you believe that a person under 18 has provided personal data to us, please contact us immediately using the details in Section 15.

7. Data breach notification

In the event of a personal data breach that is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) within 72 hours of becoming aware of the breach, as required by UK GDPR.

Where the breach is likely to result in a high risk to your rights and freedoms, we will also notify affected individuals without undue delay. Notification will include: a description of the nature of the breach, the categories and approximate number of individuals affected, the likely consequences, and the measures taken or proposed to mitigate the breach.

We maintain internal procedures for detecting, reporting, and investigating data breaches, and we regularly test and review these procedures.

8. Automated decision-making

The Integrity Quotient (IQ) scoring framework involves structured assessment across five dimensions. While the framework provides a quantitative score, all scoring decisions involve human judgment. IQ scores are assigned by human judges and reviewers, not by solely automated systems.

We do not make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects on you based solely on automated processing. Where algorithmic tools are used to support evaluation (such as data analytics for verification purposes), they are advisory to human decision-makers and do not autonomously determine outcomes.

You have the right to request human review of any decision that significantly affects you, to express your point of view, and to contest the decision.

9. Marketing communications

We may send you marketing communications about Forja, Design Glyphe LLC products, and related initiatives if you have opted in to receive them at registration or through a separate consent mechanism.

You can opt out of marketing communications at any time by using the unsubscribe link in any marketing email, or by contacting us using the details in Section 15. We will process your opt-out request within 10 business days.

Opting out of marketing communications does not affect transactional communications. If you are an active contestant, you will continue to receive competition updates, application status notifications, submission reminders, and other communications necessary for the administration of the competition. These are not marketing communications and cannot be opted out of during active participation.

10. Social media data

If you interact with Forja's social media accounts or Design Glyphe LLC through social media platforms (such as Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram), the platform may share certain data with us in accordance with your privacy settings on that platform. This may include your public profile information, interactions with our posts, and direct messages.

We do not currently require contestants to connect social media accounts as part of the competition. If social media integration is introduced in the future, participants will be notified and separate consent will be obtained. Social media platforms operate under their own privacy policies, which we do not control.

11. Third-party services

This website uses the following third-party services that may process your personal data:

• Convex, for database and application data storage, and for user authentication (email and password with OTP verification) and session management via Convex Auth, hosted on secure cloud infrastructure
• Resend, for transactional email delivery, including OTP verification codes and competition notification emails
• Google, for Google Analytics 4, which processes page view and navigation data only after you grant analytics consent
• Vercel, for website hosting and performance monitoring, which may process access logs and aggregated service data

Each third-party service operates under its own privacy policy and data processing terms. We have Data Processing Agreements (DPAs) in place where required by applicable law. As competition operations scale, additional third-party services (such as streaming platforms, payment processors, or event management tools) may be added. This section will be updated accordingly.

12. International data transfers

Some of our third-party service providers are based outside the UK and European Economic Area. Where personal data is transferred internationally, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, including Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the relevant data protection authority, or transfers to countries with an adequacy decision.

The Forja competition is open to global participants. By submitting an application, you acknowledge that your data may be processed in jurisdictions outside your country of residence for the purposes described in this policy. We will always ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place for any such transfer.

If you are in the UK, EU, or EEA and want a rights-focused summary of lawful bases, transfers, and complaints routes, see our GDPR Policy.

13. Data protection contact

Design Glyphe LLC does not currently meet the statutory threshold requiring the appointment of a Data Protection Officer (DPO) under UK GDPR. However, we have designated a privacy contact responsible for handling all data protection enquiries, rights requests, and complaints.

You can reach our privacy contact and legal team at legal@contact.enterforja.com. Use this address for privacy rights requests, GDPR/data protection enquiries, complaints, and formal privacy notices. Please mark your enquiry as a data protection matter so it can be routed appropriately. We will acknowledge receipt within 5 business days and respond substantively within 30 days.

14. Cookies

This website uses cookies and similar tracking technologies. For full details of what cookies we use, how to manage them, and your consent choices, see our Cookie Policy.

15. Contact and complaints

For data protection enquiries, to exercise your rights, to submit a complaint, or to contact the Forja legal team about privacy matters, email legal@contact.enterforja.com. Please include sufficient detail to identify yourself and describe your request.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in the UK at ico.org.uk. You also have the right to seek a judicial remedy if you believe your rights under UK GDPR have been infringed.

This Privacy Policy is the main statement of how we handle personal data across Forja and Design Glyphe LLC services. For a dedicated UK and EU data-rights explainer, see the GDPR Policy.