Privacy Policy

1. Data Controller

The controller for all personal data processed on TheFreelancerPortal is the provider named in the Imprint. For any privacy request, contact the email address listed there.

2. Data We Process

Account data (email address, name, login records), consultant profile data entered by you or your organisation (skills, languages, certifications, CV content, rates, availability), project applications and follow-up records, working-time entries, notifications, feedback you submit, and billing data. Payment card details are processed exclusively by Stripe and never stored on our systems.

3. Purposes and Legal Basis

We process personal data to provide the platform to you and your organisation — account management, project matching, application tracking, time tracking, and billing — on the basis of contract performance (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). We process technical logs and security-related data on the basis of our legitimate interest in operating a secure and reliable service (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). AI-assisted features (matching scores, draft outreach emails) process profile and project text for the sole purpose of providing those features within the platform.

4. Processors

We use the following processors under data processing agreements:

• Stripe Payments Europe, Ltd. (Ireland) — subscription billing and payment processing
• Resend (USA, EU data residency available) — transactional email delivery
• Cloudflare, Inc. (USA/EU) — content delivery, TLS, and security filtering
• OpenAI (USA) — AI matching and text generation; profile and project text only, no payment or login data
• Hosting provider — infrastructure on which the platform and its database run

Where processors are located outside the EU/EEA, transfers are safeguarded by EU Standard Contractual Clauses or an adequacy decision.

5. Cookies

We only use strictly necessary cookies: a session cookie to keep you logged in and a CSRF cookie to protect forms. No tracking, analytics, or marketing cookies are used, which is why no cookie consent banner is shown.

6. Your Rights

You can export your personal data at any time from your account menu ("Download my data") and delete your account including your personal data ("Delete account"). In addition, you have the right of access (Art. 15), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18), data portability (Art. 20), and objection (Art. 21 GDPR), as well as the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority.

7. Retention

Account and profile data are kept until you delete your account or your organisation removes them. Invoices and billing records are retained for the statutory commercial and tax retention periods (up to 10 years) even after account deletion. Technical logs are kept for a short period for security purposes and then deleted.

8. Changes

We update this policy when the service or its processors change. The current version is always available on this page.