Privacy Policy

Xcel360 ("we", "us", "our") is an education and opportunity platform that helps students and early-career professionals discover scholarships, jobs, internships, mentorship programmes, events, and learning resources. When you create an account or interact with our services, we act as the data controller for the personal information you provide.

This Privacy Policy explains what data we collect, why we collect it, how we use and protect it, and the rights you have over your information.

2.1 Information you give us

• Account data: your name, email address, password (stored only as a secure hash), and profile photo if you sign in with Google.
• Profile data: your study level, course of study, degree or qualification, school/university, department, target countries, fields of interest, short bio, and optionally your WhatsApp number.
• Activity data: opportunities you save, applications you track, and notification preferences.
• Event registrations: your name, email, phone number, and answers to event-specific questions when you register for our events.
• Communications: messages you send through our contact form and your email subscription preferences.

2.2 Information collected automatically

• Usage and security logs: sign-in events, administrative actions, IP address, and browser user-agent, kept to secure the platform and prevent abuse.
• Cookies: strictly necessary session cookies used to keep you signed in. We do not use third-party advertising trackers.

• To create and secure your account and authenticate you when you sign in.
• Personalised matching: to match scholarships, jobs, and internships to your study level, course of study, target countries, and fields of interest, and to show you a match score on your dashboard.
• Notifications and email alerts: to send you deadline reminders, new opportunity alerts that match your profile, weekly digests, and event-related emails - only where you have enabled these preferences.
• To administer events, issue and verify certificates, and manage mentorship programmes.
• To respond to your enquiries and provide support.
• To keep the platform secure, prevent fraud, and enforce our terms of service.
• To analyse aggregate, de-identified usage trends so we can improve the platform.

We process your personal data on the following bases:

• Contract: processing needed to provide the account and services you signed up for.
• Consent: optional marketing emails and non-essential communications, which you can withdraw at any time.
• Legitimate interests: platform security, fraud prevention, and service improvement, balanced against your rights.

Where applicable, we handle your data in line with the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA), the EU/UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and similar privacy laws.

We never sell your personal data. We share it only with:

• Service providers who help us operate the platform - hosting, database, email delivery, and file storage providers - each bound by contractual data-protection obligations.
• Event and certificate verification: the name and certificate details shown on our public certificate-verification page, so third parties can confirm a certificate we issued is genuine.
• Legal authorities where required by law, court order, or to protect the rights and safety of our users.

We keep your personal data only for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide our services. Security and activity logs are retained for a limited period for audit purposes. When you delete your account, your personal data is removed or anonymised, except where we must retain limited records for legal or fraud-prevention reasons.

We protect your data with encryption in transit (HTTPS/TLS), hashed passwords, role-based access control, rate limiting, and security headers. No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, but we work continuously to keep your information safe.

You have the right to:

• Access and update your data at any time from your dashboard profile page.
• Withdraw consent to emails - every email includes an unsubscribe link, and you can toggle notifications in your profile settings.
• Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Request deletion of your account and personal data, subject to legal retention requirements.
• Object to or restrict certain processing, and to lodge a complaint with your local data-protection authority.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at hello@thexcel360.com.

Our services are intended for users aged 16 and above. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 16. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, contact us and we will delete it promptly.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will notify you by email or through a notice on the platform and update the "last updated" date above. Continued use of the platform after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

Questions, concerns, or requests about your privacy? Reach our team at hello@thexcel360.com or through our contact page.