--- title: "Privacy" url: https://aiguideson.com/privacy/ updated: 2026-10-03 language: en-GB --- # Privacy Adapt Progress Evolve Limited (company number 10047328) runs aiguideson.com and is the controller for the information described here. Contact: [hello@aiguideson.com](mailto:hello@aiguideson.com). ## Reading needs no account Every lesson is readable without signing in. If you never sign in, we set no cookies and hold nothing about you beyond the anonymous analytics below. ## Accounts You only have an account if you ask for a sign-in link. Signing in is by a link we email you; there are no passwords. While you have an account we keep: - **Your email address**, to send you sign-in links and to tell your account apart from others. - **The name you choose for certificates**, if you set one. It’s printed on your certificates of completion and their verification pages. - **Your progress**: which lessons you marked complete, and when. We also use those dates to show how many days in a row you finished a lesson. - **What you earned**: module and course badges, achievements, and certificates of completion (credential ID, course title, the name shown, issue date and whether it is valid). - **Your choices**: whether you want course news by email (with the date you said yes or no and where you said it), and whether your public profile is on. - **Sign-in sessions**: one cookie, `ago_session`, set only after you sign in. It holds a random value, lasts 30 days from your last visit and can't be read by scripts on the page. We store a one-way hash of it with the time the session started, when it expires and when it was last used. - **Sign-in links**: a one-way hash of each link's secret, the email it was sent to and when it expires (15 minutes) or was used. We delete them a day after they expire. - **Rate limits**: to stop abuse of the sign-in form we count requests per IP address and per email address. We store only one-way hashes of those, with a count, and delete them after two days. Why: we keep your account data to provide what you asked for (saved progress, badges and certificates; legal basis: contract). The rate-limit counters protect the service (legitimate interests). Course news is by consent only. ## Course news by email Signing in never signs you up for anything. Course news is a separate box on the sign-in form and in your settings, unticked unless you tick it, and you can turn it off any time in settings. Without it, the only emails we send you are the sign-in links you ask for. ## Certificates, verification pages and your public profile Each certificate of completion has a verification page at its own address, showing the name you chose, the course, the issue date, the credential ID and whether it is valid, so anyone you give the link to can check it. It never shows your email address. These pages are not listed in search engines. Each valid certificate can also have a share picture: an image of the certificate showing your name, the course, the issue date and the verification address. Like the verification page, anyone with the link can see it. It’s made the first time something asks for it, such as LinkedIn building a preview of your verification link, and we keep it with the certificate so it isn’t redrawn each time. When you change your name we delete it, and a new one is made with the new name. Copies another site has already fetched, such as a LinkedIn preview, are kept by that site. Your public profile is off unless you turn it on in settings. When it is on, it shows your name, your certificates and your badges at its own address; never your email. Turning it off takes the page down straight away. ## Export or delete your data From [Your data](/me/data/) you can download your account data as one JSON file (your account details, email choices, progress, badges, certificates and sign-in sessions), or delete your account. Deleting removes your account, email address, name, progress, badges, achievements, email choices, sessions, any unused sign-in links and your certificates’ share pictures, straight away. Certificates you were issued stop being valid when you delete your account. We keep only a minimal record of each one (credential ID, course, issue date, and the fact that it was withdrawn because the account was deleted), without your name or anything that links it to you. That way, someone who follows an old verification link learns that the certificate is no longer valid rather than seeing "not found", which could make a real certificate look forged. We keep account data while the account exists. We don't delete inactive accounts automatically. You can delete yours at any time, or email us and we will. ## Anonymous analytics We count page views with our own first-party analytics. We store the page, the referring site, any campaign tags in the link, a rough device type, the country reported by our hosting provider and a random ID that only lasts while the tab's open. When you follow a link to another site we record which site. We never store your IP address or your browser's user agent, and analytics are never linked to accounts: account pages report a pattern such as `/verify/[id]/`, never a credential ID, name or email. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, nothing's recorded. You can also switch analytics off for this browser with the button below. ## Links to other sites Links to our own products carry a `ref=aiguideson` tag so we can see which visits came from here. Links to other sites, such as the sources we cite, are left exactly as they are. Their own privacy policies apply once you're there. The "Add certificate to LinkedIn profile" button sends LinkedIn the course title, our name as the issuer, the month and year it was issued, the credential ID and your verification link. The "Share achievement" button sends LinkedIn only your verification link; LinkedIn then reads that page and its share picture, which show your name. Neither does anything until you press it. ## Who processes it for us The site and its database run on Cloudflare. Sign-in emails are delivered by Resend. Both act on our instructions only. ## Your rights You can ask for a copy of your data, a correction, or deletion, or object to any processing described here, by emailing us. You can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).