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Privacy, in plain language

No legal jargon. If you want the short version: your answers stay on your device unless you choose to share them, and we never sell your data.

🔒 You control what gets shared, always

What we collect

What you type into 4ward: your major, school, experience, goals, and the optional "a bit about you" answers. If you upload a résumé, we read it to give you feedback and to fill in your profile. That's it. We don't collect anything you didn't type or upload yourself.

Where it lives

Your profile and trajectory are stored in your own browser (localStorage) by default, not tied to an account. If you clear your browser data or switch devices without an account, it's gone unless you rebuild it.

If you choose to sign in (Google or an email link), that same data also syncs to a private database row tied to your account, so it carries over when you switch devices. Only you can access your row. You can leave this off entirely by using 4ward as a guest, and you can delete your synced data any time from your dashboard.

What happens when you use AI features

Building your trajectory and using the résumé reviewer send your profile to Anthropic's Claude through our own server, so we can generate a personalized result. That request is not used to train any model, and we don't store a copy of it beyond what's needed to answer you.

Sharing with your advisor

4ward never shares anything automatically. If you tap "Share a live link," you choose to create a private, one-time link with a summary of your trajectory (your paths, focus areas, target roles, and outreach counts, never your contacts' names or private notes) for your advisor to view. You can delete that link any time, and it expires automatically after 90 days.

What we don't do

Questions or want something deleted

As a guest, clearing your browser data is fully in your hands. If you're signed in, use "Delete my data" in your dashboard to clear your synced data and this browser's copy together. For anything you've shared with an advisor, delete the link from the Share modal in the app. For any other question, reach out through the 4ward site.