Privacy policy

Who we are

MEC.TECH runs programs in music, engineering and coding for high-school students: Summer Intensive, Research and Internship. This policy covers the applications on this website. To ask a question, or to see, correct or delete your information, write to us at info@mec.tech.

What we collect

Your account. Your email address, which is also your username, and your password. We keep the password only in scrambled form, so nobody at MEC.TECH can read it.

Your application. What you enter in each section: your name, date of birth, email address, phone number, grade, school, and the city, state or province, and country you live in; your parent's or guardian's name, relationship to you, email address and phone number; your emergency contact's name, relationship to you, email address and phone number; your answers to your program's own questions; your essays; and the link to your music or other supplements, if you give one.

Your documents. The files you upload: your current transcript, your CV and two recommendation letters. When you upload a photo (JPG or PNG), we remove its hidden details, such as where it was taken, before storing it. PDF and Word files stay exactly as you upload them.

The application fee. You type your card details on the page of our payment provider, the company that takes our payments, never on this website, so we never see or keep your card number. We keep a record of the payment: the amount, when it was paid, and the payment provider's reference for it.

Technical details. When you create an account, we keep a scrambled form of your internet address and the name of your web browser, to spot misuse. A cookie keeps you signed in. Cloudflare, the company that hosts this website, keeps short-lived records of visits to keep the website working and secure.

Why we use it

• To review your application and decide on admission.
• To write to you, and to your parent or guardian, about your application and the program.
• To reach your emergency contact in an emergency.
• To take the application fee and, if you're admitted, to send the invoice for the program's tuition.
• To keep your account safe: confirming your email address, sending a link to choose a new password, the “I'm human” check, and making sure a new password hasn't appeared in a known data leak.

We don't sell your information, we don't show ads, and we don't use advertising or tracking cookies.

Who else handles it

A few companies run parts of the application for us. Each one handles only what its job needs, under its own privacy policy:

• Cloudflare hosts this website, the database and the private storage for your documents, and runs the “I'm human” check (Turnstile).
• Resend sends the website's emails: confirming your address, choosing a new password, a short notice to our staff that an application arrived, with its reference and no other details, and your confirmation.
• Our payment provider takes the application fee, and sends tuition invoices.
• Our email provider keeps our staff's mailbox, which receives that short notice.
• Have I Been Pwned checks a new password against known data leaks. Only the first five characters of a scrambled form of the password are sent to it, never the password itself.

We share your information with anyone else only if the law requires us to.

Students under 18, and parents

Accounts are for students 13 and older. If someone younger tries to create an account, we don't keep anything they entered. An applicant who will be under 18 on their program's first day gives a parent's or guardian's details, and we may contact that parent or guardian about the application. A parent or guardian can write to us at info@mec.tech to see or delete their child's information.

How long we keep it

• An unfinished application is deleted, with its files, 60 days after its program's application deadline. When an account's last application goes, the account goes too.
• A submitted application is kept, with its files, as our record of your application, until you ask us to delete it.
• The short notice of a submitted application, with its reference, stays in our staff's mailbox until we delete that application.
• Our payment provider keeps its own record of every payment, as the rules for card payments require.
• Backups. Deleted information can stay in backups of our database and of your documents for up to 30 days, and is then gone for good.

Deleting your account, and your other choices

• Delete your account yourself. Sign in and choose Delete my account at the top of your application. Your account, and any application you haven't submitted, are deleted straight away, with their files.
• A submitted application stays with our admissions team when you delete your account. To withdraw it and have it deleted too, write to us.
• Change your answers at any time until you submit. After that, write to us if something needs correcting.
• Ask us for a copy of your information, or to delete it, at info@mec.tech.

The application fee

The application fee is $75, paid on our payment provider's secure page before you submit. The application fee isn't refundable. If the same application is paid twice by mistake, we refund the second payment.

Keeping it safe

Passwords are kept only in scrambled form. Your documents sit in private storage with no public link: only you, signed in, and our staff, signed in to a private staff page, can download them. Staff can read your application and download your documents once your fee is paid or your bank transfer is on its way, even before you submit. Until then your application stays private to you. Every connection to this website is encrypted. When you sign out, the application page clears your answers from the screen, for whoever uses the computer next.

Cookies, and what your browser remembers

One cookie keeps you signed in, and it ends when you sign out or close your browser. Your browser also remembers, on your device only, whether you chose the light or the dark look and whether sound is on. The “I'm human” check looks at technical details of your browser to tell people from bots. We use no advertising or tracking cookies, and no analytics.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll update this page and the date at the top. Questions are always welcome at info@mec.tech.