Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 14, 2026

This policy replaces the version dated March 1, 2022.

1. Who we are and what this policy covers

LaunchX LLC ("LaunchX," "we," "us") runs entrepreneurship programs for young people. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the choices you have.

It applies to launchx.com, our application and student portal (currently mymissioncontrol.app), awardx.com, and any other LaunchX website or app that links to this policy. It also applies to information you give us by email, phone, text, chat or in person. The EshipX Marketplace (eshipx.com) has its own privacy policy, which applies there instead.

If you are a parent or guardian, this policy also explains how we handle your child's information and the rights you have over it.

2. Information we collect

Information you give us

Inquiries and sign-ups: name, email, phone number, school, grade or graduation year, country, and how you heard about us.
Applications: the student's name, date of birth, gender, nationality, contact details including mobile phone, address, school and academic history, activities, essays and other written answers, an optional self-recorded video submitted as a link, and signatures. If a student is interviewed, we also keep the interviewer's notes and recommendation.
Parent or guardian details: names, email addresses, phone numbers and relationship to the student.
Ethnicity and disability: the application asks about these, and you can always choose "Prefer not to answer" or "I don't wish to answer." We use ethnicity answers only to understand who our programs reach, and disability answers only to plan accommodations. Choosing not to answer never affects an admission decision.
Financial award applications: family income, supporting documents such as pay stubs or tax documents, and signatures. We ask for these only from families who apply for a financial award, and use them only to decide that award.
Enrollment and program participation: enrollment agreements and forms, emergency contacts, health and dietary information needed for in-person programs, travel details, and the work students create during the program.
Payments: billing name and address. Card and bank (ACH) payments are handled by our payment processor, Stripe. We do not store full card or bank account numbers.
Messages and chat: what you write to us by email, text, WhatsApp, or through our chat assistant.

Some of this is sensitive information: ethnicity, disability, health, nationality and family finances. We use it only for the purposes described in this policy, and never for advertising.

Information collected automatically

When you visit our websites or portal, we and our partners collect your IP address, browser and device type, pages viewed, the site that sent you, approximate location, and how you interact with pages. We do this with cookies, pixels and similar tools (see section 5).

Information from others

We may receive information from schools, counselors, recommenders, partner organizations, and people who refer a student to us.

3. How we use information

To answer questions and send information you ask for.
To review applications and make admission and financial award decisions.
To enroll students, run our programs, keep students safe, and provide support.
To process payments and refunds.
To send updates about your application or enrollment.
To send marketing emails and, with separate consent, marketing texts.
To feature students in our marketing, as allowed by the enrollment agreement (see our Terms of Use, section 6).
To measure and improve our websites, programs and advertising.
To stay in touch with alumni.
To comply with the law and protect the rights and safety of students, families and LaunchX.

4. How we use AI in admissions

We use AI to help review applications. A person reviews every applicant and makes every admission decision. AI never makes a final decision on its own.

What the AI reads: the student's application answers, including essays, activities, academic information and interviewer notes. It does not read the answers about ethnicity, disability, gender or nationality, or any financial information.

What the AI does not do: it does not watch or listen to videos, and it does not analyze faces or voices. We do not collect biometric identifiers such as face geometry or voiceprints. If we ever wanted to, we would first get written consent from a parent or guardian (or from the applicant, if 18 or older).

Which AI we use: our review tool is built by LaunchX and uses Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, through Anthropic's commercial API. Under Anthropic's commercial terms, applicant information is not used to train its AI models.

Your choices: you can ask us how AI was used in reviewing an application, ask us to correct information we used, and ask for a decision to be reconsidered by a person. If an applicant is not admitted, they can ask for the main reasons for the decision. Email help@launchx.com with "AI review" in the subject line. We keep a record of each admission decision for 3 years.

5. Cookies, pixels and advertising

Our websites and portal use cookies and similar tools. Some are needed for the site to work. Others help us measure traffic or show LaunchX ads to people who have visited our sites. The tools we use today are:

Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager (Google): measure site traffic and manage our other tags.
Google Ads (Google): measure our ads and show LaunchX ads to past visitors.
Meta Pixel (Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram): measure our ads and show LaunchX ads to past visitors.
TikTok Pixel (TikTok): measure our ads and show LaunchX ads to past visitors.
OpenAI ads measurement (OpenAI): measure our ads.
LinkedIn Insight Tag (LinkedIn): measure our ads.
Reddit Pixel (Reddit): measure our ads.
HubSpot (HubSpot): manage contacts, forms and email, track site visits, and measure ads.
Intellimize (Webflow): test different versions of our pages.
Chatbase: runs our chat assistant (see section 6).
Stripe: processes payments and helps prevent fraud.

These advertising tools run on our public websites and also in our application portal, so they may collect information about visits by students under 18. When these tools run, the companies behind them receive information such as your IP address, the pages you visit and an identifier for your browser. They may combine it with what they already know about you, under their own privacy policies. They do not receive the content of your application.

Your choices: you can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and manage how ads are shown to you in your Google, Meta and TikTok ad settings. You can also opt out of interest-based ads from many companies at optout.aboutads.info. To ask us to stop sharing your information with advertising partners, email help@launchx.com.

6. Our chat assistant

Our websites, student portal and WhatsApp channel offer an AI chat assistant, HelpX, that answers questions about our programs. It is run for us by Chatbase, which uses an AI model from OpenAI to write answers. Messages sent through WhatsApp are also handled by Meta under its own policies.

What you type into the chat, and the assistant's replies, are stored by Chatbase and available to LaunchX staff. We use chats to answer your questions and improve the assistant. We keep chat records until you ask us to delete them. Please do not share sensitive information such as health details or financial information in the chat.

The chat assistant can make mistakes. If its answer differs from our Terms of Use, our published costs and deadlines, or an admission offer, those are what apply.

7. Emails and text messages

We send emails about applications and enrollment, and marketing emails about our programs. Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link.

We send marketing text messages only to people who agree to receive them, for example by submitting one of our forms that clearly says so. Agreeing is never a condition of applying, enrolling or buying anything. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to stop texts at any time, or HELP for help.

We do not sell or share mobile phone numbers or text-message consent with any third party for its own marketing.

8. Who we share information with

We do not sell personal information for money.

We share information only as follows:

Service providers that help us run LaunchX, such as website and app hosting, our customer database and email tools, our application and form tools, payment processing, AI providers, cloud storage, and video meeting tools. They may use the information only to provide services to us.
Advertising and analytics partners listed in section 5, through the cookies and pixels on our websites and portal. Some US state laws treat this as "selling" or "sharing" personal information. You can opt out as described in section 5.
Program partners such as venues, residential partners, mentors and judges, only as needed to run a program a student is enrolled in.
Parents and guardians of students under 18, about their own child.
When required by law, to respond to legal process, to protect the safety of any person, or to prevent fraud.
If LaunchX is sold or merges with another organization, in which case this policy continues to protect the information.

If a student or alum chooses to post content publicly, for example on a public profile or in a community space, others can see it.

9. Students under 18 and parent rights

Most of our applicants and students are under 18.

Children under 13: our programs and sites are not meant for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that we have, we will delete it. A parent who believes their child under 13 has given us information should email help@launchx.com.
Parent and guardian agreement: if a student is under 18, a parent or guardian must agree to our Terms of Use and to any payment, and must sign any enrollment agreements.
Parent and guardian rights: a parent or guardian of a student under 18 can ask to see the information we hold about their child, correct it, or have it deleted, and can withdraw consent for further collection. Email help@launchx.com. We will verify that you are the student's parent or guardian before acting.
Turning 18: when a student turns 18, they control their own information. On the student's request, we will remove a parent or guardian's access to their portal account.

10. How long we keep information

We keep information only as long as we need it, then delete it or remove anything that identifies you.

Inquiries and marketing contacts: 5 years after your last contact with us, or until you unsubscribe and ask us to delete your information.
Applications from students who do not enroll: 5 years after the application, so returning applicants do not have to start over. Optional video links and interviewer notes are kept with the application.
Financial award documents (income and tax documents): 2 years after the award decision.
Admission decision records (including AI-assisted reviews): 3 years after the decision.
Payment and accounting records: 7 years, as required for tax and accounting.
Enrolled student and alumni records: for as long as you remain part of the LaunchX alumni network. You can ask us to delete them at any time, except records we must keep by law.
Chat records: until you ask us to delete them.

11. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

know what personal information we hold about you and get a copy;
correct it;
delete it;
opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of your information for advertising;
opt out of marketing emails and texts;
limit how we use sensitive information;
appeal if we deny your request.

To use any of these rights, email help@launchx.com. We will respond within 30 days and will not treat you differently for using your rights. We may need to confirm your identity first. You can also ask someone to make a request for you, if you give them written permission. To appeal a decision on your request, reply to our decision with "Appeal" in the subject line.

12. Students and families outside the United States

LaunchX is based in the United States, and we store and process information in the United States. Students join our programs from around the world.

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, data protection law requires us to explain the legal reason for each use of your information:

To review applications, run programs and process payments: because it is needed to carry out the agreement you have asked to enter with us.
Ethnicity and disability answers, health information for in-person programs, and marketing texts and emails: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
Advertising cookies and pixels: your consent.
Keeping our sites secure, preventing fraud, improving programs and staying in touch with alumni: our legitimate interest in running LaunchX, balanced against your rights.
Keeping tax and accounting records: our legal obligations.

Transfers to the United States: where we or our service providers transfer information from these regions to the United States, we rely on the standard contract terms approved by the European Commission (and the UK equivalent), or on a provider's certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

Your rights: you can ask to access, correct, delete, restrict or move your information, object to how we use it, and withdraw consent. Email help@launchx.com. You also have the right to complain to the data protection authority in your country.

13. How we protect information

We use reasonable safeguards to protect personal information, including access limits so that staff see only what they need, encrypted connections, and secure service providers. No system is completely secure. If a security breach affects your information, we will notify you as required by law.

14. Links to other sites

Our sites link to other websites and services, such as social media. Their own privacy policies apply when you use them.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. We will post the new version here and change the effective date. If we make a material change, we will also email registered users and families of current applicants and students before it takes effect.

16. Contact us

Questions or requests about privacy:

LaunchX LLC
help@launchx.com
7050 Dexter Ann Arbor Rd, Unit 300 #1044, Dexter, MI 48130, United States