Privacy Notice

Effective date: 2026-10-05

2-minute summary

• This notice covers the personal data Proust is responsible for: your business account, and the email or Venmo phone number a participant gives to receive a reward.
• What is said in an interview belongs to the business that ran it. Proust processes it on that business's instructions under the Data Processing Agreement.
• Proust does not sell personal data, does not use it for advertising, and does not use conversations to train AI models.
• Voice interviews are transcribed live. No audio is stored.
• To see, correct or delete your data, email info@proust.dev.
• If you took an interview, the short version is at proust.dev/privacy.

Article 1 — General

Proust runs proust.dev and the Proust interview service, and is the controller of the personal data described in this notice. Contact: info@proust.dev.

For interview content, the business that ran the interview is the controller. The Data Processing Agreement describes how Proust processes it on that business's behalf.

Article 2 — What personal data does Proust collect

Business account data. Your sign-in email, workspace name and billing details, and the record of which Terms and agreements you accepted, in which version, and when.

Participant reward data. The email or Venmo phone number a participant gives to receive a reward.

Identifiers placed in links by a business. A business can put a customer's email or ID in its interview link. That identifier is supplied and controlled by the business. Proust does not verify it. A reward is sent only after the business approves the interview.

Panel profile (opt-in only). The interview history, interests and contact details of participants who asked to hear about future paid interviews.

Anti-fraud signals. A hashed IP address and, for interviews at a venue, approximate location at the moment of a scan.

Transactional email records. Whether a reward or sign-in email was delivered.

Article 3 — Purposes of the processing

3.1 General purposes

Business account data is used to run and bill the Service and to keep the record of what you agreed to. Participant reward data is used to send the reward and to prevent duplicate or fraudulent claims. Panel profiles are used to match participants to the paid interviews they asked to hear about. Transactional email records are used to make sign-in and reward claims work.

3.2 Direct marketing

Proust does not use personal data for advertising. Participants hear about future paid interviews only if they opted in, and can withdraw at any time.

3.3 Transfer to third parties

Personal data goes to the service providers that run Proust: hosting, the AI that conducts interviews, voice, email, product analytics and payouts. Payouts go through PayPal (PayPal Payouts) only. Each provider works under data-processing terms and cannot use the data for its own purposes. The current list, with what each one touches, is on the "Your data & privacy" page in the help center.

Proust does not sell personal data. Proust does not share a participant's identity or contact details with the business that ran their interview.

3.4 Legal requirements

Proust discloses personal data where the law requires it.

3.5 Bot protection and analytics

Anti-fraud signals are used to limit repeat attempts and to enforce the reward frequency the business set.

proust.dev sets cookies to keep a business signed in, and to remember that a device has already done an interview for the period the business set (a day, a month or 90 days). It sets no advertising cookies and does no cross-site tracking.

proust.dev uses PostHog for product analytics. It records the events we define: no automatic capture, no session replay, and no interview content.

3.6 AI and voice

Proust does not use conversations to train AI models. Its AI providers are set up the same way. Proust does not store call audio, and does not create voiceprints or use a voice to identify anyone.

Article 4 — Duration of the processing

• Business account data: the life of the account. Billing and acceptance records are kept as long as the law requires.
• Participant reward data: up to 12 months after the last payout; then the link between it and the interview is removed, unless the participant opted in to the panel.
• Panel profile: while the opt-in stands. Inactive profiles are deleted.
• Anti-fraud signals: 90 days.
• Transactional email records: 12 months.
• Backups: deleted data leaves backup copies within 14 days.

Article 5 — Your rights

5.1 Right of access

You can ask us what personal data we hold about you and receive a copy.

5.2 Right to rectification and erasure

You can ask us to correct your personal data, or to delete it.

5.3 Right to object and to withdraw consent

You can ask us to stop panel contact at any time. Withdrawing does not affect what was done before.

5.4 Exercising your rights

Email info@proust.dev. We answer within 45 days. This applies to everyone, wherever you live. If you took an interview, email from the address your reward was sent to.

5.5 Right to file a complaint

You can complain to the data-protection authority where you live.

Article 6 — Safety and confidentiality

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access to production systems is limited to Proust's founders.

If a breach affects your personal data, we tell you without undue delay.

Article 7 — Applicable law and changes

This notice is governed by the laws of California, USA. When it changes, we publish the new version with its effective date. For a material change, account holders get 30 days' notice.

Change note, v2 (2026-10-05): rewritten in plain English and restructured into seven articles with a 2-minute summary; the retention table is now Article 4. Added: identifiers in links (art. 2); PayPal as the only payout rail (art. 3.3); 14-day backups (art. 4); participant deletion instruction (art. 5.4). "Venmo handle" is now "Venmo phone number"; rewards are a code or Venmo, PayPal is the rail only.