Privacy policy

Who we are

Kairos AI Project, Inc. ("Kairos", "we", "us") is a Delaware nonprofit corporation recognized as a 501(c)(3) public charity, with EIN 33-4777472. Our registered address is 131 Continental Dr, Suite 305, Newark, Delaware 19713, United States. For anything in this policy, email us at .

This policy covers kairos-project.org, the ways you can contact us, applications for jobs at Kairos, and any Kairos program, project, or event that doesn't have a privacy policy of its own, including its website and application forms. Today that includes Pathfinder, the Global Challenges Project (GCP), the Generator Residency, and OASIS.

SPAR has its own privacy policy at sparai.org/privacy, and Talent Commons has its own at talentcommons.org/privacy. Where a program or service has its own policy, that policy applies instead of this one.

The short version

We collect basic usage data on our websites through PostHog analytics, and that includes a cookie that stays on your device for a year. You can turn it off.
The same analytics identifier follows you if you click through to our program sites at sparai.org, globalchallengesproject.org, and generatorresidency.org.
Our websites don't record session replays. Our application forms can record how you fill them in, and in the EU, the EEA, the UK, Switzerland, and California only if you agree.
When you apply for a job or to one of our programs, AI tools help us assess applications. When we receive more applications than we can read, some are declined based on that assessment alone. Here's how that works.
We use past applications and program records to find people for roles and programs at Kairos. We share them with other organizations only if you opt in.
We do not sell personal information, we do not use it for advertising, and there are no advertising trackers on our websites.
Wherever you live, you can ask us to correct or delete your information at .

Visiting our websites

What we collect

Which pages you look at and when, how you arrived (the site or search that sent you, plus any campaign tags carried in the link), what you click and interact with, how far down a page you scroll, which sections of a page you reach, the approximate location worked out from your IP address (country, region, and city), your device and browser, and any errors the page runs into. This is collected by PostHog, our analytics provider.

Two things about that are worth saying plainly. Events go first to ingest.kairos-project.org, an address we run that passes them on to PostHog, so what you see in your browser's network tab is a Kairos domain rather than a PostHog one. We do that so ad blockers do not silently remove our own traffic measurements. And nobody signs in on these sites, so this data is held against a random identifier stored in your browser rather than against your name.

Cookies

When you visit this site, our analytics writes one cookie to your device. It holds a random visitor identifier and a session identifier, and no name or email address. It lasts 365 days, and it is set for kairos-project.org and all of its subdomains, so it is the same identifier on pathfinder.kairos-project.org and fillout.kairos-project.org. We also keep a small amount of analytics state in your browser's local storage.

When you click a link from this site to sparai.org, globalchallengesproject.org, or generatorresidency.org, we attach that identifier to the link for a moment so the visit is counted as one journey rather than two. In plain terms, one identifier can follow you from here across our program sites.

All of this measures how the site is used. None of it is advertising. There are no advertising or social-media trackers on this site, and these pages load nothing from a third-party network.

You can turn analytics off for this site in this browser below. It stays off until you turn it back on or clear this site's data. Blocking or deleting cookies in your browser settings stops analytics on our other sites too, and doing so does not stop you using any part of them.

Session replays

Our websites don't record session replays. Our application forms can, to help us find and fix problems with them. A session replay is a reconstruction of what the form showed and how the pointer, the keyboard, and scrolling moved through it. A notice on the form tells you when it records and lets you turn recording off, and in the EU, the EEA, the UK, Switzerland, and California it records only after you agree. Answers we mark as sensitive are hidden from recordings. Only Kairos staff watch them, and our analytics provider keeps them for 90 days.

Newsletters and updates

If you sign up for a newsletter or ask to hear about future rounds of a program, we keep your email address and send you updates through our email tools. Every update has an unsubscribe link.

Contacting us

If you email or call us, we hold your message along with the address or number it came from and whatever you choose to put in it. Our email runs on Google Workspace.

Applying for a job

Job applications are handled by Ashby, our hiring system. We collect what the application asks for, which usually includes your name and contact details, your CV, links you give us such as your LinkedIn profile, your answers to the application questions, your location and time zone, when you could start, and whether you need a visa or work authorization. Ashby also records technical details about how you submitted the form, such as your IP address and browser.

If your application moves forward, we add your work-test submissions and notes and feedback from interviews. We may record and transcribe interviews with an AI note-taking tool, and we tell you when we do. At the final stage, we may also ask referees you name about you.

AI tools help us assess job applications, and when we receive more applications than we can read, some are declined based on that assessment alone. How we review applications explains how this works and how to ask for a person to review a decision.

If you tell us you're interested in other opportunities, we may share your application with organizations looking for candidates, as described under How we share information. We keep job applications for no longer than 4 years after your application is closed (more on retention).

Applying to or taking part in a program

Our application forms collect your name and contact details, your education and work history (including your CV and links you give us), your answers to the application questions, and your location and availability. Where a program needs them, they also collect your age range, your travel plans, and whether you need a visa or work authorization.

If you take part, we keep records of your participation, such as attendance, feedback and survey responses, reports, and your activity in program tools such as Slack. If you receive a grant, a stipend, or a reimbursement, we collect what we need to pay it, such as your legal name and address. If you take a public role in a program, such as an advisor, we may publish your name, photo, affiliation, and a short bio, with your agreement. Generator applications and participant records are also seen by Constellation, which runs the Generator Residency with us.

Applications to our programs are assessed with AI tools too, as described under How we review applications. We also look through past applications and program records to invite people to apply for roles, programs, and events at Kairos, and we share them with other organizations only if you opt in on the application form.

Applications that don't lead to participation are kept for no longer than 4 years after the round's application period closes, and participant records for as long as they stay useful (more on retention).

How we review applications

This section covers job applications and applications to the programs this policy covers. We want you to know how it works before you apply.

We receive far more applications than we can read individually, so we use AI tools to help. A large language model, such as Claude (made by Anthropic), reads your application, your CV, and the public information described below, and scores how well the application matches the criteria for the role or program, such as relevant experience, motivation, and familiarity with AI safety. We test our AI reviewers by comparing their scores with our own reviewers' judgments of the same applications, and adjust them where they disagree. We may also run an AI-writing detector (Pangram) over your written answers, use AI tools to help grade work tests, and take notes in interviews with an AI note-taking tool.

These scores help us decide which applications to read first. A person reads every application that moves forward, and AI never advances, accepts, or hires anyone.

When we can't read every application in the time we have, applications scored below a bar may be declined based on the AI assessment alone, without a person reading them. That means the application does not move forward in that hiring or program round. Before we decline applications this way, a person reads a sample of the ones just below the bar to check it is set where it should be, and we keep a record of each such decision. If we know an applicant is under 18, we never decline their application this way.

Where the law gives you the right to have a decision like this reviewed by a person, to give your view, or to contest it, email and a person will read your application and review the decision.

Information from other sources

When we assess an application, our AI tools and our staff may look up information you pointed us to or that is publicly available about your work. This can include your LinkedIn profile, which we retrieve through a data provider, your personal website, GitHub, publications, and posts on public forums. If you have applied to or taken part in our programs before, or applied for a job with us, we also use those records. If someone refers you to a role or a program, they give us your name, your contact details, and why they think you would be a good fit.

How we use information

To run our websites and understand how they are used, so that we can improve them.
To answer people who contact us.
To run our hiring and our programs. That means reviewing applications as described above, checking what applications claim, communicating decisions, and running the program for the people who join it.
To find people for roles, programs, and events at Kairos. We look through past applications and program records to invite people to apply.
To share your information with other organizations, if you opted in, as described under How we share information.
To keep in touch, for example with program news or invitations to future rounds, if you signed up for them or opted in.
To keep our sites and programs working, secure, and fair, including enforcing program rules.
To report on our work, using aggregate numbers rather than anything about an individual.

Service providers

We use vendors to run our sites, our hiring, and our programs, and each of them processes data only to provide its service to us. They include the following.

website hosting and security (Cloudflare)
analytics and session replay (PostHog)
email, documents, and email delivery (Google Workspace, Resend, and Loops)
our hiring system (Ashby), and the databases and form tools our programs run on
the AI model providers that run application assessments, under terms that do not allow training on your data
the AI-writing detection service (Pangram)
the data provider we use to retrieve LinkedIn profiles
AI note-taking for interviews and meetings (Granola and Ashby)
workspace and newsletter tools, such as our team and participant chat

Program partners

We run the Generator Residency with Constellation, which has access to Generator applications and participant records so it can help run the program.

Other organizations, if you opt in

Our application forms offer optional consents to share your information with other organizations, for example ones looking for references or candidates for roles and programs, or ones evaluating the impact of our programs. Each consent is optional, and declining never counts against your application. What each one shares is described where we ask. You can withdraw a consent at any time by emailing us. Talent Commons, a shared talent database for AI safety organizations that Kairos runs, receives information from our programs only with your consent, and its own privacy policy applies once it does.

The public

If you take a public role in a program, such as an advisor, or join Kairos, we may publish your name, photo, affiliation, and a short bio on our sites, with your agreement.

Legal and safety

We share information where the law requires it, to protect the rights or safety of any person, or with our professional advisers. If Kairos reorganizes or transfers a program, its data moves with it under this policy.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for advertising.

International transfers

Kairos is based in the United States, and most of the vendors above process data there. If you visit our sites, apply, or write to us from outside the United States, you send your information directly to us there. Wherever it is processed, this policy applies to it, and if you are in the EEA or the UK you keep all the rights described below.

How long we keep information

Job applications, including AI assessments, notes, and work tests: we delete or de-identify them no later than 4 years after your application is closed. If we hire you, they become part of your employee records.
Program applications that don't lead to participation: we delete or de-identify them no later than 4 years after the round's application period closes.
Participant records: we keep them for as long as they stay useful for recognizing returning participants and supporting you as an alum, for example with references and invitations to later opportunities. You can ask us to delete them at any time.
If you opted in to sharing or to hearing about future opportunities, we keep what that consent covers for as long as it stands.
Analytics data is kept by our analytics provider for up to 7 years, and session replays from our application forms for 90 days.
Emails you send us are kept for as long as they are useful for the conversation and for our records.
Copies in backups and logs can take a few months longer to age out.
We keep some records longer where the law requires it or where they are needed for legal claims or security.

Your rights and choices

Wherever you live, you can ask us to correct information we hold about you, or to delete it, by emailing . You can also ask us to stop using your information to find people for roles and programs at Kairos, and withdraw any consent you gave, at any time. We will check that the request comes from you, usually by replying to the address you applied or wrote from. If you ask us to delete an application that is still under review, we will treat that as withdrawing it. We may keep what the law requires us to keep, and records we need for security, for legal claims, or to enforce program rules.

Depending on where you live, the law may give you further rights over your information, such as the right to access it, to restrict how we use it, to data portability, or to have a decision made by automated means reviewed by a person. Where it does, email us and we will handle your request as that law requires.

If you are in the EEA or the UK, these include the rights to access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, objection to processing based on legitimate interests, and data portability, and the rights over automated decisions described under How we review applications. You can withdraw any consent at any time without affecting processing that already happened, and you can complain to your supervisory authority, which in the UK is the Information Commissioner's Office.

Analytics on our sites is not tied to your name, so in most cases we have no way to find which records are yours. Turning analytics off or blocking cookies in your browser stops that data being collected in the first place.

Children

Our sites are not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect information from children through them. Our programs set their own age rules, and SPAR is open to people aged 13 and over. If we know an applicant to a job or a program is under 18, a person reviews their application, and we never decline it based on an AI assessment alone.

Security

We limit access to personal information to the people who need it, and our vendors encrypt data in transit and at rest. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach puts your data at risk, we will tell you promptly.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we will update this page and change the date at the top. If a change materially affects how we handle your information, we will say what changed, and where we have a way to reach the people it affects we will tell them before it takes effect.

Contact

Email , or write to Kairos AI Project, Inc., 131 Continental Dr, Suite 305, Newark, Delaware 19713, United States. Our contact page has more ways to reach us. If you need this policy in another format, tell us and we will help.

By region

Two sets of details apply only in some places.

Legal bases (EEA and UK) Why we're allowed to use your information, if you're in Europe or the UK

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, we process your information on these legal bases.

Reviewing your application, and running a program you join, rest on steps taken at your request before entering into a contract with you, and on our agreement with you once you join.
Assessing applications with AI tools, looking up public information, checking for AI-written answers, finding people for roles and programs at Kairos, improving our programs, and keeping our systems secure rest on our legitimate interest in running fair, high-quality hiring and programs with a small team. You can object to any of these.
Where we decline an application based on the AI assessment alone, we do so because it is necessary to choose whom to enter into an employment or program agreement with, given the number of applications we receive.
Sharing your information with other organizations, and emails about future opportunities, rest on your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
Understanding how our websites are used, including storing and reading the analytics identifier in your browser, rests on our legitimate interest in running and improving them. You can object at any time with the control under Cookies, or by blocking cookies in your browser.
Answering your message rests on steps taken at your request, or on our legitimate interest in replying to people who write to us.
Some retention and disclosure is required by law.

California disclosures What the California Online Privacy Protection Act asks us to state

The categories of personal information we collect are described under Visiting our websites, Applying for a job, and Applying to or taking part in a program.
The categories of third parties it is shared with are named under How we share information.
How to correct or delete your information is described under Your rights and choices, and that is open to you wherever you live.
How we announce changes to this policy is described under Changes to this policy.
Our websites don't change what they collect in response to a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal from your browser. You can turn analytics off for this site with the control under Cookies.
This version's number and the date it took effect are at the top of this page.
No other company collects personal information about your activity across other companies' websites through this site. Our own analytics identifier is carried between Kairos program sites, which is described under Cookies.