Privacy Policy

Last Updated: [Jan 21, 2026]

Central Coast Incubator (“we,” “our,” or “us”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting the personal information of our students, partners, and visitors. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and safeguard your information when you visit our website [centralcoastincubator.org] or participate in our programs.

Information We Collect

Information You Voluntarily Provide

We collect information when you apply for our program, create a student account, or contact us. This includes:

  • Identity Data: Name, email address, phone number, and mailing address.
  • Educational Data: College affiliation, enrollment status, and background information provided in applications.
  • Program Data (The IDS System): Business ideas, “Week 1-10” progress metrics, quarterly insights, and other coursework submitted via the Student Dashboard.

Automatically Collected Data

When you visit our site, we may automatically collect:

  • Technical Data: IP address, browser type, device type, and operating system.
  • Usage Data: Pages visited, time spent on the site, and referral sources

How We Use Your Data

We use your data to:

  1. Administer the Program: Manage student accounts, track IDS progress, and provide feedback.
  2. Communication: Send program updates, “Reset Password” notifications, and acceptance letters.
  3. Research & Reporting: Analyze aggregated, anonymized data (e.g., “500 ideas generated this year”) to report impact to our grant providers and sponsors. We never share your specific business ideas with the public without your consent.
  4. Security: Monitor for suspicious activity and protect our website firewall

Data Sharing and Third Parties

We do not sell your personal data. We only share data with trusted service providers necessary to operate our platform:

  • Hosting: Hostinger (stores all website files and databases).
  • Email Services: Gmail / SMTP Providers (used to deliver system emails).
  • Backups: Google Drive (used for redundant off-site backups).

Student Intellectual Property

We recognize that the business ideas and strategies you develop during the program are sensitive. While we store this data to track your progress:

  • Confidentiality: Your specific business ideas submitted via the dashboard are accessible only to Program Administrators.
  • Ownership: Participation in the incubator does not transfer ownership of your intellectual property to Central Coast Incubator

Data Security

We implement robust security measures to protect your data, including:

  • Encryption: All data transmitted between your browser and our site is encrypted via SSL (HTTPS).
  • Access Control: Student dashboards are password-protected and restricted to logged-in users only.
  • Firewalls: We use Wordfence security to block unauthorized login attempts

Your Rights

You have the right to:

  • Request access to the personal data we hold about you.
  • Request correction of inaccurate data.
  • Request deletion of your account and associated data (subject to administrative retention requirements).

Contact Us

If you have questions about this policy or your data, please Contact Us

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