Privacy & Children’s Privacy Notice

This Notice applies to Meritaria websites, account portals, organization administration tools, student applications, uploaded documents, committee review tools, optional live and online auction services, communications, reporting, and related support. Swingsure L.L.C., doing business as Meritaria, provides the service and processes information needed to host, secure, support, and improve it. The organization identified in a student’s invitation determines its scholarship criteria, application fields, reviewers, recipients, communications, and organization-specific retention. Depending on the circumstances and applicable law, Swingsure L.L.C. may act as a service provider or processor for the organization and as an independent business or controller for account administration, billing, platform security, legal compliance, and direct support.

Information may include:

• Account and identity information: name, email address, password credentials maintained by our authentication provider, organization affiliation, role, professional title, and unique applicant identifier.
• Application information: address, phone number, date or age information, school, high school graduation date, expected college graduation date, major, GPA, financial or eligibility responses, essays, activities, goals, signatures, consent choices, and answers to custom questions.
• Documents: resumes, transcripts, proof of enrollment, essays, and other files an organization requests or a user uploads.
• Program records: scholarships, eligibility rules, application forms, invitation codes, deadlines, assignments, reviewer recommendations, private notes, decisions, award amounts, status history, and archived award records.
• Communications: message content, recipients, templates, delivery status, and unsubscribe choices.
• Subscription information: plan, subscription status, billing contact, and transaction references. Payment-card details are handled by the applicable payment provider and should not be stored in scholarship applications.
• Auction information: bidder registration details, bidder number, auction event and lot activity, bid amounts, timestamps, and winning-bid records. Public auction pages do not display bidder identities.
• Technical information: IP address, browser and device information, session data, timestamps, diagnostic information, security events, and interactions necessary to operate and protect the service.

We receive information directly from users; from parents or guardians; from scholarship organizations and their authorized administrators or reviewers; from invitations and organization-configured forms; from authentication, hosting, storage, email, payment, and security providers; and automatically when a browser communicates with the service. An organization should collect information from another source only when it has authority to do so.

We use information to create and authenticate accounts; connect users to the correct organization; present the application associated with an invitation; save submissions and documents; determine or display potential scholarship matches; administer review assignments and blind review; support scoring, recommendations, decisions, awards, printing, reports, exports, expiration, renewal, and annual cycles; operate organization-enabled auctions, register bidders, process and display bids, determine winning bids; send requested transactional and administrative messages; provide support; process subscriptions; detect misuse; maintain audit and security records; enforce agreements; comply with law; and improve reliability and accessibility. Meritaria does not sell applicant information or use essays, documents, financial information, recommendation content, reviewer records, or scholarship decisions for advertising.

The student portal may display clearly labeled sponsored opportunities from colleges or education providers. Meritaria may select these placements using an applicant’s intended major and the first three digits of a postal code, which represents a broad geographic region. Matching occurs within Meritaria. Advertisers do not receive student names, email addresses, phone numbers, application answers, documents, exact postal codes, scholarship decisions, or lists of students who matched. Sponsored links open the advertiser’s website, where that advertiser’s own privacy practices apply. Meritaria does not use off-site browsing activity to select these placements and does not provide advertisers with behavioral profiles of applicants.

Information may be disclosed to the organization receiving an application and its authorized Presidents, administrators, and assigned reviewers; to vendors supporting authentication, hosting, databases, storage, email delivery, payment processing, monitoring, and customer support; to professional advisers under appropriate duties; in a business reorganization subject to continued protection; when a user directs or authorizes disclosure; or when reasonably necessary to comply with law, respond to valid legal process, protect safety and rights, investigate fraud, or secure the service. We require service providers to process information for defined services and to protect it appropriately. College advertisers receive only the campaign and billing services they purchase and do not receive applicant records or campaign audience lists.

Organization records are separated through account permissions and database access controls. Administrators manage only organizations to which they belong. Reviewers are limited to assigned scholarship applications, subject to the organization’s blind-review setting. A student may use one account with multiple invited organizations, but each organization receives a separate application and cannot access another organization’s submissions, documents, reviews, or decisions. An organization’s exported or downloaded copies are controlled by that organization after export.

Meritaria is not directed to children under 13 for independent use. An organization that permits an applicant under 13 must configure and administer a legally sufficient process that provides direct notice to a parent or guardian and obtains verifiable parental consent before personal information is collected, used, or disclosed, except where a narrow legal exception applies. Parents may request access, correction, deletion, cessation of further collection, or withdrawal of consent. Participation may not be conditioned on providing more information than reasonably necessary. Information used only to seek parental consent must be deleted if consent is not obtained within a reasonable period. Applicants under 18 may be required to obtain parent or guardian approval for retention or other organization-specific choices.

Meritaria and participating organizations should retain children’s information only as long as reasonably necessary for the disclosed purpose, maintain reasonable security, and disclose it only to recipients capable of protecting it. If we learn that information from a child under 13 was collected without required authorization, we may restrict the account and work with the organization and parent or guardian to delete it.

Some organizations may be schools or may request education-related records. The organization is responsible for determining whether FERPA, state student privacy laws, school policies, consent requirements, or contractual restrictions apply. Meritaria does not designate information as directory information, determine a school’s legitimate educational interest, or authorize disclosure on a school’s behalf. Schools must provide required notices, obtain required consent, limit access, and maintain any disclosure records required by law.

Active application records remain available as needed to administer the relevant program. Organizations can establish application expiration dates, manually expire records, archive limited historical information, and delete records where authorized. Optional scholarship rollover retention requires a separate affirmative choice and may last no longer than six years; applicants under 18 must have parent or guardian approval for that option. Withdrawing rollover permission stops future use and requires deletion unless a limited record must be retained for legal, accounting, fraud-prevention, dispute, or award-history purposes. Backup copies may remain temporarily until overwritten through ordinary secure backup cycles.

Safeguards include encrypted network connections, authenticated access, organization-based row-level controls, assigned-reviewer restrictions, protected file storage, audit activity, and administrative access management. Users and organizations must protect credentials, remove departed personnel, limit downloads, and promptly report suspected compromise. No system is completely secure. If a security incident affects information, Meritaria and the affected organization will allocate investigation and notification duties according to applicable law and their respective control of the information.

Users may update certain account and application information through the service. Requests concerning a specific organization’s application should be sent to that organization’s privacy contact. Meritaria may verify identity and authority before acting. Requests may include access, correction, export, deletion, restriction, withdrawal of consent, and objection where applicable. Transactional messages necessary to administer an account or application may continue while the account remains active. Marketing email recipients may unsubscribe using the link in the message or by contacting us.

Residents of certain states may have rights to know or access categories and specific pieces of personal information, correct inaccuracies, delete information, receive a portable copy, opt out of certain sales, sharing, targeted advertising, or profiling, limit certain uses of sensitive information, and appeal a denied request. Meritaria does not sell scholarship application information or use it for cross-context behavioral advertising. Rights vary and exceptions may apply. Authorized agents may submit requests where permitted, subject to identity and authority verification. We will not unlawfully discriminate against a person for exercising a privacy right.

The service is operated for United States scholarship programs and information may be processed and stored in the United States. A user accessing the service from another country is responsible for understanding that local protections may differ. Organizations serving applicants outside the United States must determine whether additional notices, agreements, transfer mechanisms, consent, localization, or representative requirements apply before collecting information through Meritaria.

We may revise this Notice as the service, vendors, laws, or practices change. The effective date identifies the current version. Material changes will be communicated through the service, email, or the participating organization when appropriate. If a change requires additional consent, the affected processing will not begin until the required consent is obtained.

Contact Meritaria at admin@meritaria.com. Include the organization name and enough information to locate the relevant account, but do not email passwords, payment-card numbers, Social Security numbers, medical records, or full application documents. Meritaria may refer organization-controlled requests to the relevant organization.