Private where it can be. Clear where information has to move.

Who is responsible for information held by The Careful Optimist?

Noramig Financial Sub-Trust, operating as Premise Decision Engine, Registration IT 1516/02, registered in 2002, is the responsible party for personal information held by The Careful Optimist unless another notice states otherwise.

Privacy and data requests may be sent to lance@thecarefuloptimist.com or through Contact Support.

The Decision Check and your ChatGPT account

The guided Decision Check is used inside your own ChatGPT account. The Careful Optimist does not receive, copy or store your fourteen answers or your Decision Record merely because you complete the Check.

Your interaction with ChatGPT is processed by OpenAI under the terms, privacy policy and account controls that apply to your ChatGPT account. The Careful Optimist does not control OpenAI's retention, model-improvement or account settings. You can review OpenAI's current privacy information at OpenAI Privacy Policy.

If you later choose to copy, email or otherwise send part of your Decision Record or decision information to us, that information becomes information you have deliberately supplied to The Careful Optimist and is handled under this policy.

Please do not place passwords, banking credentials, card details or unnecessary highly sensitive personal information into the Decision Check or a public website form.

Information we may collect directly

Depending on what you choose to do on the website, we may collect information you deliberately provide, including your name, email address, country, mobile or WhatsApp number, consent choices, Priority List preferences, support messages, purchase details, membership or account information, and information you voluntarily provide for Closer Access or another requested service.

Providing this information is generally voluntary, but some information is necessary if you want us to respond to a support request, process a purchase, provide protected access, administer a membership request or send communications you asked to receive.

What we use it for

We use personal information for specific operational purposes such as responding to you, processing and confirming purchases, providing protected digital access, supporting members and readers, administering Priority List requests, managing account or cancellation requests, preventing misuse or fraud, meeting legal and accounting obligations, and sending optional communications where you have agreed to receive them.

We do not sell personal information. We do not use information you give us for unrelated third-party advertising.

Operational service providers

The Careful Optimist does not send your Decision Check conversation to its own backend. Separate parts of the website do, however, rely on service providers to perform specific operational functions:

• OpenAI / ChatGPT: processes the Decision Check inside your own ChatGPT account under OpenAI's terms and privacy controls.
• PayPal: processes payment information for purchases. The Careful Optimist does not receive or store your full payment-card number or card security code.
• Formspree: carries information you submit through the Contact / Support form to us.
• Google Analytics: helps us understand website usage and performance. We do not intentionally send the content of your Decision Check to Google Analytics.
• Hosting, email and technical service providers: may process limited information where necessary to host the website, deliver requested communications, maintain security or operate the service.

These providers have their own technical systems and privacy obligations. We use them for defined operational purposes, not to sell your information.

Payments

PayPal processes payment details. The Careful Optimist does not receive or store your full payment-card number or card security code. We may retain transaction references, payment status and related fulfilment records needed to confirm and support a purchase.

Protected digital delivery

For paid digital delivery, the system may record the internal order reference, payment status, token status, access times, basic network or browser information and replacement-access activity. These records are used for fulfilment, customer support, fraud prevention and accountability. The visible access token is sent to the purchaser; only its secure hash is stored in the database.

This is separate from the Decision Check. The Careful Optimist does not receive or retain an IP address or completion timestamp as part of a Decision Check record because it does not receive the Decision Check conversation.

Analytics and technical information

The website uses Google Analytics and normal hosting/security infrastructure. Those systems may process technical or usage information needed to operate, measure and secure the website. The Careful Optimist does not create a proprietary Decision Check account and does not intentionally build a Decision Check profile from IP addresses or completion timestamps.

Confidential matters

Do not send confidential documents through public forms or ordinary calendar pages. For Closer Access or another sensitive engagement, an NDA or other appropriate arrangement may be put in place before sensitive information is shared.

Anonymised patterns

If you voluntarily share a case or decision material with us outside the Decision Check, recurring lessons may be used only after identifying details are removed, unless you have expressly agreed to another use. The Careful Optimist cannot draw anonymised lessons from Decision Check answers it never receives.

South Africa and the United States

The Careful Optimist has operations in South Africa and the United States. Information we hold may therefore be accessed or administered from either country where reasonably necessary for the service you requested. Where personal information is transferred across borders, we take reasonable steps to use appropriate safeguards and to comply with applicable data-protection requirements.

How long we keep information

The Careful Optimist keeps personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, or for a longer period where law, contract, accounting, fraud-prevention or another legitimate operational requirement requires retention. When we are no longer authorised or required to keep it, we will take reasonable steps to delete, destroy or de-identify it.

The Careful Optimist does not retain the content of your Decision Check merely because you complete it.

Security

We use reasonable technical and organisational safeguards designed to protect personal information in our possession or under our control. These may include secured hosting, access controls, firewall protections, limited internal access and appropriate protections around operational service providers.

No online system can be guaranteed to be immune from every risk. If we become aware of a security compromise involving personal information for which notification is required, we will follow the applicable notification obligations.

Your choices and rights

You may contact us to ask whether we hold personal information about you, request access where applicable, ask for inaccurate information to be corrected, request deletion where we are not required or entitled to retain the information, object to certain processing where applicable, or withdraw consent for optional communications.

You can unsubscribe from optional marketing communications using the unsubscribe mechanism provided or by contacting us.

If your request concerns the content of a ChatGPT conversation that The Careful Optimist never received, you will need to use the privacy and data controls available through your own ChatGPT/OpenAI account.

Questions or complaints

Start by contacting us at lance@thecarefuloptimist.com or through Contact Support. We will try to resolve the issue directly.

You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa or another competent privacy authority that applies to you.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when the service, technology or legal requirements change. The current version will be posted on this page with its updated date.