Privacy notice

This notice describes how LBX collects, uses and keeps personal information about applicants, participants, guardians, mentors and visitors to www.lbx.org. It is written for families as well as for students. Last updated 1 September 2026.

Who we are

LBX — Lead · Build · eXplore — is the controller of personal data submitted through this website and the registration form. Write to privacy@lbx.org or to the regional inbox on the contact page. We are not a school and not a university admissions office.

What we collect

  • Identity and contact data: name, date of birth, email, school, hub, division, track, team membership.
  • Guardian data for anyone under 18: name, email, consent choices, named adult for the showcase if the student is under 16.
  • Application text: the 200-word note and later project files, videos and posters.
  • Fee and waiver data: payment status, not full card numbers (those stay with the payment processor).
  • Certificate registry entries: award, citation, ID, status (valid or revoked).
  • Technical data: server logs and the search query if you use search, which runs in your browser and is not stored by us unless you also email us.

How we use it

To run the competition: matching mentors, sending deadlines, seating showcases, judging, issuing certificates, answering verify lookups, and safeguarding. We do not sell personal data. We do not use student project files to train public AI models. Showcase pages are published only if the student (and guardian, if under 18) opted in.

Minors

Most participants are children. We collect the minimum needed to run a season and to keep people safe. Mentor sessions are logged. We do not require a public social-media account. Guardians may request a copy, a correction or an erasure of a child’s data, subject to what we must keep for awards, safeguarding or accounting.

Sharing

Judges and mentors see the files they need for the students they are assigned. Showcase venues see a first-name list and access needs, not dates of birth. Payment processors see what they need to take a fee. We may share information if required by law or to protect a person from harm. Partners who lend rooms do not receive marketing lists.

Retention

Application files for students who withdraw before the proposal checkpoint are deleted within ninety days, except payment records we must keep. Project archives and certificate registry entries are kept so that verify lookups continue to work; a revoked certificate stays in the registry as revoked rather than disappearing. Server logs are rotated on a short cycle.

Your rights

Depending on where you live you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict or object, and to complain to a data-protection authority. Email privacy@lbx.org. We will need enough information to find your record without creating a new risk.

The public terms describe participation rules. Certificate lookups are explained at verify.

Cookies, search, and third parties

The public site is static HTML. We do not run an advertising pixel on these pages. The navigation search box submits a query string to search.html; the filtering happens in your browser from a list of titles and descriptions. We do not need to store that query to make the page work. If you write to us and paste a search term, that mail is handled like any other mail.

Payment processors, email hosts and the buildings we book for showcases are separate controllers or processors for their own systems. We ask them only for what the season requires. We will not send student lists to a sponsor for marketing. We will not put a minor’s full date of birth on a public showcase page. Certificate registry entries show a name, an award, a hub and a citation — the minimum needed for a stranger to check a claim.

If we ever change this notice in a way that expands what we collect about minors, we will ask for consent again rather than hide the change in a changelog. Questions go to privacy@lbx.org. Certificate lookups are not a back door into a student file; they return only what the registry was designed to show.

International transfers: a student in Singapore with a mentor in London means data crosses borders inside the programme team. We treat that as part of running four hubs, not as a product to sell. You can object to a particular use (for example, a public showcase page) without having to leave the season, unless the use is required to judge or to keep someone safe.