How we keep Pathlumi safe

Decisions we made

The most important safety features on Pathlumi are the things it does not do. Each of these was a deliberate choice, and each one costs us something in convenience.

• There is no messaging.No inbox, no comments, no way for an adult to contact a student through Pathlumi. Every question a student has goes to the organization's own published contact address, in the open.
• There is no public student directory.Student profiles are private by default and have no public page. There is no URL that shows a student's name, school or interests to anyone else.
• Providers cannot see students. A provider signed into Pathlumi cannot browse, search or view a single student record. They see aggregate counts on their own listings — how many views, how many saves, how many application clicks — and nothing that identifies a person.
• Applications happen elsewhere.Pathlumi never collects an application. Every listing links out to the organization's official site, where their own safeguarding and privacy rules apply.
• Every listing is reviewed by a person. Nothing is published automatically. An organization is reviewed before it can post, and each listing is reviewed before students see it.
• Location stays coarse. We ask for a city, state and ZIP code, and store only the approximate centre of that ZIP. There is no field for a street address, and we would not know one if you tried.

What we never collect

Pathlumi has no legitimate reason to hold sensitive personal data, so it does not ask for any. Specifically, we never collect:

• Social Security numbers or any national identification number
• Bank account, routing or payment card details
• Medical, health or immunisation records
• Driver's licences, passports or other government identification
• Street addresses
• Exact dates of birth — students confirm they are 13 or older, and that is all

Provider listings are checked for these requests too. If a listing asks students to submit any of the above through Pathlumi, it is rejected. A listing may of course say that the official application requires, for example, a transcript — that is exactly the kind of thing the Application Preview is for.

How review works

Two gates stand between a new account and a student seeing a listing.

Organization review. When someone creates a provider account they build an organization profile: who they are, what they do, where they are based, a public website and a contact address. A moderator checks that the organization exists, that the website matches, and that the representative plausibly belongs to it. Approved organizations can post; verified organizations have had their identity confirmed more thoroughly and carry a badge.

Listing review. Every submitted listing enters a queue. A moderator reads it for accuracy, for whether it is genuinely open to high-school students, for anything unsafe or misleading, and for requests we do not allow. A rejected listing comes back with a written reason so the provider can fix it.

If a published listing is later edited in a substantive way — a changed title, description or application link — it loses its verified badge automatically and is flagged for re-checking. That closes the obvious loophole of publishing something benign and swapping it afterwards.

Advice for students

• Always confirm on the official site. Requirements, fees and dates change, and organizations do not always tell us. The Application Preview shows when we last checked.
• Be wary of anything asking for money up front beyond a clearly stated application fee, and of anything asking for banking details, a Social Security number or a copy of your ID.
• Tell an adult you trust before travelling to an in-person opportunity for the first time, and check who will be supervising.
• Use the report button. It is on every listing and every organization page, and you do not need an account to use it.

For parents and guardians

Pathlumi is a directory, not a supervisor. We review the organizations that post here and the listings they publish, but we do not run any of the programmes, we do not vet individual staff or volunteers, and we do not conduct background checks.

Before a student takes part in anything in person, ask the organization directly about supervision ratios, safeguarding policies and who to contact with concerns. Any legitimate organization will answer those questions readily.

A student account holds a first name, a grade, a graduation year, a coarse location, and preferences. It holds no address, no phone number, and no school-issued identifier unless a student volunteers one in a free-text field. If you would like an account and its data deleted, write to us from the account's email address and we will remove it.

Reporting something

Every listing and every organization page has a report button. Reports go straight to the moderation queue, and anything flagged as unsafe is looked at before anything else.

If a listing appears to put a young person at immediate risk, we take it down while we investigate rather than after. You can report anonymously; leaving an email address only helps us come back to you with a question.

Report an opportunity · Community guidelines · Contact the team

If you believe a child is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first. Pathlumi is not an emergency service and cannot respond immediately.