KQ AlumNet
Privacy notice
Who we are
AlumNet is the Kenya Airways alumni mentorship platform, run by the Kenya Airways alumni office. It connects current staff (mentees) with former staff (mentors).
What we use from Kenya Airways HR
To confirm you are, or were, Kenya Airways staff, we check the staff number and email you enter against HR records. From HR we use your name, department, work or personal email, whether you are current or former staff and whether you are eligible for the alumni network. If the email HR holds for you changes (for example when you retire), your sign-in email changes with it and both addresses are told. The alumni office can also see the phone number HR holds, only to confirm it is really you, for example before resetting two-factor authentication when you have lost your phone. Your role on AlumNet comes from this record, not from a choice you make. National ID numbers are never shown or stored in your AlumNet account.
What you give us
- Your password (stored only as a one-way hash) or a linked Google account. If you turn on two-factor authentication, its secret is stored encrypted.
- Profile details you choose to add: headline, about, skills, experience, career interests, location and LinkedIn link.
- Gender, only if you choose to give it. It is never shown on your profile. Mentors can also agree to it being used in the "gender" filter of the mentor search; nobody else is ever filtered by it.
- If you are a mentor: whether you take mentees, how many at a time, how you meet and a note about when you are free.
- If we cannot verify you automatically: your name and phone number, used only by the alumni office to check your identity, then deleted.
- Mentorship requests and the message you send with them; mentors you save to your shortlist.
- For an active mentorship: the goals you agree, and the meetings you log (date, how you met, how long and an optional note). The other person in the mentorship can see these.
- When a mentorship ends: your private answers about how it went. The other person never sees them.
- Opportunities and events you post, events you register for, waiting lists you join, reports you make and people you block.
- Images you choose to add: a profile photo, event banners and photos from events you took part in, logos on opportunities and screenshots attached to a report. Each one is redrawn when you upload it, which removes hidden details such as where a photo was taken. The original file is not kept.
- If you add a photo of an event, you confirm that the people clearly shown agreed to it being shared.
What AlumNet works out
- A list of numbers worked out from your skills, experience and career interests (an "embedding"), used to recommend mentors, opportunities and events. It is not readable as text and is rebuilt when your profile changes.
- How well an opportunity or event fits you, shown as "Strong fit", "Good fit" or "Some overlap". Nobody else sees how well something fits you.
- Automatic safety checks on posts, request messages and profile text, looking for signs of scams. A post that looks risky is held for the alumni office.
Why we use it
- To verify who you are and keep impostors out.
- To recommend mentors whose skills and experience fit your goals, and opportunities and events that fit you.
- To send emails about your account, your mentorships and events you registered for (changes, cancellations, reminders and free places).
- To send a few in-app alerts about well-matched opportunities and events, at most 3 a week. You can switch these off in Account settings.
- To keep the platform safe: posts and messages are checked for scams, members can report and block, and the alumni office reviews reports.
- To understand whether mentoring helps: the alumni office sees totals such as how many mentorships met and how helpful they were. A mentor's average rating is only shown to the alumni office once at least 3 mentees have answered.
We rely on your consent, given when you sign up and when you choose optional details such as gender, and on the alumni office's legitimate interest in running a safe network for current and former staff.
Who can see what
- Mentor profiles are visible to signed-in members. Mentee profiles are visible only to mentors they contact and to the alumni office.
- Images can only be seen by signed-in members, never by the public. Your profile photo is shown wherever your name appears. Event photos, banners and logos are checked by the alumni office before others see them. Screenshots attached to a report are only ever seen by the alumni office.
- Your email is shared with the other person only once a mentor accepts a request. Your email and phone number are never shown on your profile.
- The alumni office can open one member's full record (account, mentorships with their ratings, posts and reports) to handle problems. Every time an admin opens it, this is recorded in the activity log.
- We do not sell or share your data with advertisers.
Where it is kept
AlumNet runs on Cloudflare (the website address and gateway), Microsoft Azure (the server and the matching service) and Aiven (the database, including uploaded images), and sends email through Brevo. These providers may keep data outside Kenya. They only process it to run AlumNet.
How long we keep it
- Sign-up links expire after 24 hours; password reset links after 30 minutes.
- Sign-up and verification records, including any name and phone number collected, are deleted 30 days after they are completed, rejected or expire.
- Notifications you have read are deleted after 180 days, and the record of alerts sent to you after 90 days.
- The alumni office's activity log is kept for 2 years.
- Screenshots attached to a report are deleted as soon as the alumni office closes the report. A replaced or removed image is deleted straight away.
- If you delete your account, your profile, profile photo and every image you uploaded, gender, embedding, shortlist, waiting lists and anything you wrote in goals, meeting notes and feedback are removed straight away. Your ratings stay only as anonymous numbers in the totals, and your name is replaced with "Deleted member" in other people's history.
Your rights
You can see and correct your profile at any time, download a copy of all your data and delete your account from Account settings. You can withdraw consent for optional details by removing them. For anything else, including correcting your HR record, contact the Kenya Airways alumni office. You can also complain to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.