Privacy Policy

Effective Date: 09/02/2026
Last Updated: 09/02/2026

Chabad Shidduch Advocates (“CSA,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) exists because shidduchim are personal. The information people share with us is personal too, and often deeply so. This policy explains what we collect, why we collect it, who sees it, and what control you have over it.

We have written this in plain language on purpose. If anything here is unclear, please write to us at chabadshidduchadvocates@gmail.com and we will explain it.

1. Who We Are and What This Policy Covers

CSA is a not-for-profit organization operating across the United States and Canada. We provide personal guidance and match facilitation to Chabad singles at no charge, working alongside candidates, parents, and shadchanim.

This policy applies to our website, our contact and profile submission forms, our email correspondence, and the advocacy, coaching, and match-idea services we provide. It works alongside our Terms of Use and our Cookie Policy.

It does not cover the practices of independent shadchanim, other organizations, or any third party you choose to work with separately. Their handling of your information is governed by their own policies.

2. The Information We Collect

Profile and candidate information

This is the heart of what we hold. Depending on what is shared with us, a candidate profile may include name and contact details, age or date of birth, city and community, family background, education and occupation, level and style of religious observance, personal interests, values, and preferences, what a candidate is looking for in a match, photographs, and the names and contact details of references.

Profiles are frequently submitted as uploaded documents. Our form accepts PDF, JPG, JPEG, and PNG files.

Information submitted about someone else

Our form invites people to confidentially submit the profile of an eligible man or woman. That means we regularly receive personal information about individuals who did not fill out the form themselves.

We treat this category with particular care, and Section 6 explains the obligations that come with submitting it.

Information from our work together

When an advocate works with a candidate, we generate notes. These may record the substance of an assessment conversation, feedback after a date, what did or did not resonate about a particular idea, and what to consider next. Group coaching and Q&A sessions may also produce notes or attendance records.

Correspondence

Emails, form messages, and other communications you send us, including anything you volunteer inside them.

Technical information

When you visit our website, our hosting, security, and analytics tools may automatically record your IP address, browser type and version, device and operating system, referring page, pages viewed, and the date and time of your visit. Section 12 and our Cookie Policy explain this further.

Sensitive information

Some of what we hold qualifies as sensitive personal information under privacy laws in California, Canada, and elsewhere. Religious beliefs and affiliation are the clearest example. Depending on what a candidate chooses to share, health or accommodation information may also be included.

We ask that you share sensitive details only where they genuinely matter to a match. We do not require health information, and we do not ask for it.

3. How We Use Information

We use the information we hold to do the work we exist to do.

That means building and maintaining our confidential candidate database, identifying and evaluating potential match ideas, conducting one-on-one assessments and check-ins, reviewing profiles collaboratively during our weekly team meetings, facilitating introductions and dates, providing dating support and coaching, and communicating with candidates, parents, and shadchanim about specific ideas.

We also use information to operate and secure our website, to respond to inquiries, to understand in aggregate how our website and programs are used so we can improve them, and to meet legal obligations.

We do not use your information to build advertising profiles, and we do not use it for any purpose unrelated to shidduchim and the operation of our organization.

4. AI-Assisted Review

Our Network Program is designed to include AI-assisted and filtered review of potential match ideas. This capability is currently in development and is not yet processing candidate profiles.

When it launches, automated tools will help surface and sort possible pairings from our database based on stated preferences and profile attributes, so that our advocates can work through a larger set of possibilities than would be practical manually.

No match decision will be made by software. Automated output is a starting point for human review. A named advocate evaluates every idea before it goes anywhere, and no introduction is ever proposed on the strength of an algorithm alone.

Before any candidate information is processed this way, we will update this policy to identify the tools involved and confirm whether any third-party provider is used. Candidates in our database at that time will be notified by email, and anyone may ask us to exclude their profile from AI-assisted review without affecting access to our other services.

5. Confidentiality and How Profiles Are Shared

Confidentiality is not a legal formality for us. It is the reason people trust us with a profile at all. Here is exactly how information moves.

Within CSA. Profiles are visible to CSA advocates and are discussed during our weekly collaborative review sessions. That collaboration is the point of our model, since it is how a candidate’s circle of support expands beyond one person. Every advocate is bound by a confidentiality commitment.

For a specific match idea. When an advocate identifies a possible pairing, relevant profile information may be shared with the other candidate, that candidate’s parents, or the shadchan or advocate representing them. We share what is needed to evaluate the idea and nothing more.

With shadchanim. We collaborate with shadchanim who share eligible profiles with us and who consider ideas we bring to them. Profile information may be shared with a shadchan in connection with a specific idea.

What we do not do. We do not publish profiles. We do not circulate them broadly. We do not post them to public lists, groups, or channels. We do not sell, rent, or trade personal information, and we do not share it for anyone’s advertising purposes.

You can tell us to hold your profile back from a particular person, family, community, or shadchan, and we will honor that.

6. If You Submit Information About Someone Else

Please read this section before you submit a profile that is not your own.

By submitting another person’s information, you confirm that you have that person’s permission to share it with us, or that you are a parent or immediate family member acting in a way that person would reasonably expect and accept.

You also confirm that the information is accurate to the best of your knowledge, and that you are not submitting it to embarrass, expose, pressure, or otherwise act against the interests of the person described.

If we learn that a profile was submitted without the subject’s knowledge or against their wishes, we will remove it. Anyone can contact us to ask whether we hold information about them, and to have it deleted, regardless of who submitted it. We will not require you to explain why.

7. Service Providers We Rely On

Running CSA requires a small number of outside services. These providers process information on our behalf and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes.

They include Hostinger for website hosting and file storage, Elementor for our website and form functionality, WP Mail SMTP for outbound email delivery, Wordfence for website security monitoring, and Google for email, website analytics, and form spam protection through reCAPTCHA.

Please note that our contact address is a Gmail address, which means correspondence sent to it, including any attachments, is stored on Google’s systems and subject to Google’s Privacy Policy. If you would prefer to share something outside of email, contact us and we will arrange an alternative.

Files uploaded through our form are stored on our web hosting account and delivered to us by email. They are not published, indexed, or made publicly available.

8. Other Situations Where We May Disclose Information

We may disclose information where we are legally required to do so, in response to a valid legal process, or where we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to prevent serious harm to someone.

If CSA ever merges with, transfers its work to, or is succeeded by another organization, candidate information may transfer as part of that process. We would notify affected candidates first and give them the opportunity to withdraw beforehand.

9. How Long We Keep Information

We keep active candidate profiles for as long as a candidate wishes to remain in our database, because a match idea can surface years after a profile is first submitted. That is a feature of how shidduchim work, not an oversight.

When someone tells us they are engaged, married, or simply no longer wishes to participate, we mark the profile inactive and remove it from active review. On request, we will delete it entirely.

Advocate notes and correspondence are retained only as long as they serve a purpose, and are then deleted. We may keep a minimal record of a deletion request itself so that we can honor it.

Uploaded files are removed from our web hosting account once they have been received and reviewed. Any file identified as harmful is deleted immediately and is not opened.

10. Security

We protect information through an encrypted connection to our website, security monitoring and firewall protection on our web hosting through Wordfence, reCAPTCHA on our submission forms to reduce automated abuse, restricted access to candidate information on a need-to-know basis, and confidentiality commitments from everyone on our team.

We also limit the file types our form accepts, and we recommend that anyone sending us documents keep their own devices and software up to date.

We limit what we collect in the first place, which is itself a security measure. Information we never hold cannot be exposed.

No system is perfectly secure, and we will not claim otherwise. If a breach affects your information, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as required by applicable law.

11. Your Rights and Choices

You may ask us to confirm what information we hold about you, to provide a copy of it, to correct anything inaccurate, to delete it, to limit how it is used, or to stop contacting you. You may withdraw your profile from consideration at any time and for any reason.

To exercise any of these, email chabadshidduchadvocates@gmail.com. We will respond within 45 days, and usually much sooner. We may need to verify your identity first, particularly given the sensitivity of what we hold, and we will never charge you for a request.

If you are in California

California residents have rights to know, delete, correct, and opt out of sale or sharing, along with the right to limit the use of sensitive personal information, under the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended. CSA does not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined in the CCPA. The California Attorney General’s CCPA page explains these rights in detail.

You may also have rights under the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act if you have shared health information with us. We do not request health information, and any you volunteer is treated as confidential and is not disclosed without your permission.

We will never discriminate against you for exercising a privacy right. Since our services are free, there is nothing to withhold.

If you are in another U.S. state

Residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws, including Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, Oregon, Montana, and others, generally have comparable rights to access, correct, delete, and obtain a copy of their information. We extend these rights to all users regardless of where you live. Use the contact details above.

If you are in Canada

Canadian residents have rights under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and, in some provinces, under provincial legislation such as Quebec’s Law 25. These include the right to access your information, to challenge its accuracy, and to withdraw consent. You may also complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

A note on legal scope

Some privacy statutes apply only to for-profit businesses meeting revenue or volume thresholds, and CSA may fall outside their technical scope as a not-for-profit organization. We have chosen to honor these rights anyway. We think that is the right way to treat information this personal.

12. Cookies, Analytics, and Tracking Signals

Our website uses a limited set of cookies and similar technologies, including Google Analytics to understand in aggregate how our pages are used and Google reCAPTCHA to protect our forms from automated abuse. Our Cookie Policy sets out what each one does and how to control them.

We do not track visitors across third-party websites and we do not run advertising, so we do not respond to Do Not Track browser signals. We do honor Global Privacy Control signals where your browser sends them.

13. Age Requirement

CSA’s services are intended for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect information from children, and we do not accept profiles for candidates under 18.

If you believe we hold information about a minor, contact us and we will delete it promptly.

14. Information Across Borders

CSA operates across the United States and Canada, and our advocates and service providers are located in both countries. Information you share with us may be stored or accessed in either country, and may be subject to the laws of the jurisdiction where it is held.

By submitting information, you understand that it may cross the border in this way.

15. Changes to This Policy

We will update this policy as our practices evolve. When we do, we will revise the date at the top of this page.

If a change materially affects how we handle candidate information, we will notify active candidates by email rather than relying on you to notice a website update.

16. Contact Us

Questions, requests, and concerns about privacy all go to the same place.

Chabad Shidduch Advocates
Email: chabadshidduchadvocates@gmail.com

If you raise a concern and are not satisfied with our response, you are entitled to escalate it to the privacy regulator in your jurisdiction. We would rather resolve it with you directly, so please tell us first.