Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Geospatial Careers is an independent geospatial labour-market research project operated by Gerardo Ezequiel Martin Carreno. This policy explains how personal data is handled when you read the site, subscribe to updates or contribute research context.

The data controller is Gerardo Ezequiel Martin Carreno personally, based in London, United Kingdom. If responsibility for this data moves to a company, this policy will name the company before the move happens. There is no ICO registration number and no data protection officer; if either changes, it will be stated here.

For privacy enquiries, contact privacy@geospatial.careers.

2. Data we collect

Depending on how you use the site, we may collect:

• Contact data: email address and name if you subscribe, contact us or contribute research context.
• Contribution data: salary ranges, source suggestions, tool notes, role titles, regions, reports or questions you choose to submit.
• Usage data: page views, referrers, device information and interaction patterns, collected through privacy-conscious analytics where enabled.
• Operational data: error logs, security events and technical diagnostics needed to keep the site reliable.

3. How we use data

We use data to:

• Send research updates or release notes you requested.
• Review and aggregate community contributions.
• Improve public research quality, coverage and usability.
• Protect the site from abuse, spam and unauthorised access.
• Understand which public research pages are useful to readers.

4. Lawful bases

We process personal data under consent, legitimate interest, contractual necessity where you request a specific interaction, and legal obligation where applicable. You can withdraw consent for communications at any time.

5. Processors

The site may use service providers for hosting, database storage, analytics, email delivery, form processing, error monitoring and security. Processors are used only where needed to operate the research site and protect submitted data.

6. Publication and aggregation

Public research outputs are aggregated. Individual contributor contact details are not published. If a public dataset or release includes community-derived evidence, it is prepared to reduce personal identification risk and to explain relevant limitations.

7. The careers survey

This section covers both research forms: the longer one at /state-of-geospatial and the short one at /onboarding/survey. The same facts are shown on those pages themselves, above the form, before you type anything, so you never have to come here to find them.

What the short form collects. how you describe your current role; your country; your career stage, if you choose to give one; the skills you type in; what you are working towards; what you would want a career platform to do for you; which of the seven descriptions fits you best. That is the whole list. It does not ask for your name, your email address, your employer, your pay, and it does not store your IP address with your answers. Your IP address is checked briefly to stop spam and is not written to your record.

What the longer form collects.Everything above, plus the tools, libraries, data sources and reports you use, the skills you want to learn, and your open questions. If you tick “include salary” it also collects your pay, seniority, city, employer type and years of experience, and writes those figures to a separate salary table used for the published benchmarks. If you tick the follow-up box it collects your email address, and only then. It stores a one-way hash of your IP address and your browser user agent to detect duplicate and automated submissions; the hash cannot be turned back into your IP address. It does not ask for your name, your employer’s name, or any special-category data.

Lawful basis. Consent, under UK GDPR Article 6(1)(a), given by ticking the unticked box on the form. Consent here is a genuine choice: nothing else on the site is withheld if you skip the survey, and you can withdraw at any time by deleting your answers. We do not rely on legitimate interest for this survey.

What we do with it. Your answers join the pool behind the State of Geospatial Careers research, which is published only as grouped figures. The short form also generates your Impact Profile immediately. No group is published unless at least 5people are in it, and that floor is enforced by the code that produces the figures, not only by this promise. Individual answers are never published, never sold, never passed to a recruiter or an advertiser, and never used to train a third party’s model.

How long we keep it. 24 months from the day you submit, then it is deleted. Sooner if you ask.

How to have it deleted. The short form gives you a result link containing a one-off code. The longer form does not issue a code, so for that one email us with roughly when you submitted, your country and your role, and we will find the row and erase it; if you gave an email address, that is enough on its own. With a code, open /onboarding/delete, paste the code, and your answers are erased immediately. If you have lost the code, email privacy@geospatial.careers with roughly when you submitted and we will find the row and erase it. Grouped figures that have already been published cannot be pulled apart again, because they no longer contain you individually.

8. Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as needed for the purpose it was collected, including research updates, contribution review, legal compliance, security and audit needs.

Where a specific retention period has been set, it is stated. Careers survey answers are kept for 24 months and then deleted, as described in section 7.

9. Your rights

Depending on your location, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to processing of your personal data. To exercise these rights, email privacy@geospatial.careers. Survey answers can also be deleted by you directly at /onboarding/delete, without emailing anyone.

If you are in the UK and you are unhappy with how your data has been handled, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk. You do not have to raise it with us first, though it is usually quicker if you do.

10. Cookies

Cookies and similar storage are explained in the Cookie Policy.

11. Changes

This privacy policy may be updated as the research project and publication model evolve. The date above shows the most recent revision.