Privacy Policy
VFX Job Scout · last updated 15 October 2026
VFX Job Scout is a Telegram bot that finds job offers for VFX artists and, for the users testing it, helps write and send applications. Soon, studios will also be able to open an account, checked by hand, to post roles and meet the artists who chose to be found. This page explains what data it uses, why, who else sees it, and how to get it deleted. We keep as little as we can: the application profile, for example, lives in your own Telegram chat, not on our server.
1. Who is responsible
The data controller is VFX Job Scout. To reach us about your data, write to [email protected].
The service is in a test phase and open to everyone: to join, send /start to the bot.
2. What we use, and why
| Data | Why | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Your Telegram chat ID and first name, the date you joined, your filters (jobs, countries, remote…), and the country you live in if you choose to tell us (only the country, never the city) | To send you the job offers you asked for | Until you ask us to delete them. /stop only pauses the messages. |
| Access requests: when you send /start to join, your Telegram chat ID, first name and the date. While there are places you join straight away; if they are full, we keep these to let you in when there is room | To let you in, now or when there is room, and to write to you when it happens | Deleted automatically 7 days after the request, whether or not you were invited. If you join, your data is the one in the row above. |
| Which link you came from: if the link you used to join carries a label (for example the one of a social post or a group), we keep that label with your chat ID and the date. Nothing about your device or location | To see which channels bring people in, so we know where to spend our time | Until you ask us to delete it |
| What you write to us: if you send feedback (/feedback, the Help tab of the settings page, or after tapping Not relevant and Other), the text you write, your chat ID, your first name and the date; and, if you wrote it after tapping Not relevant, which job it was about. Only we read it: it is not shared, not published and not processed by automated tools | To learn what is missing or wrong, and improve | Three months, then it is deleted, or sooner if you ask us to delete it |
| Not relevant taps: when you tap Not relevant under a job, which job it was, the reason you picked and the date | To see which jobs and sources are wrong, and improve what we send. It does not change your filters | Until you ask us to delete it |
| Which job offers were sent to you, and when. For a message that contains a role posted by a studio, also the number of that message in your chat | Not to send the same one twice. The message number only to correct that message, with no new notification, if the studio edits its role | As above |
| Which job links you open: the job titles go through our own address for a moment, so we record who opened which job and when (no IP address, no device information) | To see which jobs are useful and improve what we send | Until you ask us to delete it. Turn it off any time with /links off: new links then open the job page directly. |
| Applications: your CV, reel link and password, contacts, writing style | To write applications in your name | Stored in your Telegram chat as a pinned file, not on our server. Delete it from /profile, or delete that message. |
| Which jobs you applied to through the bot, when, and the studio's address | To show /applied and not apply twice to the same job | Until you ask us to delete them |
| Counters (letters per day and month) and the dates of your access | Fair-use limits | As above |
| Connected mailbox (Gmail): your email address and an access key | To send the applications you confirm, from your mailbox | Until you disconnect (/profile), delete your profile, or revoke access from your Google account. Stored encrypted. |
| Studio matching (optional, coming soon): if you choose «Let studios find you» in the bot, a short anonymous card: trade, level, years, software, sectors, where you can work without a visa, relocation, availability and contract preference, the country you live in, and, only if you choose to, your usual rate and up to five credits (title and studio) picked one by one from your own CV. Studios cannot browse or search artists: they only see cards proposed for one of their roles, and you can say «never this studio» | To show studios that post a fitting role a card about you, without your name or contact details. Your name, email, CV and reel are shared only with a studio you say yes to, or one you apply to | Until you leave («Leave and delete my card», in the bot or in Settings › Profile), or 30 days after you last confirm you are still looking. Leaving deletes the card. |
| Talking with studios: what a studio sends us through the form on the page for studios (name, studio, work address, website, the roles it hires for, where, how many hires a year, a message) or by email to [email protected], and what we agree. A form request reaches us as a message in our Telegram chat. The IP address is used only for a moment, to limit how many requests can be sent, and is not stored | To answer, and to agree and set up the full plan | As long as we talk or work with that studio, and afterwards only what the law requires us to keep (for example invoices). A request with no follow-up is deleted after one year |
| Studio accounts (for recruiters): the studio's name and web domain (the one of the work email), the work email of each person, the roles it posts, its plan (free or full) and until when, and the access link a full plan was opened with. For the free plan, the dates its roles were posted | To publish roles, put studios and artists in touch, and apply the plan (for example one account and one role at a time on the free plan) | Until the studio account is closed. The dates of free roles stay with the studio's domain, so that the free plan's limits can't be reset by deleting an account |
| Studio verification (for recruiters): your work email address, a code we give you, and whether we verified the account; or, for a full plan, the access link we send to your work address, which you open in Telegram. The email you send us to prove the address is read by us by hand | To check that you work for the studio you name, before you can post roles or see candidates | Until the studio account is closed. The email in our mailbox is deleted once we have decided. |
| Reports: if you report a studio recruiter, which recruiter, the reason you picked and when | To protect artists and studios from spam, impersonation and requests for money or data. The recruiter is never told who reported them | Kept while the recruiter's account exists, or longer if it was suspended, so that a suspension is not lost by deleting the account |
We do not keep the text of your letters: to send one, the bot re-reads it from your Telegram message. We do not sell data, show ads based on it, or use it to train AI models ourselves. What the AI providers may do with what they receive is explained in section 4.
3. Google user data (Connect Gmail)
If you connect Gmail, we ask Google for two things only: your email address (to know which mailbox is connected) and permission to send email (gmail.send). We cannot read, search or delete your email.
- An email is sent only when you tap Send and then Yes, send, and only to the address found in the job offer, with your CV attached.
- The access key is stored encrypted, with a key kept apart from the database. Nobody reads it; the bot uses it only for the sending you confirm.
- Google user data is not shared with anyone else, not used for advertising, and not used to train AI models.
- You can disconnect at any time from /profile, or remove the access from your Google Account (Security → Third-party apps).
VFX Job Scout's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
4. Who else processes your data
- Telegram: all messages, and your application profile, travel and live on Telegram.
- AI service providers (third-party services): read your CV once to build your profile and, for each letter, receive your profile (name, contact details, reel link, experience, credits and the CV summary) together with the job offer. We send them nothing else about you. While the service is still an experiment, we may also use AI tools to help read and sort public job offers, which contain no personal data of our users. How these providers handle that data is set by their own terms, which differ by plan and by the customer's location, which we do not control and which they can change. Those terms may allow them to keep and use what they receive to improve their services. We give no guarantee about it. Using the application feature is your choice and your responsibility.
- Hosting: the server where the service runs.
- This website: we count how many people open vfxjobscout.com and how many tap Open in Telegram, per day and per link they came from (a separate number for each place where we share the link). Each count is just a number next to a date and a label: no cookie, no IP address and nothing about your device is saved by us, and nobody can tell who you are from it. It is skipped if your browser sends "Do Not Track" or Global Privacy Control. Cloudflare, which hosts the site, also shows us cookie-free visit statistics.
- Email routing: the emails studios send to [email protected], and the verification emails that recruiters send us, arrive through Cloudflare, which forwards them to our mailbox.
- Telegram Web App: if you use the Settings button, your filters open in a page inside Telegram. The page loads Telegram's own script, uses no cookies and no analytics, and stores nothing in your browser: your filters are read from and saved to the same place as the chat menu. The Profile tab shows which parts of your profile are set (CV, reel, style, mailbox) by reading only the caption of your pinned profile message, never the file itself; the Applications tab lists your applications and latest jobs. Telegram tells the page who you are with a signature we verify; nothing else about you is shared.
- Your mailbox provider (Gmail): only if you connect it, to send the emails you confirm.
- Cloud storage: a daily backup copy of the database (the data in section 2, not your application profile), kept 14 days. Mailbox keys in it stay encrypted, and the decryption key is not in the backup. The studio matching data (anonymous cards, studio accounts, introductions) is not in this copy: its backup stays on the server's own disk.
Some of these providers are outside the European Union; they work under the European Commission's standard contractual clauses or equivalent safeguards.
5. Legal basis
We process personal data under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, Regulation (EU) 2016/679). Sending you job offers and running your account: performance of the service you asked for (art. 6.1.b). Handling your request for an invitation: steps taken at your request before you join (art. 6.1.b). Applications and a connected mailbox: your consent, asked before you start (art. 6.1.a), which you can withdraw at any time. Counting which links you open, and limits against abuse and security: our legitimate interest (art. 6.1.f), which you can object to with /links off. Letting studios find you (matching): your consent, asked before you start (art. 6.1.a), which you can withdraw at any time with «Leave and delete my card». Sharing your details with a studio: your choice each time (art. 6.1.a). Studio accounts and talking with studios: performance of the agreement with the studio, or steps it asked for before agreeing (art. 6.1.b); checking that an account really belongs to the studio it names, to keep fake studios out: our legitimate interest (art. 6.1.f).
6. Your rights
You can ask to see, correct, export or delete your data, or object to its use: write to [email protected] and we answer within 30 days. You can also complain to the data protection authority of the country where you live or work (the European Data Protection Board lists them all).
7. Security
Mailbox access keys are encrypted; the bot asks for confirmation before every email; links to connect a mailbox expire after 15 minutes; limits stop anyone from using the service to send mass email.
8. Age
VFX Job Scout is for people aged 16 or older.
9. Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, we tell you in the bot before it applies.