Privacy Policy

Last updated 2 August 2026.

1. Who we are and what this covers

This Privacy Policy explains how Pendium, LLC, a Missouri limited liability company doing business as Emeri (“Emeri,” “we,” “us”), collects, uses, shares, and protects personal information when you use the Emeri website, the free check, the paid certification examination, The Vanguard registry, and credential verification pages (together, the “Service”). We are the data controller for this information. Our contact details are in Section 13.

2. Information we collect

Information you provide. Your email address, your name, the role you select, your answers to assessment questions (including free-response scenario answers), a portrait photo if you choose to add one to your credential, and anything you send us in correspondence.

Payment information. If you purchase a certification, payment is processed by Stripe, our payment provider. We receive confirmation of payment, the amount, and limited billing metadata. We never see or store your full card number.

Information collected automatically. Standard technical data needed to run and secure the Service: IP address, browser and device information, request logs, timestamps, and assessment session data (such as when an attempt was started and submitted). See Section 7 for the cookies we set.

Advertising measurement. We advertise Emeri on Reddit and LinkedIn. On pages viewed from outside the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland, we load the Reddit advertising pixel and the LinkedIn Insight Tag, which tell those platforms that a page on emeri.org was viewed and pass standard technical data with it — IP address, browser and device information, and the page URL — under an identifier each platform stores in a cookie. They let us see how many people who saw an ad went on to visit; the LinkedIn tag is additionally told when a certification purchase completes, so we can count what an ad campaign actually produced. Neither receives your email address, your answers, or your results. We do not load them at all for visitors in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, and we do not load them for anyone whose browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal — see Section 7. Separately, a first-party cookie of our own records which campaign first brought your browser to the site — Section 7 describes it.

3. How we use information

  • to run the assessments, grade your answers, and calculate your band;
  • to authenticate you by magic link and maintain your session;
  • to process payment and issue your certification;
  • to publish certified credentials on The Vanguard and verification pages (Section 5);
  • to protect the integrity of the standard — detecting cheating, fraud, impersonation, and misuse, and investigating suspected violations;
  • to improve the fairness and quality of the assessment and rubrics, using answers and grading outcomes;
  • to send service emails: magic links, receipts, exam and credential notifications, and material changes to our terms or this policy;
  • to comply with law and enforce our agreements.

For users in jurisdictions that require a legal basis (such as the EEA or UK), we rely on: performance of a contract (running the assessment and issuing your credential), legitimate interests (security, integrity, and improvement of the standard), consent where we ask for it (such as your portrait photo), and legal obligation (tax and accounting records).

4. AI grading

Free-response scenario answers are graded by an AI examiner applying human-written rubrics. To do this, your answers are sent to our AI provider (Anthropic) for processing under an agreement that restricts use of the data to providing the service — API inputs of this kind are not used by the provider to train its models. Grading outputs are used to determine your grade and are retained with your attempt. We do not use AI grading to make decisions about you beyond scoring the assessment you chose to take.

5. What is public and what is not

Public, by design. A certified credential is a public attestation. If you certify, your name, band, skill profile, portrait photo (if provided), issue date, and credential status appear on The Vanguard and on your verification page, and in social preview images generated from them. Anyone can view these pages; that is what makes the credential verifiable.

Private.Your email address, your individual answers, your free-check results, and your payment details are private. We do not publish them and we do not sell them. We do not disclose any of them to an advertising network. What does reach an advertiser is described in Section 2: the Reddit pixel and the LinkedIn Insight Tag report that a page was viewed, and the LinkedIn tag that a purchase completed. Under some US state privacy laws that counts as “sharing” for cross-context behavioral advertising, so we treat it that way — Section 9 explains how to opt out.

You can request removal of your listing at any time (Section 9). Removal withdraws the public credential; note that copies of public pages may persist in third-party caches and archives we do not control.

6. How we share information

We share personal information only with service providers acting on our instructions, and in the limited circumstances below. Our current providers are:

  • Stripe — payment processing;
  • Anthropic — AI grading of scenario answers (Section 4);
  • Resend — transactional email delivery;
  • Vercel — website hosting and storage of portrait photos;
  • Neon — database hosting;
  • Reddit — advertising measurement, outside the EEA, UK, and Switzerland only (Sections 2 and 7). Reddit acts as an independent controller of what its pixel collects, under its own privacy policy.
  • LinkedIn — advertising measurement, outside the EEA, UK, and Switzerland only (Sections 2 and 7). LinkedIn acts as an independent controller of what its Insight Tag collects, under its own privacy policy.

We may also disclose information if required by law or legal process, to protect the rights, safety, or property of Emeri or others (including investigating examination fraud), or as part of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets — in which case this policy will continue to apply to your information until it is amended. We do not sell personal information.

7. Cookies

Essential. A session cookie that keeps you signed in, stored for up to one year, and a one-character cookie recording whether this visitor is in a region where we withhold the advertising pixels. Both are strictly necessary to provide the Service as described here, so neither requires consent, and neither can be disabled while using the Service.

Advertising.Outside the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland, the Reddit pixel and the LinkedIn Insight Tag each set their own cookie to recognize a returning browser for ad measurement (Section 2), and we set one first-party cookie of our own, for up to 30 days, holding the campaign labels (utm_source and similar) from the first tagged link that brought this browser here — so a later purchase can be counted against the advertising that caused it. Our cookie contains no identifier, nothing about you, and is readable by no script, ours or anyone’s. None of these are essential. We do not set any of them — and the pixels load nothing — if you are in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, or if your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, which we honor as an opt-out from sharing for advertising. You can also block or clear them in your browser settings, or opt out of personalized ads in your Reddit or LinkedIn account settings, with no effect on the Service.

We use no third-party analytics cookies at all — no Google Analytics or equivalent. We honor Global Privacy Control, as described above; we do not act on the older “Do Not Track” header, which browsers send inconsistently and which has no agreed meaning.

8. Retention and security

We keep personal information for as long as needed for the purposes above: account and credential data for as long as your account or credential is active; assessment answers and grading records for as long as needed to support the validity and integrity of issued credentials; and payment records for as long as tax and accounting law requires. When information is no longer needed, we delete or de-identify it.

We protect information with measures appropriate to its sensitivity, including encryption in transit, signed credential verification, access controls, and passwordless (magic link) authentication. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affecting your personal information occurs, we will notify you as required by law.

9. Your rights and choices

Wherever you live, you can email support@emeri.org to:

  • access a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
  • correct inaccurate details (including your name or photo on a credential);
  • remove your certified listing from The Vanguard;
  • delete your account and associated personal information, subject to records we must keep (such as payment records and minimal evidence that a revoked or withdrawn credential existed).

We will verify the request came from the email address on the account and act on it within the time required by applicable law. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any privacy right.

US state privacy laws. If you live in a state with a comprehensive privacy law (such as California, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, or Virginia), you may have additional rights — to know, correct, delete, obtain a portable copy, and opt out of sale, sharing, or targeted advertising. We do not sell personal information, and we do not use personal information for profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects beyond the assessment you request. We do share limited technical data with Reddit and LinkedIn for advertising measurement (Sections 2 and 5); to opt out, browse with Global Privacy Control enabled — which we honor automatically — or email support@emeri.org and we will confirm it. California residents: the categories of information we collect, our purposes, and our recipients are described in Sections 2, 3, and 6; you may use an authorized agent, and you may appeal a refused request by replying to our decision.

EEA, UK, and similar jurisdictions. You may also have rights to restrict or object to processing and to data portability, and you may lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. Our Service is operated from the United States and your information is processed there; where we transfer data from jurisdictions that restrict international transfer, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses with our providers.

10. Children

The Service is not directed to children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 16 has provided us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

11. Third-party links

Credential pages can be shared and embedded across the web, and our site may link to third-party sites (such as a credential holder’s profile elsewhere). Those sites have their own privacy practices, which we do not control.

12. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will post the updated version here with a new date. If a change materially affects how we handle information we have already collected — in particular anything that would make private information public — we will notify you by email and, where the law requires it, ask for your consent first.

13. Contact

Pendium, LLC dba Emeri
333 George Ave., St. Louis, MO 63122
1-314-794-8934
support@emeri.org

Questions about these practices, or about the Terms of Service that govern the Service, are welcome.