What we collect, and what we refuse to.
This program asks young people - some of them minors - to tell us about themselves so we can put them in front of defense contractors. That is a serious thing to ask, so this page is specific about what Defense Interns Corp holds, who can see it, and the things we deliberately never ask for at all.
In plain words first. This is a summary of how the site actually works, written against the code that makes it true. It does not replace the notice below it, which is the document that governs.
What we never collect
Starting here because it is the shorter and more useful list. There is nowhere on this website to give us any of the following, and no screen anywhere in our portal that displays them:
- Your date of birth. (Interns in the portal may choose to add the DAY AND MONTH of their birthday so we can tell their host employer it is coming up. There is nowhere to give us a year, so nothing on this site can work out how old anybody is, and it can be removed in one press.)
- Your home address.
- Your personal telephone number.
- Your Social Security number, or any government identification number.
- School transcripts, grades, or test scores.
- Bank or payment card details. See the section on donations below.
This is a design decision rather than a policy we ask staff to remember. The fields do not exist.
If you apply as a student
The application form asks for your name, an email address, which track you are applying to, your school, what you are studying, roughly when you finish, when you could start, and anything else you want to tell us. That is all of it.
Your resume comes separately, and never as an attachment on an open form. After you apply we email you a private link that works once and expires. The file you send is stored outside the site's public media library, in a location that cannot be guessed or browsed, and it can only be opened by signing in - there is no public web address for it.
Nobody outside our program team sees your application until a person has read it and released you into the pool. Applying is not the same as being shown to employers. Once you are released, the host employers in this program - and only them - can read your application and open your resume so they can say whether they would host you.
We also ask one question about export control, because many defense contractors work on projects that federal rules restrict. It asks whether you are a "U.S. person" for those purposes - which covers citizens, green card holders, and people with asylum or refugee status. It is optional, "I would rather not say" is one of the answers, and it is never used to reject an application. We store your answer and nothing else: no document, no number, no country, no date. It is never shown on any public page.
If you are placed, we keep a record of the placement: which employer, which rotation, and any credential you earned. That is the record that lets us tell your story later, and you decide whether your name and photograph appear on this website at all.
If you are under 18
Our high school track means we hear from students who are minors, and we handle that deliberately. We do not ask a minor for a date of birth, a home address or a telephone number, and no page of this site invites a young person to publish anything about themselves. An intern with a portal account may add the day and month of their birthday if they want their host employer told - never a year, never entered by us on their behalf, and removable at any time.
A student's photograph and full name appear publicly only where somebody has agreed to it, and that agreement can be withdrawn at any time by writing to us. Where a placement runs through a school programme, the school and the employer also hold records of their own under their own policies - those are theirs, not ours, and this page does not speak for them.
If you are a parent, guardian or school and you want to know what we hold about a particular student, or want it removed, write to support@defenseinterns.com and we will deal with it directly.
If you contact us on behalf of an organization
The access request form asks for your organization, your name, your role, a work email address and optionally a telephone number, along with a short description of what you do. We ask for a work address rather than a personal one because it is the main thing that lets us confirm who you are.
Once an organization is approved, we add it to our public Partners page - the organization's name and logo, and nothing else. No individual is named there. The form says so before you submit it, you can tell us at any point that you would rather we did not, and once you have a portal account you can change it yourself.
Signing in
Portal accounts are created by us, one at a time, for people an approved organization has named. There is no self-service sign-up, and nothing you can fill in on this website creates an account.
While you are signed in, your browser holds a session cookie so that we know it is still you between pages. That cookie is what signing in means; there is no way to offer the portal without it. It is deleted when you sign out.
We record when an account signs in for the first time, so that a sign-in link that has already been used cannot be handed out again. We do not build a history of what you looked at.
Donations
Defense Interns Corp never sees, handles or stores your card details. Donations are processed by a payment provider on their own form; the card fields belong to them, and there is no field anywhere on this website that accepts a card number.
What we keep is the record of the gift - who gave, how much, when, and which organization it should be credited to - because that is what a receipt and an annual return are made from.
Cookies, tracking and other companies
There is no advertising on this site and no advertising tracker in it. We do not sell, rent or trade anything we hold about you, and we do not share it with anybody for their own marketing.
Some things are supplied by other companies and they see something when a page loads:
- Our web host keeps ordinary server logs, including IP addresses, as every web host does.
- Google Fonts serves the typefaces this site is set in.
- Cloudflare Turnstile, where it is switched on, checks that a form is being filled in by a person rather than a script. It sees your IP address. It is not an advertising product and does not follow you between sites.
- Our payment provider handles donations, as described above.
How long we keep things, and how to have them removed
We keep an application for as long as it is useful to the person who made it - a student who applies for one intake is often the right person for the next one, and starting again from nothing does not serve them. We keep placement records for as long as we are reporting on the program.
You can ask us at any time for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Write to support@defenseinterns.com. We will not ask you to explain why, and asking will never affect an application.
Privacy Notice
Effective September 16, 2026. This is the operative document. Where it and the summary above differ, this one governs.
I. Title and effective date
Privacy Notice
Effective Date: 9/16/2026
This Privacy Notice describes how Defense Interns Corp, doing business as Defense Interns (“Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), collects, uses, discloses, retains, and protects personal information in connection with our website, communications, internship-preparation resources, recruiting-assistance services, candidate-introduction services, events, forms, and related offerings (collectively, the “Services”). This Privacy Notice applies to users who access or use the Services through our Maryland-facing website, and your continued use of the Services constitutes acknowledgement of this Privacy Notice.
II. Important defense-industry notice
The Services are intended to provide general internship-preparation, application-support, career-information, and candidate-introduction assistance. We are not, under Maryland or applicable federal law, a federal agency, military branch, government authority, security-clearance authority, defense contractor, employer, school, or placement guarantor, and we do not act as any of the foregoing, unless expressly stated in a written agreement signed by us. We make no professional, legal, or employment-placement guarantee, and nothing in the Services constitutes an offer of employment, a promise of any internship, interview, placement, or career outcome, or professional or legal advice. Users must not submit classified information, controlled unclassified information, export-controlled technical data, proprietary defense-contractor information, government-furnished information, or information restricted by law, contract, clearance obligation, or nondisclosure agreement.
III. Personal information we collect
A. Information you provide. We may collect personally identifying information , which may include name, email address, telephone number, mailing address, school, degree program, graduation year, resume, cover letter, portfolio information, work history, internship interests, geographic preferences, citizenship or work-authorization information where relevant to lawful eligibility criteria, voluntary demographic information if separately requested, payment information if fees apply, and communications with us. We collect this information directly from you, and only the categories reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Notice.
B. Application and profile information. If you create an account, request internship assistance, submit candidate materials, participate in coaching, or ask us to share your materials with potential employers, we may collect profile credentials, application preferences, availability, employer targets, interview status, offer status, and related candidate-support information.
C. Sensitive information. We collect sensitive personal information only where necessary for administrative and application purposes and only as permitted by applicable law. Do not submit Social Security numbers, passport numbers, security-clearance forms, medical information, biometric information, classified information, export-controlled technical data, or other highly sensitive information unless we specifically request it through an approved secure process.
D. Automatically collected information. We may collect device and usage information, including IP address, browser type, device identifiers, pages viewed, referring source, date and time of access, approximate location derived from IP address, cookies, pixels, analytics data, and similar technologies.
E. Information from third parties. We may receive information from schools, referral sources, employers, service providers, publicly available sources, event organizers, or other users, in each case as permitted by law and subject to applicable permissions. These sources supplement the information you provide and are used consistent with the purposes described in this Notice.
IV. How we use personal information
We may use personal information to:
A. provide, administer, improve, and personalize the Services;
B. evaluate user eligibility for particular Services or employer-facing opportunities;
C. assist users with resumes, internship preparation, applications, introductions, and communications;
D. share candidate materials with potential employers, mentors, reviewers, or partners where authorized by the user or otherwise disclosed at collection;
E. communicate about Services, updates, events, reminders, and administrative matters;
F. send marketing communications where permitted and subject to opt-out rights;
G. process payments, subscriptions, refunds, or account administration if applicable;
H. detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, misuse, security incidents, unlawful activity, and prohibited submissions;
I. comply with export-control, sanctions, employment, consumer-protection, accessibility, recordkeeping, legal-process, and other legal obligations;
J. enforce our Terms and protect our rights, users, partners, and the public.
V. How we disclose personal information
We may disclose personal information to:
A. service providers that support hosting, analytics, customer relationship management, email, messaging, payment processing, data storage, security, scheduling, and business operations;
B. potential employers, recruiters, mentors, reviewers, or defense-industry contacts, but only as described in the Services or authorized by the user;
C. schools, scholarship programs, event partners, or referral partners where the user participates in a related program or consents to the disclosure;
D. professional advisers, insurers, auditors, and legal representatives;
E. government authorities, courts, law-enforcement agencies, regulators, or other parties where we believe disclosure is required or appropriate to comply with law, protect rights, prevent harm, or address security or export-control concerns;
F. a successor or prospective successor in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, sale of assets, or similar transaction.
VI. Candidate materials and employer sharing
If you ask us to assist with internship opportunities, you authorize us to use and disclose your resume, profile, application information, and related candidate materials for that purpose, including by transmitting them to potential employers, recruiters, mentors, reviewers, and partners identified by you or by us. You represent that you have all rights necessary to share the materials you submit, and you may withdraw this authorization at any time by contacting us, although we cannot retrieve or recall materials already disclosed. We do not guarantee that any employer will review your materials, contact you, interview you, hire you, sponsor you, pay you, or maintain any position.
VII. Background checks and employment screening
We do not obtain consumer reports, background checks, credit reports, criminal-history reports, education verifications, employment verifications, or similar employment-screening reports unless expressly disclosed in a separate written process. If Defense Interns Corp elects to obtain or use such reports, we will provide any legally required stand-alone disclosure, obtain written authorization, and follow applicable adverse-action procedures before taking any action based on the report, and any such screening will be conducted only for lawful, job-related purposes in compliance with applicable federal and Maryland law.
VIII. Cookies and analytics
We may use cookies, pixels, analytics tools, session-replay tools, and similar technologies for website operation, security, analytics, personalization, and marketing,. These technologies may collect information such as device identifiers, IP address, pages viewed, links clicked, referring pages, and interactions with the Services, and may be operated by us or by third-party analytics or advertising providers Jetpack. We use this information to operate and secure the website, measure and understand usage, remember preferences, improve the Services, and support permitted marketing. You may adjust your browser or device settings to refuse or delete certain cookies and similar technologies, and may use available opt-out or Global Privacy Control/Do-Not-Track signals where offered; however, if you limit these technologies, some features of the Services may not function properly or may be unavailable.
IX. Email, calls, and text messages
A. Email. By providing an email address, you consent to receive administrative and service-related emails. Where permitted, you may also receive marketing emails and may opt out using the unsubscribe mechanism or by contacting us at support@defenseinterns.com.
B. Calls and texts. If you provide a telephone number and consent to calls or text messages, we may contact you at that number regarding the Services, including by automated means if separately authorized. Consent to marketing texts is not a condition of purchase. Message and data rates may apply. You may opt out by responding with “STOP”.
C. Data retention. We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide the Services, maintain records, resolve disputes, comply with legal obligations, enforce agreements, protect against fraud or misuse, and satisfy legitimate business purposes, subject to the Defense Interns information retention policy and schedule. Unless a longer period is required or permitted by applicable law, we generally retain candidate and account information for Three Years, device and usage information for Three Years, and information relating to inquiries that do not result in an account for Three Years, after which we delete, de-identify, or securely archive it in accordance with that schedule.
X. Maryland residents; data security and breach notification
If you are a Maryland resident, the following additional provisions apply to you. We maintain reasonable security procedures and practices appropriate to the nature of the personal information we collect and store in order to protect it from unauthorized access, use, modification, or disclosure. If we experience a breach of the security of a system that compromises the personal information of Maryland residents, we will conduct a reasonable and prompt investigation and, where required, provide notification to affected Maryland residents, and to any other persons or authorities, in the manner and within the time periods required by applicable law, including the Maryland Personal Information Protection Act. We may also access, preserve, and disclose personal information to comply with applicable law, legal process, subpoenas, court orders, or lawful requests by government or law-enforcement authorities, and to protect the rights, property, and safety of the Company, our users, and the public.
XI. Security
We maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information appropriate to its nature and sensitivity, and we require our service providers by contract to implement and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices. No website, system, transmission, or storage method is completely secure. Users are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of their account credentials and promptly notifying us of suspected unauthorized access.
XII. Minors
The Services are not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Users between 13 and 17 may use the Services only with parent or legal guardian consent and only where permitted by applicable law and the specific Service. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13 without required consent, we will take reasonable steps to delete it. A parent or legal guardian may contact us at the address below to review, request correction of, or request deletion of a minor's personal information, and we may verify the identity and authority of the requester before acting.
XIII. User choices and requests
Users may contact us at support@defenseinterns.com to request access, correction, deletion, restriction, or withdrawal of consent where applicable. We may verify identity before responding and may retain information where permitted or required by law. You may also designate an authorized agent to submit requests on your behalf where permitted by law, and we will not discriminate against you for exercising any privacy right.
XIV. International users
The Services are operated from the United States and are intended for users located in United States. If you access the Services from outside the United States, you understand that your information may be processed in the United States, where privacy laws may differ from those in your jurisdiction.
XV. Changes to this Privacy Notice
We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. The updated version will be effective when posted or as otherwise stated. We will update the effective date above to reflect the most recent revision and, where required by applicable law, provide additional notice of material changes. Continued use of the Services after an update constitutes acknowledgement of the updated Notice.
XVI. Contact
Privacy questions, and requests to exercise your privacy rights, may be directed to us, Attention: Privacy, at:
Defense Interns Corp, doing business as Defense Interns
203 Market St. STE 301
Havre De Grace, MD 21078
Email: support@defenseinterns.com
Questions about this page? support@defenseinterns.com