Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains what personal data Mota Hub Inc collects, why we collect it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the rights you have over it. It covers our website, our mobile app, and the platforms we operate for our clients and for VFX crew.

1. Who we are

Mota Hub Inc (“Mota”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is a company incorporated in Delaware, USA. We are registered with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

We provide a relationship-led matching and introduction service for the global VFX industry, connecting filmmakers, VFX studios and experienced crew through vetted introductions and market intelligence.

For the personal data described in this policy we act as a data controller — we decide why and how it is processed. Because we process the personal data of individuals located in the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area, we comply with the UK GDPR and the EU GDPR in respect of that data.

Our Data Protection Lead is Paul Wheeler, CTO, based in the United Kingdom.

For any privacy enquiry, data rights request or security concern, contact support@mota-hub.com.

Our UK representative

Under Article 27 of the UK GDPR, our representative in the United Kingdom is Paul Wheeler, CTO, Mota Hub Inc. You may contact him directly at paul@mota-hub.com on any matter relating to our processing of your personal data. Contacting our representative does not affect your right to contact the ICO.

Under Article 27 of the EU GDPR we are also required to appoint a representative established within the European Economic Area. That appointment is in progress, and the details will be published on this page once it is complete. In the meantime, individuals in the EEA should contact support@mota-hub.com, and all the rights described in this policy apply in full.

2. What this policy covers

This policy applies to:

• Our website at mota-hub.com
• The Mota Crew mobile app for iOS and Android
• Our crewing and client platforms, including crewing.mota-hub.com
• The professional profiles we maintain in our Intelligence Hub
• Enquiries, calls and correspondence with the Mota team

It applies to the people we work with: filmmakers and production-company decision-makers, VFX studios and their representatives, VFX crew and talent, our paying clients, and visitors to our website.

3. Information we collect

3.1 Information you give us directly

• Enquiry forms on our website — your name, email address, location, and any details you choose to share
• Email, telephone and video correspondence with our team
• Information you provide during onboarding as crew, or as a client

3.2 Information held in your Mota crew profile

If you are onboarded as crew and use the Mota Crew app or our crewing platform, we hold the following. You can view all of it in the app and propose changes to it at any time.

• Identity and contact — first and last name, email address, telephone number, alternative email and telephone, profile picture
• Professional profile — job title and role, seniority level, skills and skill levels, LinkedIn profile link, IMDb profile link, showreel or portfolio link
• Credits — your film, television and project credits, including credits matched from public credit databases
• Engagement terms — day rate range and currency, the types of work you are open to, and your right-to-work status
• Location — the address details you enter, which may include city, state or region, postal code and country, together with approximate latitude and longitude derived from the city and country you type
• Availability — the date ranges you tell us you are available or unavailable
• Activity on the platform — the changes you propose to your profile, your responses to role invitations, your notifications, and your notification preferences

3.3 Information we collect from public and industry sources

We build professional profiles for our Intelligence Hub using publicly available and industry sources. This means we may hold information about you even if you have never contacted us. Those sources include public credit databases (for example IMDb), professional networking sites, industry production databases, and other publicly available industry sources.

The information is professional rather than personal in nature — typically your name, role, studio or employer, credit history and filmography, experience and specialisms, business contact details, and location. Where we hold a profile built this way, you have the right to object and to have it removed. See sections 10 and 11.

3.4 Technical information

When you use our website, app or platforms, our servers and infrastructure providers record the standard technical information needed to deliver and secure the service — including IP address, device and browser type, and the requests made. This is used for security, troubleshooting and service reliability. It is not used to build a profile of you, and not used to track you across other apps or websites.

4. The Mota Crew mobile app

This section describes specifically what the Mota Crew app for iOS and Android does with your data.

4.1 What the app stores on your device

The app stores your authentication session, so that you stay signed in, and a local cache of the profile, credits, skills, role invitation and notification data it has already loaded, so that screens load quickly and work briefly offline. This is held in the app's own private storage on your device, and is removed when you sign out or uninstall the app.

4.2 What the app sends, and to whom

• Mota — your profile, credits, skills, address, availability, proposed changes and role-invitation responses are sent to our own API, hosted on Google Cloud Platform
• Google Firebase Authentication — your email address and password are used to sign you in and to issue your session token
• Expo (EAS Update) — the app checks for over-the-air updates, which involves a standard request containing app version and platform information
• Open-Meteo — when you enter a city and country in the address sheet, that city and country text is sent to a public geocoding service to look up approximate coordinates
• Vimeo or YouTube — where a showreel link is present on a profile, the video is played from the platform hosting it, and that platform will see the request

4.3 What the app does not do

• It contains no analytics, advertising or tracking SDK of any kind
• It does not track you across other companies' apps or websites, and we do not use your data for advertising
• It requests no device permissions — no access to location services, camera, microphone, photo library, contacts or calendar
• Location data comes only from the address you type. It never comes from your device's GPS or location services
• It sends no push notifications. Notifications are shown inside the app and, where you have opted in, by email
• We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it with data brokers
• It makes no automated decisions about you. Changes you propose to your profile are reviewed by a person at Mota before they are applied

5. How we use your information, and our lawful basis

We only use your personal data for the purposes we collected it for, and only where we have a lawful basis to do so.

• To build and maintain professional profiles of VFX industry leadership and crew in our Intelligence Hub, and to promote those professionals and studios to production companies — legitimate interests. We have completed a Legitimate Interest Assessment for this processing. A key element of it is that it promotes professionals and studios to production companies at no cost to them.
• To onboard and represent VFX crew and talent — your consent, given at onboarding; and performance of a contract where we provide crewing services.
• To make curated introductions and matches between professionals, studios and production companies — our legitimate interests in operating our matching service.
• To respond to your enquiries and arrange introductory calls — our legitimate interests, and steps taken at your request before entering into a contract.
• To register and deliver services to clients, including managing payments, fees and requests — performance of a contract; our legitimate interests; and compliance with legal obligations.
• To manage our ongoing relationship with you, including telling you about changes to our services or this policy — performance of a contract; compliance with a legal obligation; and our legitimate interests in keeping our records accurate.
• To send you our newsletter and product release notes — your consent, given by opting in.
• To operate, secure, troubleshoot and improve our website, app and platforms — our legitimate interests in running and securing our service; and compliance with legal obligations.

We do not routinely collect or process special category data. Where we ever need to, we will handle it in accordance with Article 9 of the GDPR. We do not knowingly process the data of children — our services are intended for working professionals aged 18 and over.

6. Cookies and similar technologies

Our website and platforms use strictly necessary cookies only — the session and authentication cookies that keep you signed in and keep the service secure. These do not require consent.

We do not currently run any analytics, advertising, session-recording or cross-site tracking technology on our website or in our app. An earlier version of this policy referred to Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity. Neither is in use, and both references have been removed.

If we introduce non-essential cookies or analytics in future, we will update this policy and ask for your consent before setting them. Most browsers also let you block or delete cookies, though blocking strictly necessary cookies may stop parts of our service working.

7. Who we share your information with

We do not sell your personal data. We do not share it for advertising, and we do not share it with data brokers.

As part of our service, and consistent with the purposes above, we make curated introductions — for example introducing VFX professionals and crew to studios and production companies, and introducing studios to relevant productions. We share only the information that is relevant to that introduction.

We use the following service providers to operate our business. They process your data on our instructions and are bound to protect it.

• Google Cloud Platform — hosting and database (United States)
• Google Firebase — authentication for our app and platforms
• Google Workspace and Google Gemini — productivity, communications and meeting notes
• Anthropic — AI-assisted analysis (United States)
• Vercel — website hosting
• Sanity — website content management
• Resend — delivery of enquiry-form submissions and transactional email
• Expo — mobile app delivery and over-the-air updates
• Open-Meteo — geocoding of the city and country you enter
• DocuSign — onboarding consent e-signatures
• Xero — invoicing and accounting
• Meta (WhatsApp) — internal communications
• Professional advisers — lawyers, accountants, auditors and insurers, where required
• Regulators and other authorities, where they lawfully require it

8. Where your data is stored, and international transfers

Your data is stored on secure cloud infrastructure provided by Google Cloud Platform, with data held in the United States. Mota Hub Inc is a US-based controller.

Because we process the personal data of individuals in the UK and EEA, where personal data is transferred outside the UK or EEA we put appropriate safeguards in place — including the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, or reliance on an adequacy decision, including the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, where applicable.

9. How long we keep your data

• Website enquiries — up to 3 years, to support an ongoing business relationship
• Intelligence Hub professional profiles — reviewed at least every 24 months, and removed where no longer relevant or on valid objection
• Onboarded crew data — kept while your consent remains valid
• Client, transaction and financial records — the duration of the contract plus 7 years, or as required by applicable financial and tax regulations

Full details are set out in our Data Retention Policy, which is available on request.

10. Your rights

Depending on where you are located, you have the following rights over your personal data:

• To be informed — to know how we use your data, which is why we publish this policy
• Access — to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Rectification — to have inaccurate or incomplete information corrected
• Erasure — to ask us to delete your data where there is no compelling reason for us to keep it. See section 11.
• Restriction — to ask us to stop using your data while continuing to store it
• Portability — to receive your data in a portable format, or to have it transferred to another provider
• To object — including to direct marketing, at any time. Where we rely on legitimate interests to maintain your professional profile, you may object at any time and we will remove or suppress your profile on request.
• To withdraw consent — where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. This does not affect processing we carried out before you withdrew it.

To exercise any of these rights, contact support@mota-hub.com. There is no fee. We may ask for information to confirm your identity — a security measure to make sure data is not disclosed to someone who has no right to receive it.

We respond to all legitimate requests within one month. If a request is particularly complex, or you have made several, we may extend this by up to two further months, and will tell you if we do.

If you are in the United States

If you are a California resident, you have rights under the CCPA/CPRA to know, delete and correct your personal information, and to opt out of its sale or sharing. Mota does not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined under California law, and does not use personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. We do not discriminate against anyone for exercising their privacy rights. Residents of other US states with comparable laws have similar rights, and can use the same contact route.

11. Deleting your data or your account

You can ask us to delete your Mota account and the personal data associated with it at any time.

To request deletion, email support@mota-hub.com from the address associated with your account, or from any address if you tell us which account you mean. Mota Crew accounts are created by Mota rather than self-registered in the app, so deletion is handled by our team through this route.

What happens next:

• We acknowledge your request, and may ask you to confirm your identity
• We complete the deletion within 30 days of confirming the request
• We delete your account and sign-in credentials, your profile, contact details, skills, rates, right-to-work status, address, availability, the credits you have added, your proposed changes, and your notifications and preferences
• We confirm to you by email once it is done

What we may retain, and why: we keep a minimum record where we are legally required to — for example transaction and financial records for the statutory period — and a minimal record of the deletion request itself, so that we can evidence that we honoured it and so that we do not rebuild a profile you asked us to remove. Where we are involved in, or reasonably anticipate, legal proceedings, we may retain a minimum amount of data in order to establish, exercise or defend legal claims. Anything retained this way is archived and accessible only to authorised personnel, and is held under our legitimate interests in meeting our obligations and defending our business.

If we hold a professional profile about you that you did not create — one built from public industry sources — you can have it removed the same way. Email support@mota-hub.com and we will remove or suppress it.

12. Security

We have put appropriate security measures in place to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, or used, accessed, altered or disclosed without authorisation. All data is held in our cloud infrastructure and is not stored locally on staff devices. We enforce multi-factor authentication for platform users, role-based access on a need-to-know basis, and encryption in transit and at rest. Our website and APIs are served over HTTPS. Our staff and contractors are under a duty of confidentiality and process your data only on our instructions.

We will report any breach to the appropriate authorities, and to anyone affected, as required by law — without undue delay and, where required, within 72 hours. To report a security concern, contact support@mota-hub.com.

13. Third-party links

Our website, app and platforms may link to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications — including showreel and portfolio links, IMDb profiles and professional networking profiles. Following those links may allow third parties to collect data about you. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for their privacy practices. We encourage you to read the privacy notice of any site you visit.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated version number and revision date. Where a change materially affects how we use your data, we will tell you directly.

15. Contact and complaints

If you have questions about this policy, want to exercise your rights, or wish to complain, contact support@mota-hub.com. This reaches our Data Protection Lead, Paul Wheeler, CTO. You can also contact him directly, in his capacity as our UK representative, at paul@mota-hub.com.

Mota Hub Inc
Delaware, USA
support@mota-hub.com

If you remain dissatisfied, you have the right to complain to a supervisory authority. In the UK this is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), ico.org.uk. If you are in the European Economic Area, you may complain to your local data protection authority.