Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

• Account information: name, email address, and (optionally) phone number, organization, field of study, or job role, provided when you register, sign in with Google, or complete your profile.
• Course, event & competition activity: which courses you enroll in, lecture progress, which events you register for, and which competitions you enter, including submission files or links you upload.
• Payment records: purchase amount, currency, and payment status for courses/events/competitions. Card and bank details are entered directly into Razorpay and are never stored on our servers.
• Referral data: your referral code, who you referred, and referral credit earned/redeemed.
• Certificates: your name and course/event/competition details as they appear on any certificate issued to you, plus a public certificate number used for verification.
• Student & Alumni Journey (if you use it): your headline, current status, industry, skills, city and country; your education (college, course, department, years, whether you completed it, and your CGPA or percentage, which only you can see); your internships, jobs and other career entries; and the achievements you add.
• Verification documents: a photo of your student ID card, used to verify your education, and any offer or experience letter you send to verify a job or internship. A letter is removed once the request is decided; it then goes to our storage provider's bin and is permanently deleted on the schedule in section 6 (Data Retention).
• Profile photo, if you upload one.
• Things you send or post: messages to other members, community posts and comments, mentorship and job-referral requests, job applications (including your resume), and freelance messages and reviews.
• Age confirmation: that you confirmed you are 18 or older, and when.
• Consent & preferences: when you accepted our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, whether you've opted in to marketing communications, and whether (and when) you joined the alumni directory and your college's totals.

2. How We Use Information

We use your information to operate the Platform: creating and securing your account, granting access to purchased courses/registered events/competitions, processing payments, issuing and verifying certificates, tracking referral credit, and communicating with you about your account, purchases, or platform updates. We also use it to show your Student & Alumni Journey to other signed-in members (see section 5), to list you in the alumni directory and count you in your college's totals if you choose to, to verify education and career entries you ask us to verify, to suggest people, mentors, jobs and communities that match your profile, and to keep out spam and abuse.

3. Cookies & Tracking

We use strictly necessary cookies to keep you signed in and to remember your session. We do not use third-party advertising cookies. If you use the optional Google Website Translate feature, Google may set its own cookies to remember your language preference — see Google's own privacy policy for details.

4. Third-Party Services

We rely on a small number of third-party services to operate the Platform:

• Razorpay — payment processing.
• Google — optional sign-in (Google OAuth).
• Bunny.net — secure video hosting/streaming for course lectures.
• Vercel & Neon — application hosting and database infrastructure.
• Resend — transactional email delivery (e.g. password resets, account notifications).
• Meta (WhatsApp) — if you request WhatsApp verification, we send your mobile number and verification code to Meta through its WhatsApp Business Platform for delivery. If you provide a mobile number in your profile, we store it whether or not you verify it. Successful verification marks that number as verified.
• Google Website Translate — optional, client-side page translation if you choose to use it.
• Google Drive — storage for certificates, resumes, profile photos, student ID cards and verification letters.
• Vercel Blob — short-term storage of files while they upload, before they're moved to Google Drive.
• Cloudflare Turnstile — checks that sign-ups come from a person, not a bot.

Each of these providers processes data under their own privacy policies; we only share what's necessary for them to perform their function (e.g. Razorpay receives purchase amount and your email for receipts). Our hosting and database infrastructure (Vercel, Neon) may process and store data on servers located outside India; we take reasonable steps to ensure these providers offer an adequate level of data protection.

5. Information Sharing & Disclosure

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only: with the third-party service providers listed above, as needed for them to perform their function; with event/competition organizers or instructors where necessary to run that specific event, course, or competition (e.g. your name for a seat list or entry roster); when required by law, court order, or governmental request; or with your consent. Within ScholarAura, others can see the following:

• Other signed-in members can see your Student & Alumni Journey (education, career, achievements, and city and country) when they open your member profile, unless you turn on “Hide my journey from other members”. It is never shown to people who aren't signed in. Your email address, phone number and CGPA are never shown to other members.
• The alumni directory lists you, with your name, photo, headline, skills, college and current role, only if you choose “Show me in the alumni directory”.
• Your college: if you choose “Include me in my college's totals”, your college's staff on ScholarAura see counts that include you (stage, batch, status, employer, industry and city), never your name; groups of fewer than 5 are not shown. If you ask for your education at a college to be verified, that college's admins on ScholarAura can see the request, including your student ID card.
• Recruiters see the applications you send them, including your resume. People you message, mentors or referrers you contact, and members of communities you post in see what you send them.

6. Data Retention

We retain account, purchase, and certificate records for as long as your account is active, and as needed to comply with legal, tax, or accounting obligations. Certificate verification records are kept indefinitely so certificates remain verifiable.

When you remove or replace a file, or delete your account, the files we delete are removed from the site straight away. They are then moved to our storage provider's bin, usually within minutes, though a problem with the provider can delay this. Files in the bin are scheduled for permanent deletion 30 days after they arrive there, and the provider's own removal can take a few more days, so a copy may remain for a short time after that. Our database backups are scheduled for deletion 30 days after they are made, and the provider's removal can take a few more days. Backups can't be edited, so deleted information can remain in a backup until it is deleted.

7. Your Rights & Choices

You can review and update your account details from your dashboard. Subject to applicable law (including India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023), you have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, request correction of inaccurate data, and request erasure of your data, withdraw any consent you've given, and nominate someone to exercise your rights if you die or become unable to. You can change most choices yourself at any time: on My journey (“Join my alumni network” and “Hide my journey from other members”), and in your profile settings. To exercise any other right, email us at scholaraura@gmail.com. Note that we may need to retain certain purchase/certificate records even after account deletion for legal or verification purposes.

Grievance Officer: Mr. Kamble S.M. Complaints about how we handle your personal data can be sent to our Grievance Officer at scholaraura@gmail.com. If you're not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

8. Marketing Communications

During onboarding, you can choose whether to receive updates about new courses, events, and competitions. If you opt in, you can withdraw consent at any time by emailing scholaraura@gmail.com or using the unsubscribe link included in any marketing email. Transactional emails related to your account, purchases, or password resets are sent regardless of this preference, as they're necessary to operate the Platform.

9. Children's Privacy

ScholarAura accounts are for people aged 18 or over, and everyone confirms their age when setting up their account. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe someone under 18 has an account or has given us their information, contact us and we will remove it.

10. Security

Passwords are stored using one-way hashing, not in plain text. Access to paid course lectures and private event/competition details is restricted to users with a confirmed purchase or registration. No online system is 100% secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect your data.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When a change affects what others can see about you, we'll tell you on the Platform. Continued use of the Platform means you accept the current version.

12. Contact

Questions about this Policy can be sent to scholaraura@gmail.com.