Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

StudyIndia is a university intelligence platform for international students considering higher education in India. We provide verified, data-driven information about universities, courses, costs, and admission pathways.

2. Information We Collect

• Account information: Email address, display name, and avatar when you register or sign in with Google.
• Usage data: Pages visited, search queries, and feature interactions to improve the platform.
• User-submitted corrections: Field name, suggested value, and optional source URL when you report incorrect data.
• Shortlist & preferences: Universities you save and quiz responses from Smart Match.

3. How We Use Your Information

• To provide and personalise platform features.
• To send transactional emails (OTP codes, password resets, email verification).
• To review and apply data corrections you submit.
• To detect and prevent abuse (rate limiting, bot detection, CAPTCHA verification).
• To generate anonymised, aggregate analytics.

4. Cookies & Local Storage

We use only essential cookies and local storage:

• Session cookie (next-auth.session-token): Authenticates your login session.
• CSRF token (next-auth.csrf-token): Protects against cross-site request forgery.
• Theme preference (localStorage): Remembers your light/dark mode choice.
• Cookie consent (localStorage): Remembers your cookie preference.

We do not use advertising, tracking, or third-party analytics cookies.

5. Third-Party Services

• Google OAuth: For sign-in. We receive your name, email, and profile picture.
• Cloudflare Turnstile: Bot protection. Processes minimal browser signals; no tracking.
• Vercel: Hosting and edge network. Subject to Vercel's privacy policy.
• Supabase (PostgreSQL): Database hosting. Data stored in EU-West-1 region.

6. Data Retention

Account data is retained while your account is active. OTP codes expire within 10 minutes. Login attempt logs are retained for 90 days for security monitoring. You may request account deletion by contacting us.

7. Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Request correction of inaccurate data.
• Request deletion of your account and associated data.
• Withdraw consent for optional data processing.

8. Security

We implement industry-standard security measures including HTTPS encryption, bcrypt password hashing, signed authentication tokens, IP-based rate limiting, CSRF protection, and security headers (HSTS, X-Frame-Options, CSP).

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated via a banner on the platform.

10. Contact

For privacy-related inquiries, please email privacy@studyindia.com.