Privacy policy

This policy follows the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) and the rules made under it. "We" means Rudrapur City (rudrapurcity.com) and its publisher to be added soon, who is the "Data Fiduciary" for your personal data under the Act.

• You need no account, login or phone number to read the site.
• No advertising and no tracking cookies. Your data is never sold.
• We collect only what is needed to run the site or to publish what you send us.
• In most forms, giving your name and phone number is your choice. A blood request needs a contact number, and your consent for us to contact you on it and to show it with the request on the site, so that donors can call directly.
• You can ask to see, correct or delete your data at any time.

• What you send us: when you send news, an event, a job, an alert, a blood request, a place or a correction, the text of the form; your name and phone number if you choose to give them (a blood request needs a contact number); the permissions you choose (to be contacted, to have your number published) and the time of sending.
• Blood requests: blood group, units, hospital, area, contact name and number, and when it is needed. We do not ask for the patient's name; please do not include it.
• Notifications (web push): when you tap "सूचना चालू करें" (turn on notifications) and allow it, your browser creates a subscription consisting of a web address (endpoint) and two encryption keys. It contains no name, number or email. Alongside it we keep only its creation time and a count of delivery successes and failures.
• App notifications (Android app): when you tap "सूचना चालू करें" (turn on notifications) in the app and allow it, your phone creates a push token, a random code that lets notifications reach this app only. With it we keep the phone type (Android or iPhone), the app language (Hindi or English), the app version, and when the token was first and last received. It contains no name, number, email, advertising ID or location.
• Without notifications turned on, the app only asks our server for the same news, events and numbers the website shows. No account or identifier is sent for that.
• Polls: when you vote, an anonymous cookie (rc_voter) holding a random code is stored in your browser. We store a hash (a one-way code) of that code with the option you chose, so that each device is counted once. It does not identify you.
• Hashed IP address for abuse prevention: to stop spam and repeated form submissions, we derive a one-way hash from your IP address that changes every day. It is used for counting (rate limiting) and stored with any submission. Your actual IP address is not stored in our database.
• Server logs: like every website, our hosting servers may create technical logs such as IP address, time, page requested, browser type and error details.
• Things kept on your phone: the site stores a few preferences in your browser (such as a dismissed notice or whether you voted in a poll) and copies of some pages for offline reading. These stay on your device and are not sent to us. The app likewise keeps your chosen language and a copy of recent content on your phone for offline reading.
• If you contact us on WhatsApp or by email, your number or email address and your messages stay with us in that app.

• No advertising networks, tracking pixels or third-party tracking cookies.
• There is no analytics service today. If statistics such as page-view counts are ever added, this policy will be updated first.
• We never ask for your location. Weather is for a fixed point in Rudrapur city.
• Fonts and weather data are served from our own server, so opening a page does not send your details to any font or weather service.
• Your data is not sold, rented or given to anyone for marketing. We do not send promotional messages or calls to your number.

• The photographs you see are stored in this site's own database. No external image or photo service is used, so simply looking at a picture sends nothing about you to a third company.
• When the editor adds a photograph from a phone, the phone's browser shrinks it and re-creates it before it is sent. That is also why the camera's hidden data (EXIF) — such as location, camera model and the original time — does not travel with it to the server.
• Freely licensed photographs are likewise stored only after being resized and stripped of the camera's hidden data.
• Every photograph stays attached to the record it was added for, such as a place, event, job or story. If that record is deleted, the photograph is attached to nothing and the automatic cleanup deletes it: at the cleanup run after it is more than 30 days old. The editor can also delete any photograph at any time.
• We do not publish a photograph in which a private individual can be identified without their permission, and we never publish photographs of children (see the editorial policy). To have a photograph removed, write to to be added soon.

• To check and publish what you send, and to contact you to confirm it, only if you allowed us to contact you.
• To show your phone number on the site, only if you separately allowed it to be published (for example on a blood request or as an event organiser's number).
• To send notifications about important alerts and news, if you turned notifications on.
• To prevent the same device from voting twice in a poll.
• To prevent spam, fraud and attacks, and to keep the site secure and running.
• To comply with a law or a lawful order.

• Consent: you choose the consent options when you submit a form, and you grant browser permission to turn on notifications. Each consent is for a specific purpose and can be withdrawn at any time.
• Data you give voluntarily: when you send information yourself for a specific purpose, such as getting news published, we use it only for that purpose unless you tell us you do not agree. The DPDP Act treats this as a "legitimate use".
• Security and legal duties: the Act expects us to take reasonable safeguards to protect your data. The hashed IP and server logs are used in a limited way for that purpose and to comply with any law or lawful order.

If a law, court order or government direction requires any of this data to be kept longer than stated above, it will be kept securely, only for that period and only for that purpose.

• Submissions (name, phone and form content): deleted 90 days after the editor's decision (approved or rejected). Submissions that were never reviewed are also deleted 90 days after they were sent.
• Anything that was published (such as an event or job) stays on the site while it is useful or until you ask us to remove it. It includes your number only if you allowed it to be published.
• Photographs: kept as long as the record they are attached to. Once that record is gone, a photograph that is used nowhere is deleted at the cleanup run after it is more than 30 days old.
• Blood requests: hidden from the site after 48 hours (or earlier once the need is met) and fully deleted within 30 days after that.
• Notification subscriptions: until you turn notifications off. If the browser's push service reports that a subscription no longer works (for example because you removed permission), it is deleted automatically.
• App push token: until you turn notifications off in the app, which deletes it from our server straight away. If you uninstall the app or turn off permission in phone settings, the token is deleted automatically the next time a notification is sent and the delivery service reports that it no longer works.
• Anonymous poll votes: kept until the poll is deleted, so results can be shown. They contain nothing that identifies you.
• IP hashes: counting records are deleted in about a day. A hash stored with a submission is deleted with that submission. The hash changes every day, so hashes from different days cannot be linked.
• Server logs: kept for 180 days (as required by the CERT-In directions of 28 April 2022) and then deleted, or longer only where a law requires it.
• Complaints and rights requests: one year after they are resolved, so that we can answer questions about them later.
• Deleted data may remain in database security backups for up to 35 days, after which it is removed automatically.

• Readers: what you send becomes visible to everyone once approved and published. Your name or phone number appears only if you allowed it to be published.
• Hosting: the site runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud servers in India (Mumbai region). AWS stores and processes data on our behalf, under our contract, only to provide this service.
• Notification delivery: push notifications reach you through your browser's push service (for example Google for Chrome, Apple for Safari, Mozilla for Firefox). Messages are sent encrypted.
• App notifications: notifications for the Android app are delivered through the push service of Expo (650 Industries, Inc., USA) and Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging. They receive only the push token and the notification itself (title, short text and the link it opens), so this data may pass through servers outside India. It is sent over an encrypted connection (HTTPS).
• External websites: when you open a news link, Google Maps, a WhatsApp share or a government website, you move to that website and its own privacy policy applies.
• Legal requests: in response to a lawful request from a court, the police or a government authority, only the data requested and necessary.
• We never sell your data.

Under the DPDP Act, 2023 you have these rights:

• Right to information: ask what data we hold about you and how it has been used.
• Right to correction and updating: have inaccurate, incomplete or outdated data corrected.
• Right to erasure: have your data deleted, unless a law requires us to keep it.
• Right to withdraw consent: at any time, as easily as you gave it. Withdrawal does not make earlier use unlawful, but that use stops afterwards (for example, a published number is removed).
• Right to grievance redressal: complain to our grievance officer.
• Right to nominate: nominate a person to exercise these rights for you in the event of your death or incapacity.

Email to be added soon or write on WhatsApp to to be added soon. Tell us which data it is, such as the date you sent it, what it was about and which phone number you gave, so we can find it. To confirm your identity we may ask you to confirm from that same number or email. We aim to resolve requests within 15 days.

To stop notifications, tap the "सूचना चालू है" (notifications on) button again, or turn off notification permission for this site in your browser or phone settings. In the app, switch "Notifications" off on the "App & settings" screen, or turn off notifications for the Rudrapur City app in phone settings. You can delete the poll cookie from your browser settings at any time.

The Act also gives you duties: do not file false or frivolous complaints, do not send information in someone else's name, and give correct information when asking for a correction.

If you are not satisfied after completing our grievance process, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

• Anyone can read the site, but you must be 18 or older to send a form, a name or a phone number. People under 18 should ask a parent or guardian to send it.
• We do not knowingly collect children's personal data, track children or show them targeted advertising.
• If we learn that a child sent personal data without a guardian's consent, it is deleted.

• The site is served only over HTTPS (an encrypted connection).
• Submissions can be seen only by the editor, in a password-protected admin panel.
• Your actual IP address is not stored in the database, only a hash that changes daily.
• No system is 100% secure. If a personal data breach ever occurs, affected people and the Data Protection Board of India will be informed as the law requires.

• rc_voter — an anonymous random code used to count one vote per device in polls. Set only when you vote.
• rc_admin — only for the editor's login. Never set for readers.
• No other cookies: none for advertising and none for tracking.

When this policy changes, the new date will be shown on this page. For a significant change (such as collecting a new kind of data) we will also post a notice on the site.

• Data Fiduciary: Rudrapur City, publisher to be added soon
• Grievance officer: to be added soon
• Email: to be added soon
• WhatsApp: to be added soon
• Address: रुद्रपुर, ऊधम सिंह नगर, उत्तराखंड 263153