Privacy & Data

The Awaken Buddha ("TAB", "we", "us", "our") is a reading and writing platform available on the web and as Android/iOS apps. TAB is operated by House of Cre8r, 215, Galaxy Business Park, Service Rd, Odhav Industrial Estate, Nikol, Ahmedabad, Gujarat 380049, India. For the purposes of applicable data-protection law, House of Cre8r is the "data controller" / "data fiduciary" responsible for your personal data.

This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, why we collect it, how we use and share it, how long we keep it, and the rights and choices you have. It applies to our website and our mobile apps together.

We collect only what we need to run TAB and keep it safe:

• Account information you give us — your name, username, email and/or phone number, password (stored only as a secure one-way hash), bio, avatar, website, location and any profile details you choose to add.
• Content you create — posts, articles, threads, drafts, comments, reactions, highlights, bookmarks and collections. Creating and sharing this content is the core purpose of TAB.
• Activity data — who you follow, what you read or save, streaks and reading history, and similar signals used to build your feed and recommendations.
• Technical & device information — IP address, device type, operating system, app version, language, and basic diagnostic/crash logs used to keep the service secure, stable and fast.
• Push-notification tokens — if you enable notifications, a device token so we can deliver alerts about activity on your content.
• Cookies & similar technologies — see our Cookie Policy for details.
• If you sign in with Google, we receive your basic Google profile (name, email, profile photo) to create and secure your account. We never receive your Google password.

We process your personal data only where we have a lawful basis to do so. Depending on the situation and the law that applies to you, that basis is:

• Your consent — for example, when you enable push notifications, or (for users under 18) the verifiable consent of a parent or guardian. You can withdraw consent at any time.
• To provide the service — processing needed to create your account, publish your content and operate features you ask for (a contract with you).
• Our legitimate interests — keeping TAB safe and free of abuse, spam and fraud, and improving the product — balanced against your rights.
• Legal obligations — where the law requires us to retain or disclose certain information.

• To create your account and show your posts, comments and profile to other readers.
• To build your feed and help people discover your work through search, Explore and recommendations.
• To keep the platform safe — preventing spam, abuse, harassment, impersonation and plagiarism, and enforcing our Terms and Community Guidelines.
• To send you important service messages and, if you allow it, notifications about activity on your content.
• To fix bugs, measure performance and improve TAB.
• To comply with the law and respond to lawful requests.

We do not sell your personal data. We do not run third-party behavioural advertising on TAB, and we do not build advertising profiles about you.

We never carry out targeted advertising, behavioural tracking or profiling directed at users we know to be under 18. Any recommendations shown to minors are based only on content relevance, not on tracking across services.

Public content you choose to publish — your posts, bio, username and profile photo — can be seen by anyone using TAB and may appear in search engines.

Private data such as your email or phone number is never sold and is never shared for advertising. We share the minimum necessary information with trusted service providers ("processors" / "sub-processors") strictly to operate TAB, each bound by contract to protect it:

• Google Firebase / Google Cloud — authentication (including Google Sign-In), push notifications (FCM) and related infrastructure.
• Our hosting and database providers — to store and serve the app.
• Analytics and crash-diagnostics providers — to measure performance and fix errors, in aggregated or pseudonymised form where practical.
• We may also disclose information to authorities where required by law, court order, or to investigate abuse, fraud, or threats to safety — see also our Child Safety Policy.

Some of our service providers may store or process data on servers located outside India. Where personal data is transferred across borders, we take steps to ensure it continues to receive a level of protection consistent with this policy and applicable law, and we only transfer to jurisdictions permitted by the applicable data-protection framework.

TAB is a general-audience platform and is not directed at children under 13. You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13; if we learn we have, we delete it promptly.

We treat every user we know or reasonably believe to be under 18 as a "minor" and give them extra protection:

• Parental consent — users under 18 may use TAB only with the involvement and verifiable consent of a parent or legal guardian, who accepts our Terms on their behalf.
• No behavioural tracking, profiling or targeted advertising directed at minors.
• Privacy-protective defaults — we minimise the data collected from minors to what the service genuinely needs, and avoid features that would broadcast a minor’s precise location.
• Safety tooling — minors (like all users) can block, mute and report other users and content, and can restrict who interacts with them.
• Full details are in our Child Safety & Minor Protection Policy.
• A parent or guardian can review, correct or delete their child’s data, or withdraw consent, by contacting us at editor@theawakenbuddha.com.

Subject to the law that applies to you, you have the right to:

• Access — get a copy (export) of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correction — edit your profile and content, or ask us to correct inaccurate data.
• Deletion — delete individual posts, or request full deletion of your account and data.
• Withdraw consent — turn off notifications or withdraw other consent at any time, without affecting past processing.
• Portability — ask for your data in a portable format, where the law provides this.
• Object / restrict — object to certain processing, where the law provides this.
• Nominate — nominate another person to exercise your rights in the event of death or incapacity, where the law provides this.
• Grievance — raise a complaint with our Grievance Officer (below) and, if unresolved, with the relevant Data Protection Authority.

We keep your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the service. When you delete content or your account, we remove it from public view and delete it from our active systems within a reasonable period, retaining limited copies only where required for security, legal, or dispute-resolution reasons, or briefly in encrypted backups.

We protect your data with industry-standard measures, including encryption in transit (HTTPS), hashed passwords, access controls and monitoring. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work hard to safeguard your information.

If a personal-data breach is likely to affect you, we will act promptly to contain it and will notify affected users and the relevant authorities where the law requires, within the timeframes the law sets.

In line with India's IT Rules, 2021 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you may contact our Grievance Officer for any complaint about your data or content on TAB:

Grievance Officer: Sauravsingh Tomar
Email: editor@theawakenbuddha.com
House of Cre8r, 215, Galaxy Business Park, Service Rd, Odhav Industrial Estate, Nikol, Ahmedabad, Gujarat 380049, India

We acknowledge complaints within 24 hours and aim to resolve them within 15 days, or sooner where the law requires.

We may update this policy from time to time. When we make material changes we will update the effective date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify you in the app. Continuing to use TAB after changes take effect means you accept the updated policy.

Contact us

For any privacy question, a data export, an account deletion request, or to reach our Grievance Officer, email us and we’ll help: