Privacy Policy

1. Information we collect.

MAKAUT Study Hub collects both personally identifiable information (PII) and non-identifying technical data. This information is processed under the legal grounds of operational utility and consent:

• Registration Information: When you register an account, we collect your display name, student email address, and profile picture URL to set up your profile database.
• Academic Selections: We save your active academic filters (branch selection, active semester) to personalize your curriculum roadmap feed.
• Device Information and Logs: To verify system health, we log request headers, browser client versions, operating system name, screen dimensions, and standard internet protocols (IP addresses).

2. How we use data.

Your data is processed strictly to deliver education resources and maintain secure user accounts. We do not sell, lease, or distribute your email database to marketing brokers. Stored information is used to:

• Optimize layout suggestions based on popular subjects in your B.Tech term.
• Measure and report file download speed and detect abnormal request volume.
• Verify user-contributed notes and list approved documents under correct author profiles.
• Identify client-side script errors and prevent system downtime.

3. Cookies and tracking.

We use local storage keys (localStorage) to retain active styles (such as dark mode preference) and user login states. The platform also uses browser cookies for analytics and advertising:

• Essential Session Cookies: Set to retain security tokens and confirm authentication.
• Analytics Tracking Cookies: Log anonymized interaction sequences to monitor subject view metrics.
• Advertising Cookies: Third-party ad vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to the Service or other websites.

4. Third-party integrations.

To maintain security pipelines and optimize resource delivery, we integrate external service providers:

• Firebase: Stores database records and manages secure user authentication. No passwords are stored directly on our servers.
• Cloudflare: Provides domain security, DDoS protection, and cache acceleration. Cloudflare processes request headers and IPs for network diagnostics.
• Google Analytics: Processes aggregate telemetry to identify general user demographics and popular page flows.
• Google AdSense: Uses cookies to target ads based on academic content. Users can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google Ad Settings.
• Payment Gateways: Processes billing transactions for premium subscriptions. We do not capture or store your payment card numbers.

5. Security and protection.

We implement industry-standard Transport Layer Security (TLS/SSL) encryption for all database transmittals. Contributed PDFs are scanned and stripped of executable scripts. While we use security measures to protect your metadata, no internet-based database is completely secure.

6. User rights and compliance.

Depending on your location, you have rights regarding the management of your personal metadata under the Indian Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP), GDPR, and CCPA:

• Right of Access: You can request a summary of the profile details linked to your email address.
• Right of Correction: You can edit your display name and academic filters from your dashboard profile.
• Right to Erasure: You have the right to request the complete deletion of your authenticated profile and file uploads.

7. Data retention and deletion.

We retain user profile data for as long as your account remains active. If you wish to terminate your account and wipe all stored user details, you can request account deletion by emailing us at privacy@makauthub.org. Our systems will clear Firebase authentication states and wipe associated profile details within 5 business days.

8. Privacy contact information.

For privacy-related inquiries, compliance audits, or account deletion support, please contact our data protection officer via email at privacy@makauthub.org.