Privacy Policy & Support Terms

Privacy Policy

• Effective Date: May 27, 2026
• Owner & Data Controller: Vichitra Collective (Registered Sole Proprietorship, India)
• Contact Email: [email protected]

1. Minimal Data Collection

We believe in a tracker-free, privacy-first web experience. We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data. We only collect information when you actively interact with the Collective:

• Newsletter/Email Sign-up: If you subscribe to our blog updates, we collect your full name and email address. This data is securely stored within our internal Ghost content management system. Outbound newsletter scheduling is handled via a self-hosted instance of Listmonk, which dynamically calls the active subscriber list from Ghost. We do not use tracking pixels to monitor your reading habits.
• Financial Support (Sponsorships): If you choose to voluntarily fund or sponsor our digital articles, photography, or open-source software maintenance, transactions are securely executed through our third-party payment partner network (including Stripe and/or native platform integrations like GitHub Sponsors).

2. Third-Party Payment Processing

To comply with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cross-border regulatory reporting requirements for digital service exports, our payment processor network must collect specific customer information at checkout.

When you use a link to fund the Collective, you will be required to provide your full legal name, card details, and your billing country and postal/ZIP code.

This data is processed directly by our secure payment gateway partners (such as Stripe) according to their respective privacy guidelines. We do not see, process, or store your credit card data on our servers. This information is utilized solely to validate legal cross-border remittances to our business bank account in India.

3. Purpose of Processing Data

We use the information gathered exclusively for the following operations:

• Providing access to our published media, newsletters, and open-source codebases.
• Validating legal exports of digital services and fulfilling local compliance under Indian tax and foreign exchange laws (such as generating internal consolidated invoicing).
• Defending against credit card fraud and payment disputes.

4. International Data Transfers and Security

Because the Collective caters to a global audience, your data may be transferred across international borders through our processing partners (Ghost and Stripe). Our self-hosted application infrastructure is secured under standard encryption (HTTPS), firewalls, and strict access controls to safeguard all user information from unauthorized access.

5. Your Rights over Your Data

Depending on your geographic location (such as under the EU's GDPR), you hold specific statutory rights regarding your personal information. These include the right to access, update, or completely delete the data we hold about you. Because we maintain full administrative control over our Ghost database, you can easily exercise these rights at any time by contacting us directly at [email protected].

Terms & Support Policy

Payments made through the 'Sponsor' links on this blog or GitHub are voluntary micro-fees designed to support independent creative writing, photography dispatches, and open-source project maintenance. Because these financial contributions are used immediately to offset digital server upkeep and development hours, all sponsorships are final and completely non-refundable.