Privacy policy

  • By registering on hashchannels.com community you agree to behave decently on the platform.

Introduction & Scope

  • Harith doing business as HashChannels (referred to as "we," "us," "our," or "Hashchannels" or "hashchannels.com") collects personal data as part of providing our social/community network platform and related services. This privacy policy explains how we collect, use, protect, and share your personal data in compliance with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), 2023.
  • Data Controller: Harith, located at address: Thunduvilayil, Pattamthuruthu P.O, Kollam, Kerala, India. Pincode - 691601
  • Contact email: support@hashchannels.com
  • Policy Last Updated: September 2, 2026 Effective Date: September 02, 2026

Personal Data We Collect

  • Required for account creation: email address.
  • Required for account KYC: Full name, email address, phone number, address, aadhaar id number, date of birth.
  • Optional: profile picture, preferences, customer reviews.
  • Collected From Third Parties:
  • UPI apps like BHIM, Phonepe, Googlepay etc for transaction reference numbers for payment confirmation and receiving payments
  • Payment processors (Razorpay, PayU, Phonepe) provide payment confirmation and transaction reference
  • Plausible analytics data
  • Sensitive Personal Data We Collect:
  • Government ID data: Aadhaar number for preventing fake account creation and ensuring that the person is genuine

Purpose of Data Processing

  • Purpose 1: Providing social/community network service
  • Providing social community network service and informational services for persons and business
  • Name, email address, mobile number, address and aadhaar number are collected for ensuring that fake accounts are not created. Your data is not shown to anyone except your name. This information is not displayed in any online profile accessible except when such information is specifically made public by you by using public facing features.
  • Above information collected is used to ensure only real persons gets to participate in promotional events and community website. No data about you is shared with any other person or any other business. Information is transmitted via secure encrypted(https) connection, and stored in a server that is only accessible via secure login and encrypted network connection. You can view all your personal data via the respective areas of the website.
  • To delete data you can close your account and your data will be deleted, except if any government regulations demand to keep certain transaction information or other data by laws of India.
  • Purpose 2: Improving Our Services
  • Analyze user behavior to improve application usability and performance
  • Identify technical issues and bugs
  • Test new features before launch
  • Purpose 3: Marketing Communications
  • Send promotional offers from our offerings that may interest you
  • Notify you of new product/feature launches
  • Conduct customer surveys and feedback collection
  • You can opt out of marketing anytime by clicking "Unsubscribe" in emails or updating preferences in your account settings.
  • Purpose 4: Complying with Laws
  • Verify your identity for using hashchannels
  • Respond to government requests for data
  • Maintain financial records for tax authorities

Data Sharing & Third Parties

  • Payment Processors
  • Data shared: Payment method, transaction amount, transaction date (NOT card number or CVV - handled directly by processor)
  • Purpose: Processing your payment
  • Data location: India for payment processing, but data may also reside in servers outside India per processor's infrastructure
  • Data Protection Agreement: Yes, and processor is PCI-DSS certified
  • Analytics Providers (Plausible)
  • Data shared: Anonymized usage data (pages visited, time on site, device type), NOT personal identifying information
  • Purpose: Understanding website usage to improve user experience
  • Data location: Data servers primarily outside India
  • Retention: Automatically deleted after 14 months by provider
  • Customer Support via email
  • Data shared: Your email, support tickets, and associated personal data
  • Purpose: Responding to your customer service inquiries
  • Data location: Zoho email servers
  • Marketing Platforms
  • Data shared: No user data is shared with marketing platforms
  • We DO NOT Share With
  • Data brokers or data aggregators for commercial purposes
  • Third parties for their independent marketing without your explicit consent
  • Financial, health, or government ID data with any third party except as required by law

Data Retention & Deletion

  • How Long We Retain Your Data
  • Data Type | Retention Period | Justification
  • Account information (name, email, address, mobile number, aadhaar number) | Active account + 1 year | Account recovery, legal disputes
  • Purchase history | 7 years | Tax compliance, warranty claims
  • Billing records | 7 years | Government tax authority requirements
  • Customer support tickets | 2 years after resolution | Service quality review, complaint handling
  • Marketing preferences | Until you unsubscribe | Compliance with your opt-out request
  • Payment card data | None - handled by payment processor | We do not store card data
  • Data Deletion Process: When data reaches its retention period, we automatically delete or anonymize it through our data deletion schedule. You can request earlier deletion by contacting support@hashchannels.com. We will comply with deletion requests within 30 days, unless a legal basis requires retention.

Your Rights Under DPDPA

  • **Your Data Rights: You have the following rights under DPDPA regarding your personal data:
  • Right to Access: You can request a copy of all personal data we hold about you.
  • How to request: Email support@hashchannels.com with "Subject: Data Access Request"
  • Timeline: We will provide data within 30 days
  • Format: Data will be provided in a machine-readable format (CSV)
  • Cost: Free
  • **2. Right to Correct:** If your data is inaccurate or incomplete, you can request corrections.
  • - Self-service correction: Most data can be updated directly in your account settings (Profile page)
  • - Manual correction: Email support@hashchannels.com with specific data corrections. Include your account ID and reason for correction.
    • - Timeline: We will confirm corrections within 30 days
  • **3. Right to Deletion (Erasure):** You can request deletion of your personal data.
  • - How to request: Email support@hashchannels.com with "Subject: Data Deletion Request"
  • - What we delete: All non-essential data (account info, purchase details, preferences). Exceptions: data we must retain by law (tax records for 7 years, transaction records).
  • - Timeline: Non-exempt data deleted within 30 days. Exempt data will be noted in our response.
  • - Account deletion: Account closure will delete associated data, except legally required retention.
  • **4. Right to Data Portability:** You can request your data in a portable format to transfer to another service.
  • - How to request: Email support@hashchannels.com with "Subject: Data Portability Request"
  • - Format provided: CSV (spreadsheet)
  • - Data included: Account info, purchase history, profile, preferences
  • - Timeline: Within 30 days
  • **5. Right to Opt-Out of Processing (Where Applicable):**
  • - Marketing emails: Click "Unsubscribe" in any marketing email, or opt out via account settings
  • - Personalized ads: We don't have personalised ads
  • **How to Exercise Your Rights:**
  • - Contact method: Email support@hashchannels.com
  • - Identification: Provide sufficient information to verify your identity (email, aadhaar number)
  • - Timeline: We aim to respond within 30 days; maximum 60 days in complex cases
  • - No cost: Exercising your rights is free
  • - No penalty: We will not charge you more or deny service for exercising your rights (except where doing so would make service impossible)

Security Measures

  • How We Protect Your Data:** We implement technical, organizational, and legal measures to protect your personal data:
  • **Technical Security:**
  • - **Encryption in Transit:** All data transmitted between you and our servers is encrypted using HTTPS
  • - **Access Controls:** Only authorized employees can access personal data, and only those who need it for their role
  • - **Firewalls:** Our servers are protected by firewalls
  • - **Regular Security Updates:** We regularly update software and security patches
  • **Organizational Measures:**
  • - **Data Protection Officer:** A dedicated officer oversees data protection compliance
  • - **Employee Training:** Staff handling data receive annual privacy and security training
  • **Data Residency:** Your personal data is processed and stored in servers located in Europe but server is controlled from India and accessible only via secure credentials and certificates.
  • Some non-sensitive data (such as analytics) may be processed on international servers per your consent.
  • **Limitations:** While we implement strong security, no system is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security against all cyber threats. We will notify you of material security breaches per our Breach Notification Policy.

Data Retention & Deletion

  • Automated Decision-Making & Profiling
  • > **Not Automated:**
  • > - Account suspension/termination - always reviewed by human

Automated Decision-Making & Profiling

  • Not Automated:
  • Account suspension/termination - always reviewed by human

Cookie Policy & Tracking

  • Cookies & Tracking Technologies:** We use only cookies that are essential for website functionality to provide service to you. We don't use any tracking cookies for ads or other purposes.

International Data Transfers (if applicable)

  • International data transfers only to servers under our own control. No data is transmitted or accessible to any 3rd parties outside India.
  • Transfer happens as our servers are located in Europe. We will eventually open our own data center in India within a few years
  • Data in servers is not accessible without security credentials or security certificates.

Breach Notification

  • In case of any unforeseeable security incidents like a zero day vulnerability or new vulnerabilities or technical bug that causes any breach we will email about it after fixing the issues, within 15 days.

For Social Media/UGC Platforms

  • User-generated content ownership and usage: we have no features launched at this time. We will update terms regarding user generated content ownership and usage when we launch the service for public in the upcoming months.

Contact Us & Grievance Resolution:

  • For Privacy Inquiries:** > > - Email: support@hashchannels.com > - Response Time: We aim to respond within 15 days
  • **Filing a Complaint (Grievance):** If you believe we have violated your data rights under DPDPA: > > 1. Contact us at support@hashchannels.com with details of the grievance > 2. We will investigate and respond within 45 days > 3. If you're not satisfied, you can escalate to the Data Protection Board of India