Privacy Policy

Last updated: 10 September 2026

This policy explains what personal information Erakathin Uthavi collects when you use this website or donate to us, why we collect it, who sees it, and how long we keep it. We have tried to write it in plain language rather than legal boilerplate.

1. What we collect

When you donate

Your name, mobile number, email address, postal address, PAN, the amount, the cause you chose, and the payment reference or UTR number.

When you contact us or volunteer

Your name, contact details and whatever you choose to write in your message.

Automatically, when you browse

Standard web-server information such as your IP address, browser type, the pages you visited and the time of the visit. Our hosting provider records this to keep the site running and secure.

We do not ask for, and you should never send us, your card number, CVV, UPI PIN, netbanking password or OTP. No one from the trust will ever ask you for these.

2. Why we collect it

• To issue your receipt — we cannot send a donation receipt without a name and a way to reach you.
• Because the law requires it — the Income Tax Act obliges us to report donations in Form 10BD and to issue Form 10BE certificates. That report includes the donor's name, PAN and address. This is a statutory obligation, not a choice.
• To keep proper accounts — our books are audited annually.
• To keep in touch — occasional updates about the programme you supported. You can ask us to stop at any time and we will.

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information. We do not share donor lists with other organisations.

3. Payments

When you pay by UPI or bank transfer, the payment itself happens inside your own bank or UPI app — not on this website. We never see or store your card details, UPI PIN or banking credentials. What reaches us is the amount, the date and the payment reference.

If we later add a payment gateway, your payment details will be handled by that gateway under its own privacy policy and its PCI-DSS obligations, and we will name the provider here.

4. Who we share it with

We share personal information only where we have to:

• the Income Tax Department, in our annual Form 10BD statement of donations;
• our auditors and accountants, who are bound by professional confidentiality;
• our bank and, in future, our payment gateway, to process and reconcile a donation;
• a court or authority, where we are legally compelled to.

Our website is hosted in India. We do not transfer donor data outside India.

5. How long we keep it

Donation records, including donor name, PAN and address, are kept for at least eight financial years from the end of the year to which they relate, because tax law requires it. Enquiry and volunteer messages are kept for up to three years and then deleted. Web-server logs are kept for a short period by our hosting provider.

6. How we protect it

The site is served over HTTPS. Donation records are held in access-controlled files and accounts, available only to the trustees and staff who need them for accounting and receipting. We review who has access when a volunteer's role changes. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee against every risk, but we will tell you promptly if a breach affects your information.

7. Cookies

This website does not use advertising or tracking cookies, and does not run third-party advertising. Your browser may store small amounts of data locally so the site works properly. Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which means Google receives your IP address when a page loads; their privacy policy governs that.

8. Your rights

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 you may ask us to:

• tell you what personal information we hold about you;
• correct anything that is wrong or out of date;
• delete information we no longer need — though we cannot delete donation records we are legally required to keep;
• stop sending you updates;
• nominate someone to exercise these rights if you are unable to.

Write to info@erakathinuthavi.org and we will respond within 30 days. There is no charge.

9. Children

This website is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. Photographs of the children we support are published only with the written consent of a parent or guardian, and we remove any photograph on request from the family.

10. Grievance officer

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, contact our grievance officer:

We may update this policy; the date at the top of the page shows when it last changed.