PRIVACY POLICY

1. Who We Are & Data Fiduciary Notice

Dendra Folio (accessible at https://dendrafolio.com) is an independent literary and philosophical publication dedicated to essays, poetry, and narrative fiction.

Under applicable data privacy laws—including the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA, India) and the Information Technology Act, 2000—Dendra Folio acts as the Data Fiduciary regarding personal data collected from readers, subscribers, and contributors.

• Publication: Dendra Folio
• Website: https://dendrafolio.com
• Data Fiduciary / Operator: [Your full legal name or registered entity]
• Privacy Contact: [Privacy contact email]
• Designated Grievance Officer: [Grievance Officer Name / Email]

We update this policy whenever the operational structure, legal entity, or data practices of the publication evolve.

2. Information We Collect

The personal data we process depends on how you interact with our platform. We process personal data only when strictly necessary to deliver our services:

When You Visit & Browse

When you access dendrafolio.com, our edge hosting and network security infrastructure (GitHub Pages) automatically logs standard, non-personally-identifiable technical diagnostic data. This includes your IP address, browser type and version, operating system, referring URL, requested resource path, and access timestamps. This technical information is processed strictly to maintain operational stability, analyze server load, and mitigate cyber threats (such as DDoS attacks).

When You Subscribe to Email Dispatches

When you join our subscriber circle, we collect your email address, your name, and your specific communication choices. Our subscription categories operate independently:

• The Newsletter: Periodic editorial reflections, philosophical letters, and thematic essays.
• New Pieces: Real-time alerts whenever a new essay, poem, or story is published.
• Occasional Announcements: Literary readings, submission calls, and major publication updates.

Electing to receive one category does not automatically opt you into others. You maintain complete autonomy over your subscription preferences.

When You Create a Reader Account

When you register for a personal reader account, we collect and process your email address, authentication credentials (stored securely using modern cryptographic hashing), unique account identifier, account creation date, and active session tokens.

When You Use Your Personal Library

To provide an immersive, personalized reading sanctuary, our authenticated platform synchronizes and stores your private library data:

• Bookmarks: Saved essays, verses, and tales for rapid retrieval.
• Reading Progress: Percentage-based scroll coordinates so you can resume exactly where you paused across desktop and mobile devices.
• Saved Quotations: Passages and lines you deliberately highlight and save to your private collection.
• Private Reader Notes: Personal annotations, margin reflections, and study notes attached to published works.

When You Submit Work for Publication

If you submit manuscripts for editorial review, we process your legal name, chosen byline, email address, biographical note, submitted manuscript files, editorial correspondence, submission evaluation status, and signed contributor agreements.

3. Purpose of Processing & Legal Grounds

We process personal information under lawful grounds pursuant to Section 4 and Section 7 of the DPDPA 2023 and applicable legal standards:

• Service Delivery: To serve web pages, authenticate your account session, maintain your personal library, and deliver the email updates consented to.
• Explicit Consent: Where you have voluntarily opted in to receive editorial letters or publication alerts. You may withdraw consent at any time.
• Contract Performance: To review manuscripts, execute contributor agreements, and fulfill publication commitments.
• Legal & Provenance Compliance: To maintain immutable archival records of copyright licenses and satisfy legal, accounting, and regulatory obligations under Indian law.
• Platform Security: To detect, investigate, and prevent malicious access, unauthorized automated scraping, bot attacks, and fraudulent activities.

4. Third-Party Processors & Infrastructure

Dendra Folio engages a minimal number of trusted, enterprise-grade service providers to support our operations:

• Hosting & Edge Delivery: GitHub Pages provides static asset delivery, caching, and server security.
• Database, Authentication & Library Storage: Supabase provides encrypted database storage, tokenized reader authentication, and library state management.
• Email Delivery: EmailOctopus manages subscriber lists and email dispatches in compliance with international anti-spam standards (CAN-SPAM, GDPR).

Each service provider processes personal data strictly as a data processor pursuant to written agreements and stringent confidentiality standards. Because these cloud services operate globally, data may be processed on secure servers located outside India. Any cross-border data transfer complies fully with Section 16 of the DPDPA 2023 and applicable regulations.

Use of AI in Platform Development & Privacy Boundaries

In the spirit of complete transparency: Dendra Folio uses AI-assisted tools (specifically Google Antigravity) in aspects of website development, technical maintenance, and administrative drafting. The reason is simple: the maker of the publication, Pranshu Gupta, is a writer without professional coding or web development expertise who used Antigravity's assistance to build and design this website.

From a data privacy standpoint, these engineering tools operate strictly at the level of site code, stylesheets, and infrastructure. We do not input, process, or train AI models on reader personal information, email addresses, reading progress, private library notes, or unpublished contributor manuscripts. All user data remains securely isolated within our encrypted production databases and is never exposed to external generative training pipelines.

5. Cookies & Local Browser Storage

Dendra Folio is built with aesthetic restraint and deep digital privacy:

• Essential Session & Local Storage: We use modern browser localStorage and session tokens strictly to keep you authenticated, preserve your personal reading progress, and maintain display preferences.
• Zero Advertising or Third-Party Tracking: We do not use advertising cookies, cross-site trackers, behavioral profiling scripts, or social media tracking pixels.

You can configure your browser to reject local storage; however, doing so impairs your ability to stay signed in or automatically synchronize reading progress.

6. Account Sovereignty & Data Deletion

You maintain complete ownership of your digital presence on Dendra Folio:

• Email Management: Every email dispatched includes a direct unsubscribe mechanism allowing you to update your preferences or unsubscribe entirely.
• Account & Library Deletion: You may delete your reader account at any time through your account controls or by contacting our Privacy Desk.

Upon account deletion, your personal library (bookmarks, reading progress, saved quotations, and private notes) is permanently and irreversibly purged from our live production databases. We retain only minimal technical logs and contributor rights records strictly necessary to satisfy statutory record-keeping obligations or protect legal claims.

7. Security Safeguards & Breach Protocols

We deploy robust technical, administrative, and physical safeguards—including TLS 1.3 encryption in transit, encrypted credential storage, restricted database access keys, and principle-of-least-privilege administrative protocols.

While no electronic transmission over the internet can be guaranteed as 100% invulnerable, we monitor our systems diligently. In the event of a security incident impacting your personal data, we promptly notify affected users and the Data Protection Board of India in accordance with Section 8(6) of the DPDPA 2023 and CERT-In directives under the Information Technology Act, 2000.

8. Your Statutory Rights as a Data Principal

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you are endowed with enforceable statutory rights regarding your personal data:

• Right to Access (Section 11): You may request a summary of your personal data processed by us and the identities of data processors with whom it has been shared.
• Right to Correction & Erasure (Section 12): You may request correction of inaccurate or misleading data, updating of incomplete data, and erasure of personal data that is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.
• Right of Grievance Redressal (Section 13): You have the right to register grievances with our Grievance Officer regarding the processing of your data.
• Right to Nominate (Section 14): You have the right to nominate another individual who may exercise your privacy rights in the event of death or incapacity.
• Right to Withdraw Consent: You may revoke any previously granted consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.

To exercise any of these statutory rights, please send a written request to our designated Privacy Desk at [Privacy contact email]. We may require proof of identity before fulfilling your request.

9. Protection of Minors

Dendra Folio is an intellectual and literary platform curated for general audiences. In accordance with Section 9 of the DPDPA 2023, we do not knowingly collect, process, or track personal data of individuals under the age of 18 without verifiable parental consent. If a parent or guardian discovers that a minor has provided personal data without consent, please contact us immediately for prompt deletion.

10. External Links & Academic References

Our essays and articles may link to external websites, scholarly archives, or cultural institutions. Dendra Folio is not responsible for the privacy practices, content, or data governance of external domains. We encourage readers to review the individual privacy policies of external sites they visit.

11. Amendments to this Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect technological updates, operational changes, or amendments to applicable legislation. Any revised policy is published directly on this page with an updated effective date. Continued use of the website constitutes acknowledgment of the published terms.

Grievance Redressal & Privacy Contact

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the Information Technology Act, 2000, for any data rights requests, statutory inquiries, or grievances, our designated Grievance Officer ([Grievance Officer Name / Email]) can be reached at [Privacy contact email]. Grievances are acknowledged within 48 hours and resolved within 30 days.

For general publication correspondence and our editorial masthead, please visit our About page.