The data you share, guarded the way we'd want ours to be.

Bharat Rising Youth Foundation ("BRY Foundation", "we", "us") operates this website at bryfoundations.org. We collect personal information only to deliver our programmes (scholarships, skilling, mentorship, volunteering), process donations, and reply to your enquiries.

This policy applies to scholarship applicants, donors, volunteers, partners, press, and anyone who visits this site. By using the site, you agree to the practices described here.

We only collect what we need. Different forms collect different data:

• Scholarship form: name, email, phone, date of birth, gender, city, state, educational details, family income band, and your written answers.
• Volunteer form: name, email, phone, city, state, areas of interest, availability, skills.
• Contact form: name, email, optional phone, subject and message.
• Donations: name, email, phone, PAN (for 80G receipts), address (optional), donation amount and frequency. Payment card or UPI details are handled directly by Razorpay — we never see or store them.
• Newsletter: email only.
• Technical data: IP address, browser type, pages visited, referrer — collected by our hosting provider for site diagnostics.

We use the data you provide to:

• Process and review scholarship applications.
• Onboard, contact and coordinate volunteers.
• Send transactional emails (donation receipts, application acknowledgements, programme communications).
• Send programme newsletters — only if you opt in. You can unsubscribe in one click.
• Comply with Indian law (donation reporting, 80G receipts, income-tax filings under Form 10BD).
• Improve the site and respond to security incidents.

Donor data has stricter handling. We are required by the Income Tax Department to:

• Maintain a donor register with name, PAN, address and amount.
• File this data in Form 10BD by 31 May of each year so the donation reflects in your AIS.
• Retain the records for at least eight financial years, per Section 35A of the Income Tax Rules.

Beyond compliance, we never publish donor names or amounts without permission. Anonymous donations are honoured.

We share your data only with these categories of parties:

• Razorpay — for processing payments. They have their own privacy policy.
• Resend — for delivering transactional and newsletter email.
• MongoDB Atlas / Vercel — our cloud database and hosting provider.
• Auditors and tax authorities — when required for compliance.

We never sell personal data, and we never share it with marketers, third-party fundraisers, or political campaigns.

We use essential cookies for site functionality (theme preference, session). We use privacy-respecting analytics (no third-party trackers) to understand traffic at an aggregate level. We don't use ad-targeting cookies, and we don't share visitor-level data with advertisers.

• All site traffic is over HTTPS (TLS 1.2+).
• Payments are handled by Razorpay; we never receive card or UPI details.
• The admin panel is access-controlled, with bcrypt-hashed passwords and HTTP-only session cookies.
• Database access is restricted to authorised staff over encrypted connections.
• Backups are encrypted at rest. Personally identifying information is not included in error logs.

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Correct or update inaccurate information.
• Request deletion of your data (subject to legal retention requirements — see Section 9).
• Withdraw consent (e.g. unsubscribe from emails).
• Lodge a grievance with our Data Protection Officer.

To exercise any of these rights, email us with the subject line "Privacy request". We respond within 30 days.

• Donor records: 8 financial years (tax law requirement).
• Scholarship applications: 3 years from the latest cohort end, then anonymised for impact reporting.
• Volunteer records: duration of engagement + 2 years.
• Newsletter: until you unsubscribe.
• Contact form messages: 1 year, unless a conversation is ongoing.

For any privacy question, request, or complaint, write to us or call our office.

If we cannot resolve your complaint, you may approach the Data Protection Board of India at dpb.gov.in.