Privacy Policy

1.1 Information You Provide

• Account Data: Name, email address, username, and profile picture (via Clerk authentication).
• Profile Data: University, graduation year, GATE rank, GATE year, GATE score, and bio — all optional and provided at your discretion.
• User Content: Community posts, comments, notes, and any images you upload.
• Direct Messages: Text content of private 1:1 messages you send to other users, along with sender, recipient, and timestamp. Messages are encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS) and stored encrypted at rest.
• Payment Data: Handled entirely by Razorpay. We do not store your card numbers, UPI IDs, or bank details. We only store your subscription status, payment ID, and transaction timestamps.

1.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Usage Data: Pages visited, questions attempted, exam scores, study streak data, topic completion progress, and post view counts.
• Device & Browser Info: IP address, browser type, operating system, and device type — collected via standard server logs.
• Cookies: Authentication session cookies managed by Clerk. We do not use third-party advertising cookies.

• To provide, maintain, and improve the Gateya platform.
• To manage your account and authenticate your sessions.
• To process premium subscription payments and manage access.
• To track your learning progress, streaks, and exam performance.
• To send notifications (streak reminders, subscription expiry warnings, community activity).
• To display public profiles (username, name, avatar, GATE rank) to other users.
• To moderate community content and enforce platform rules.
• To generate aggregate analytics (no personal identification) for platform improvement.

We do not sell your personal data. We share information only in these cases:

• Public Profile: Your username, display name, avatar, GATE rank (if provided), bio, and follower counts are visible to other users on your public profile.
• Community Posts: Content you post publicly (discussions, tips, resources) is visible to all platform users.
• Service Providers: We use Clerk (authentication), Razorpay (payments), ImageKit (image CDN), Neon (database hosting), and Upstash (caching). These providers process data as needed to deliver their services, governed by their own privacy policies.
• Legal Requirements: We may disclose data if required by law, court order, or governmental authority.

Gateya offers private 1:1 direct messaging so members can talk to each other about study plans, doubts, and prep. We treat your DMs with the highest level of care:

• Privacy by default: Only you and the recipient can read your messages inside the product. They are never shown publicly, never indexed, and never used for advertising.
• Storage: Messages are stored on our managed PostgreSQL database (Neon) so you can access your chat history across devices. Connections to and from our servers use HTTPS/TLS, and the database is encrypted at rest by the provider.
• Not end-to-end encrypted: Because the feature is text-only and supports cross-device history, server-stored messages are technically readable by our infrastructure providers and authorized Gateya personnel as described below. Please do not send sensitive personal data (passwords, financial info, government IDs) over DMs.
• Safety review: The site owner (super-administrator) may review private messages solely to investigate reports of harassment, abuse, threats, sexual misconduct, spam, or other violations of our Terms. Reviews are restricted to the super-admin role, are logged, and are limited to what is necessary to enforce community safety.
• Deletion: You can delete your own messages at any time. Deleted messages are removed from view immediately and purged from our database during routine cleanup. When you delete your account, all of your messages are permanently removed.
• Reporting abuse: If someone is harassing you or behaves inappropriately, contact us at the email below — we will investigate and remove offenders from the platform.

• Your data is stored in PostgreSQL databases hosted on Neon (cloud infrastructure).
• All data transmission is encrypted via HTTPS/TLS.
• Authentication is managed by Clerk with industry-standard security measures.
• We implement role-based access controls — only authorized administrators can access user management features.
• While we take reasonable measures to protect your data, no system is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.

• Account data is retained as long as your account is active.
• If you request account deletion, we will remove your personal data within 30 days. Some anonymized data (e.g., aggregate statistics) may be retained.
• Community posts and comments may be retained in anonymized form even after account deletion to preserve discussion threads.
• Payment records are retained as required by Indian financial regulations.

You have the right to:

• Access: View all personal data we hold about you via your profile settings.
• Correction: Update your profile information at any time.
• Deletion: Request account and data deletion by contacting us at hello@gateya.in.
• Portability: Request a copy of your data in a machine-readable format.
• Objection: Opt out of non-essential communications.

Gateya is not intended for children under 13 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will take steps to delete that information.

Gateya may contain links to external websites (e.g., reference materials, official GATE resources). We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party sites. We encourage you to review their policies independently.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated “Last updated” date. Continued use of the platform after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

For privacy-related questions or requests, contact us at:

• Email: hello@gateya.in
• Platform: gateya.in