Privacy Policy

CES exists for the students of The Cathedral and John Connon School, and many of our members are children under the age of 18. We take that seriously.

Students sign in with their school-managed Google Workspace account (for example, an @cajcs.in address), which is administered by the school. We use the platform only for the society’s educational and extracurricular activities — forming teams, building ventures, learning from alumni and sharing what students create.

In line with India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, we do not knowingly carry out behavioural tracking, profiling, or targeted advertising directed at children, and we do not use children’s data in any way likely to cause harm. If you are a parent or guardian and would like to review, correct or delete your child’s information, please contact us and we will help.

We collect three kinds of information.

1. Information you give us

• Account & identity — When you sign in with Google we receive your name, school email address, profile photo and the sign-in tokens Google provides. Alumni who join CES Connect instead create an account with their name, email address and a password (which we store only in a securely hashed form — never as plain text).
• Profile details — Alumni may add a graduation year, company, job title, industry sector, short bio and a LinkedIn link so students can find the right person to ask.
• Things you submit — Questions and answers in CES Connect; your Changemakers team and idea-pitch (venture name, the problem, your solution, target market, business model and what you’re asking CES for); messages sent through the contact form; and speaker-outreach requests for CES Visionaries.
• WhatsApp number (optional) — If you add a WhatsApp number, it is shared with your Changemakers teammates and the OC mentors assigned to your team — and only them — so you can start a group chat once your team is selected.

2. Information we collect automatically

• Sign-in & session data — To keep you signed in securely we store a session for your account. On the website this uses a single essential cookie; in the app it uses a secure access token.
• Basic technical logs — Like most websites and apps, our hosting provider processes limited technical information (such as IP address and request details) to deliver pages, keep the service secure and diagnose problems.
• Push-notification token (app only) — If you allow notifications, the app registers a device token with Apple so we can send you updates — for example, when your CES Connect question is answered.

3. What we deliberately do not collect

We do not collect your location, contacts, photos, biometrics or payment information, and we do not use advertising identifiers or third-party analytics or advertising trackers anywhere on the platform.

We use your information to:

• create your account and sign you in securely;
• run the society’s programmes — CES Connect, Changemakers of Tomorrow, The Venture, Current Projects and CES Visionaries;
• let you ask alumni questions and receive answers, including connecting teammates and mentors;
• send you necessary emails and (if you opt in) push notifications about activity that concerns you;
• respond to messages and outreach you send us;
• keep the platform safe, prevent misuse and comply with the law.

We rely on your consent, the legitimate activities of the society, and our legal obligations as the bases for this processing. We do not use your information to make automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you.

The CES iOS app offers the same features as the website and is covered by this same policy. A few things are specific to the app:

• Notifications are optional. The app asks for your permission before sending push notifications. If you decline, everything else still works; you can change your mind anytime in your device’s Settings.
• Sign-in uses the same school Google account or alumni login as the website, secured with an access token stored safely on your device.
• No tracking SDKs. The app contains no advertising or third-party analytics software, and does not track you across other apps or websites.

Our description on the Apple App Store reflects these practices. Apple also processes information in connection with downloading and running the app under its own privacy policy.

We keep this simple. On the website we use a single essential cookie to remember that you are signed in. It is strictly necessary for the platform to work, so it is set without a consent banner — and it is the only cookie we use. We do not use advertising, marketing or third-party analytics cookies. The mobile app does not use cookies; it stores your sign-in token securely on your device instead.

We do not sell your personal data, and we never share it for anyone else’s advertising. We share information only in these limited ways:

With other people on the platform

• Answered CES Connect questions may be shown in the public library to help other students, attributed to the asker’s and alum’s names. Avoid putting anything private in a question.
• Your Changemakers teammates and assigned OC mentors see your name and — if you provided it — your WhatsApp number.
• Published content you appear in (such as a project, team profile or magazine credit) is public by design.

With service providers who run the platform for us

These trusted providers process data only on our instructions, to provide their service:

• Google — sign-in for school accounts.
• Vercel — website and app-API hosting.
• Our database provider — securely stores the platform’s data.
• Cloudflare R2 — stores uploaded files such as images and magazine PDFs.
• Resend — sends our emails and routes alumni email replies back into CES Connect.
• Apple Push Notification service — delivers app notifications, if you opt in.

For other reasons

We may share information with the school where appropriate for the society’s activities or student welfare, and we may disclose information if the law requires it or to protect the rights and safety of our members.

We keep your information for as long as your account is active and you remain part of the CES community, and for as long as we need it for the purposes above. When it is no longer needed — or when you ask us to delete it — we remove or anonymise it, unless we are required to keep certain records for legitimate or legal reasons. Deleting your account removes your associated personal data, subject to those limited exceptions.

We take reasonable, industry-standard measures to keep your data safe: encrypted connections (HTTPS), passwords stored only as secure hashes, access limited to the people who need it, and a clear separation between public pages and member-only tools. No system is ever perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and to respond quickly if something goes wrong.

You have rights over your personal data, including under India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. You can:

• access the information we hold about you;
• ask us to correct anything inaccurate or incomplete;
• ask us to delete your information;
• withdraw a consent you gave us (this won’t affect processing already carried out);
• turn off notifications, or edit your profile, at any time;
• raise a grievance about how we handle your data.

To exercise any of these, contact us and we will respond within a reasonable time. If you are a student under 18, a parent or guardian can make a request on your behalf.

CES is based in Mumbai, India, but some of the providers listed above operate servers in other countries. This means your information may be processed outside India. Wherever it is handled, it remains protected by this policy and by appropriate safeguards with our providers.

As CES grows we may update this policy. When we make a meaningful change we will revise the “last updated” date at the top and, where appropriate, let members know. Please check back from time to time.

For any question about this policy, to exercise your rights, or to raise a privacy grievance, please reach the CES Organizing Committee:

• through our contact form; or
• by writing to the Cathedral Entrepreneurship Society, c/o The Cathedral and John Connon School, 6 P. T. Marg, Fort, Mumbai 400 001, India.

We will do our best to resolve any concern you raise with us directly.