Privacy & Cookies Policy

1. Who We Are

Jantascope is a digital news platform operated by Keyzen, with its registered office at G-45 Sej Plaza, Chunilal Giridharilal Marg, Malad West, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400064, India. We are the data controller for the personal information collected through our Services.

Data Protection Contact: support@jantascope.com

2. Account Choice and Information We Collect

2.1 Account and profile data (only if you choose to create an account):

• Name: used to identify and display your account.
• Email address: used as your login identifier, to prevent duplicate accounts, recover your password, send security notices, and respond to account requests.
• Password: used to authenticate your account and stored only in hashed form.
• Language preference and optional country: used to provide your chosen language and maintain your profile preferences.
• Google sign-in data, if offered and selected: Google account identifier, verified email address, and display name, used to create or access your Jantascope account.

2.2 Data created when you use optional features:

• Bookmarks: the articles you save are associated with your account so they can be displayed and removed across signed-in sessions.
• Article reactions: the article and like/dislike choice are processed to update aggregate reaction totals. The mobile app also remembers your choice locally on your device.
• Game activity: submitted answers or guesses, result, game or round identifier, status, and timestamps are stored to restore progress and enforce attempt limits.
• Guest game identifier: if you play without signing in, an app-generated client identifier is used to distinguish your game attempt. It is not Apple's advertising identifier and is not used for advertising.
• Poll selections: the selected poll option is processed to count the vote.
• Support communications: information you voluntarily include when contacting us.

2.3 Notifications and technical security data:

• Push notifications: only with your permission, we process a push token, platform, language, delivery provider, app type, active status, and account identifier when signed in. The token is used only to deliver notifications.
• Security information: we may process IP address and browser or device user-agent information to secure login, prevent abuse, investigate errors, and rate-limit password-reset requests. Password-reset IP identifiers are stored as keyed hashes.
• Password reset: we process your email address, reset status, attempts, and security timestamps to send and verify a one-time reset code.

2.4 Data the current mobile app does not collect:

• No advertising identifier and no data for cross-app tracking.
• No precise GPS location. Weather is requested using a city you choose.
• No contacts, photos, health data, financial data, or microphone recordings.
• No mobile advertising or third-party mobile analytics SDK is used in the current app.

3. Why We Use Your Information

We collect only data needed for the feature you choose, security, or legal compliance:

• Public news access: No account data is required to browse and read public editorial content.
• Account functionality: To register you, authenticate sign-in, maintain your profile, synchronise bookmarks, recover your password, and process account deletion.
• Games and polls: To save attempts, restore game state, enforce attempt limits, calculate results, and count poll votes.
• Notifications: To deliver administrator-selected news alerts only after you grant notification permission. Notifications are optional and can be disabled in device settings.
• Security and service integrity: To prevent fraud and abuse, protect accounts, rate-limit sensitive requests, diagnose failures, and maintain reliable operation.
• Support and legal obligations: To answer requests, enforce our terms, protect users and our rights, and comply with applicable law.
• Website analytics and advertising: On the website only, where enabled, to understand website use and support advertising as described in Sections 5 and 6. These website practices are separate from the mobile app.

We do not sell personal data, and the current mobile app does not use personal data for targeted advertising or tracking across other companies' apps or websites.

4. Legal Bases for Processing

We process your personal data on the following legal grounds:

• Contractual Necessity: Processing needed to provide optional account-specific features you request, such as sign-in, bookmarks, games, and password recovery.
• Legitimate Interests: Processing needed for service security, fraud and abuse prevention, reliable operation, and support, provided those interests do not override your rights.
• Consent: Processing based on your choice, such as enabling push notifications or optional website cookies. You may withdraw consent at any time.
• Legal Obligation: Processing necessary to comply with applicable legal requirements.

5. Website Cookies and Mobile Local Storage

Cookies described in this section apply primarily to the Jantascope website. The mobile app may use secure or local device storage to keep an authentication token after sign-in, remember settings, maintain an app-generated guest game identifier, and remember article reaction choices. This local storage is used for app functionality, not cross-app tracking.

5.1 Website cookies:

• Strictly necessary: Used for security, authentication, and essential website operation.
• Functionality: Used to remember website preferences such as language.
• Analytics and advertising: Google services may set cookies on the website where those services are enabled. They are not mobile-app SDKs.

5.2 Your choices:

You can control or delete website cookies using browser settings. Blocking essential cookies may affect website features. Mobile notification permission is controlled separately through your device settings.

5.3 Third-party website cookies:

Website analytics or advertising providers may set their own cookies. Their use is governed by their privacy policies and your available consent or browser controls.

6. Advertising, Analytics, and Tracking

Mobile app: The current Jantascope mobile app contains no advertisements, does not request an advertising identifier, does not include a third-party mobile analytics SDK, and does not track you across apps or websites owned by other companies.

Website: The Jantascope website uses Google Analytics and Google AdSense. These web services use cookies or similar browser technologies to measure website activity and provide advertising.

6.1 Third-party advertising vendors

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites.
• Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to our site and/or other sites on the internet.
• Other third-party vendors or ad networks may also serve ads on our website and may use their own cookies, web beacons, or similar technologies to measure ad performance.
• These vendors may collect information such as your IP address, browser type, device type, pages viewed, and approximate location for ad delivery, frequency capping, and fraud prevention.

6.2 How to opt out of personalised advertising

• You may opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings.
• You can learn how Google uses data from sites that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
• You can opt out of some third-party vendors' use of cookies for personalised advertising at optout.aboutads.info or youronlinechoices.com.
• You can also block or delete cookies through your browser settings. If you opt out of personalised ads, you may still see non-personalised advertising.

6.3 Editorial independence from advertising

Advertising is kept separate from our journalism and is identifiable as advertising. Advertisers do not influence our reporting or editorial decisions, and sponsored or paid content is clearly labelled. See our Editorial Policy for details.

If our mobile data practices change, we will update this policy and the App Store privacy disclosures before the changed collection begins and request permission where required.

7. Data Sharing and Disclosure

We do not sell personal information. We disclose only the data needed for the following purposes:

• Push delivery: Push token and notification payload to Expo and/or Firebase so an alert you permitted can reach your device.
• Email delivery: Email address and message content to our transactional email provider to deliver password-reset codes and account-security notices.
• Google sign-in: A Google identity token is sent to Google for verification only when you choose Google sign-in.
• Website analytics and advertising: Website browser data may be processed by Google services where enabled, as described in Sections 5 and 6.
• Infrastructure providers: Data may be processed by service providers that host or secure the Services, only as needed to provide those services.
• Legal and safety: We may disclose information when required by law or reasonably necessary to protect users, the public, our rights, or the security of the Services.
• Business transfer: Information may transfer as part of a merger, acquisition, reorganisation, or sale, subject to applicable law and continued protection.

8. International Data Transfers

Our Services are primarily operated from India. If you access our Services from outside India, your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in India or other countries where our service providers operate. We ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your personal data in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

9. Data Retention

We keep information only for as long as needed for the purpose described above, security, dispute resolution, or legal obligations:

• Account and profile: Kept while the account is active and deleted when in-app account deletion completes, except information we are legally required to retain.
• Bookmarks: Kept until you remove them or delete your account.
• User-linked push tokens and game attempts: Kept while needed for the feature and deleted with the linked account.
• Guest game attempts and guest push tokens: Stored under an app-generated identifier or token rather than an account. They cannot automatically be matched to a later account-deletion request and may remain until invalidated or removed under operational retention processes.
• Password reset: Codes and reset grants expire after 10 minutes. Reset records are scheduled for deletion approximately 30 minutes after creation.
• Staff login approval: Approval requests expire after 10 minutes.
• Security logs and support communications: Kept only as long as reasonably necessary for security, support, legal compliance, or dispute handling; the period depends on the record and applicable law.
• Website vendor data: Retention is also subject to the configured controls and policies of website analytics or advertising providers.

10. Data Security

We use safeguards designed to protect personal information, including encrypted network transport, password hashing, authentication and access controls, short-lived password-reset credentials, one-time reset grants, abuse limits, and session invalidation after password changes. Access is limited to people and systems that need the information to operate or secure the Services.

No transmission or storage system is completely secure. Please use a strong, unique password and notify us if you believe your account or information has been compromised.

11. Your Rights and Choices

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right of Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to Rectification: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
• Right to Erasure: Request deletion of your personal data, subject to certain legal exceptions.
• Right to Restriction: Request restriction of processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
• Right to Data Portability: Request a machine-readable copy of your personal data.
• Right to Object: Object to processing based on legitimate interests, including profiling and direct marketing.
• Right to Withdraw Consent: Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at support@jantascope.com. We will respond to your request within 30 days or as required by applicable law.

12. Children's Privacy

Our Services are intended for a general audience and are not directed to children under the age of 16 (or the applicable minimum age of digital consent in your jurisdiction). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children below this age.

If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected personal data from a child without appropriate parental or guardian consent, we will take steps to delete that information as soon as possible. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us at support@jantascope.com.

13. Push Notifications

Push notifications are optional. The app asks for system permission before registering a push token, and refusing permission does not prevent you from reading public content or using non-notification features. If permitted, we use the token and notification payload only to deliver administrator-selected news alerts and important service messages through Expo and/or Firebase.

You can stop notifications at any time in iOS Settings > Notifications > Jantascope or the equivalent Android settings. Invalid or stale delivery tokens may be marked inactive.

14. Optional Account and Account Deletion

Creating or signing into an account is optional for access to public news. If you created an account, delete it directly through the official Jantascope mobile app:

1. Download or open Jantascope from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
2. Sign in using the account you want to delete.
3. Open More > Settings > Account.
4. Select Delete Account and confirm both prompts.

Deletion is permanent and completes immediately. When deletion completes, the current service deletes:

• Your user account and profile information
• Bookmarks associated with your account
• User-linked push notification tokens
• User-linked daily and word game attempts
• Login approval and password-reset records associated with your account

Guest game records and guest notification tokens are identified by an app client identifier or token rather than your user account, so they are not automatically matched to account deletion. Information that must be retained by law may be kept only for the required period.

You may also contact support@jantascope.com with questions about deletion or other privacy requests.

15. Third-Party Links

Our Services may contain links to third-party websites, applications, or services that are not operated by us. We have no control over, and assume no responsibility for, the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of every site you visit.

16. Compliance with Indian Law

This policy is compliant with the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011, as applicable. We also adhere to the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA) requirements where applicable.

For users in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, or other jurisdictions with comprehensive data protection laws, we process your data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and equivalent local legislation.

17. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy & Cookies Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or other factors. When we make material changes, we will:

• Update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page
• Provide prominent notice on our Services (such as a banner notification)
• Where required, seek your consent before applying significant changes

We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices. Your continued use of our Services after any changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

18. Grievance Officer

In accordance with the Information Technology Act, 2000 and rules made thereunder, the name and contact details of the Grievance Officer are provided below:

19. Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy & Cookies Policy or our data practices, please contact us: