Privacy policy

This policy describes how Helping Furrs ("we", "us") handles information about people who visit helpingfurrs.org, donate, volunteer, report an animal, or write to us. Helping Furrs is run by a registered charitable organisation in India; the registered entity is named in the footer of this website and is the data controller for the purposes of this policy.

1. What we collect, and why

• Contact details (name, email, phone) when you fill in a form, donate, or message us. We need these to reply, send receipts and keep in touch about the animal you reported.
• Donation details (amount, date, payment reference, chosen purpose). Card, UPI and bank credentials are entered on the payment gateway's secure page and are never stored by us.
• PAN or address, only if you ask for a tax-exemption receipt that requires it.
• Rescue reports, including photos and location pins you send us, so our team can find the animal.
• Technical data such as IP address, browser type and pages visited, collected through standard server logs and privacy-respecting analytics to keep the site working and understand what people find useful.

2. How we use it

• to process your donation and send you a receipt;
• to respond to rescue reports, adoption and volunteering requests;
• to send occasional updates about the animals you helped, if you opt in (you can unsubscribe any time);
• to detect fraud, abuse or misuse of our forms and payment pages;
• to meet our legal, accounting and audit obligations.

3. Who we share it with

We do not sell or rent personal information. We share it only with:

• Payment gateways (currently Razorpay) to process your donation securely;
• Service providers that host our website, deliver email or store files, bound by contracts that limit how they use data;
• Auditors and authorities when the law requires it, for example for tax-exemption reporting or a lawful request from a regulator or court.

4. How long we keep it

Donation records are kept for as long as Indian tax and charity law requires, typically eight years. Contact form messages are kept while we are working on your request and for a reasonable period afterwards. Rescue photos and locations are kept only as long as they are useful for the animal's care.

5. Keeping it safe

The website is served over HTTPS, payment pages are hosted by PCI-DSS compliant gateways, and access to donor data is limited to the small number of people who need it. No system is perfectly secure, so if you believe your data has been exposed, please tell us immediately at help@helpingfurrs.org.

6. Cookies

We use only the cookies needed for the website and its forms to function, plus optional analytics cookies if you accept them. You can block cookies in your browser; the site will still work, although some conveniences may be lost.

7. Your choices and rights

You can ask us to show you the personal data we hold about you, correct it, delete it (unless the law requires us to keep it), or stop sending you updates. Write to help@helpingfurrs.org and we will respond within 30 days. Where the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 or other law gives you additional rights, those apply as well.

8. Children

Our services are meant for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18. If you think a child has given us information, contact us and we will remove it.

9. Links to other sites

Payment pages, maps and social media links take you to third-party sites with their own privacy practices. Please review those before entering any information.

10. Changes

If we change this policy, we will update the version number and effective date at the top of this page. Continued use of the website after a change means you accept the updated policy.

11. Contact