Privacy policy

This policy explains how (“we”) handles personal data on babyoftheyear.in. We act as the data fiduciary under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. Because babies are children, we only process their data with the consent of a parent or legal guardian.

What we collect

• Parents and guardians: email address and a mobile number. The mobile number is not shown to anyone and is only used to verify finalists before a prize.
• Babies: first name, date of birth, state, city, a short bio and up to 4 photos.
• Voters: email address or mobile number, and which babies they voted for and when, including bonus-vote videos watched. Optionally, a display name.
• Fraud prevention: a one-way hash of your IP address and of a random device id stored in a cookie. We can't reverse these to find your real IP address.

We strip all hidden data, including GPS location, from every photo when it's uploaded.

What is public

Public: your baby's first name, state, bio, photos, group, rank and vote count. Never public: date of birth, city, or any phone number. Parents can see when their own baby received votes; a voter's name is shown to that family only if the voter chooses to share it, and can be hidden again at any time from My babies.

Why we use it

• To run the competition: show entries, count votes, run rounds and contact winners.
• To keep voting fair: detect bots, duplicate accounts and vote manipulation.
• To send you login codes and messages about the competition. You can opt out of non-essential messages at any time.

What we never do

• We don't sell or rent personal data.
• We don't track children's behaviour, build profiles of them, or show them targeted advertising.
• We don't put social-media tracking pixels on this site, and we never share babies' details with advertisers.

Who we share it with

Only service providers who help us run the site, under contract and only for that purpose: our hosting provider, our SMS and email providers (to deliver login codes), Cloudflare (to check that sign-ups come from people, not bots), and our advertising partner (to play bonus-vote videos, see below). We'll disclose data to authorities only where the law requires it.

How long we keep it

• Entries and photos: until 90 days after the season ends, then deleted. Winners' names and photos stay on the winners page only if their parent agrees.
• Deleted entries: photos are erased immediately. A minimal record (with the name blanked) is kept so vote counts stay accurate.
• Vote records (with hashed IP and device): 1 year, for fraud audits.
• Login codes are stored only as a hash and expire after 10 minutes.

Your rights

You can access, correct or erase your data and your baby's data, and withdraw consent at any time. Deleting your baby's entry from My babies withdraws consent for that entry. For anything else, email support@babyoftheyear.in. We'll reply within 30 days. You may also nominate someone to exercise these rights for you.

Grievance officer

, grievance@babyoftheyear.in, . If you're not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

Bonus-vote videos

Ads appear only when a voter chooses to watch a bonus-vote video. The advertising partner's code loads only after that tap, never on page load. Ads are non-personalised, and the partner receives only the technical information needed to play a video (such as IP address and device type), never any baby's details.

Cookies

We use two essential cookies: one to keep you signed in, and one random device id for fraud prevention. We don't use analytics cookies. If you choose to watch a bonus-vote video, our advertising partner may set its own cookies to deliver and measure that ad.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). Session tokens and login codes are stored only as hashes. Access to entry details is limited to our moderation team.