Privacy Policy

Last Updated: April 2026

1. Introduction

Welcome to the Awadhi Dictionary ("we," "our," or "us"), a project operated under the Awadhi Shabdakosha initiative. We are committed to protecting your personal information and your right to privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you visit our web application.

2. Information We Collect

We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you register on the application, express an interest in obtaining information about us, or participate in activities on the platform. The personal information that we collect depends on the context of your interactions with us, the choices you make, and the products and features you use.

  • Account Credentials: Email addresses, hashed passwords, and authentication tokens provided via Google OAuth or standard email registration.
  • Profile Data: Display names, custom Unique User IDs (e.g., @username), and self-declared qualifications.
  • User-Generated Content: Any Awadhi words, idioms, usage sentences, and reports you submit to the platform.
  • Communication Data: Messages sent through our internal peer-to-peer messaging system.

3. How We Process and Use Your Data

  • Authentication & Security: To facilitate account creation, login processes, and role-based access control (Admin/Superadmin privileges) using Google Firebase Authentication.
  • Platform Functionality: To attribute dictionary submissions to your public profile and assign gamified contributor points based on your approved submissions.
  • Public Profiles: Information such as your Display Name, Unique ID, submission count, points, and qualifications are publicly visible to other users on the platform to foster community engagement.

4. Data Retention & The 24-Hour Messaging Protocol

We retain your account information and dictionary submissions for as long as your account is active. To protect user privacy regarding direct communications:

Self-Destructing Messages: Our internal messaging system is strictly ephemeral. All messages sent between users are securely stored in our Firestore database with a cryptographic Time-To-Live (TTL) expiry timestamp. Messages are automatically and permanently deleted from our servers exactly 24 hours after being sent, regardless of whether they have been read.

5. Third-Party Services

Our application relies on specialized third-party service providers to function effectively. By using our platform, you acknowledge the processing of data by:

  • Google Firebase: We utilize Firebase Auth for secure login and Firestore for real-time cloud database hosting. Firebase acts as our primary data processor.
  • DiceBear API: We utilize DiceBear to dynamically generate placeholder avatars based on your display name. No sensitive data is passed to this service.

6. Your Data Rights & Deletion

You have the right to request access to the personal data we hold about you. You may edit your profile information at any time via the user dashboard. If you wish to have your account completely deleted from our database, you may submit a request to the platform administrators. Note that previously approved dictionary submissions may be retained and anonymized to preserve the linguistic integrity of the public database.