FriendsBook Privacy Policy

1. Core Privacy Principles

Every system and database query at FriendsBook is engineered around four core tenets:

• Zero Commercial Data Brokering: We never sell, rent, or trade your contact details, media, or social graph to advertising brokers.
• Chronological Autonomy: Your feed displays posts based on actual posting timestamps from accounts you choose to follow, without algorithmic manipulation designed to extract behavioral profiles.
• Local State Preservation: UI preferences (such as dark/light mode and recent search history) are stored locally on your device in localStorage, never harvested on central servers.
• Total Deletion Rights: When you delete your account, your data is completely and irreversibly purged from our database within 48 hours.

2. Information We Collect & Process

A. Information You Voluntarily Provide

• Registration Data: Display name, unique username, email address, password hash (encrypted using one-way Argon2/bcrypt), and verified Date of Birth (DOB) for statutory 13+ age compliance.
• Profile Customization: Optional bio, avatar image, cover photo, website link, and preferred theme accent.
• Content Submissions: Photos, videos, vertical Reels, 24-hour stories, comments, and emoji reactions.
• Direct Communications: 1-to-1 private messages and image attachments sent within the messenger.

B. Automatically Generated Technical Telemetry

• Session & Security Logs: IP address, browser user-agent, and session creation timestamps used strictly for security auditing and active session termination.
• Creator Insights Telemetry: Video clip view counts and watch duration percentages used solely to generate retention analytics inside the Creator Studio without user-profiling trackers.

3. Automated Image Metadata Scrubbing

When you upload photos to FriendsBook, our backend ingestion workers automatically scrub all embedded EXIF metadata (including GPS latitude/longitude coordinates, device camera models, lens apertures, and exposure timestamps) before writing media files to persistent storage.

This ensures that photos shared with your friends or followers never inadvertently expose your physical location or home coordinates.

4. Sandboxed Third-Party Video Embeds

When users share embedded YouTube clips, FriendsBook routes the player through YouTube's official privacy-enhanced domain (https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/...) inside a sandboxed iframe.

This stops external trackers from placing persistent advertising cookies in your browser simply because you viewed a post containing an embedded video.

5. How We Use Your Information

We process your data strictly to provide, maintain, and protect FriendsBook services:

• To authenticate your identity and deliver active sessions.
• To display chronological feeds and render your profile.
• To deliver real-time messages and notifications over WebSocket connections.
• To enforce community safety, detect automated spam bots, and prevent harassment.
• To comply with statutory legal mandates under applicable laws of the Republic of India.

6. Data Retention & Permanent 48-Hour Wipe

You have the absolute right to delete your FriendsBook account at any time via Settings → Account → Terminate Account.

Upon executing account termination:

1. Your account is instantly deactivated, logged out on all devices, and hidden from public searches and feeds.
2. Within 48 hours, our database purge workers permanently delete all associated profile rows, uploaded photos, video clips, stories, comments, and direct message records from disk.
3. Encrypted database backup snapshots expire and cycle out within our rolling 14-day retention buffer.

7. User Rights under India's DPDP Act 2023

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) and the Information Technology Act, 2000 of India, you possess verified statutory rights:

• Right to Access: You can request a summary of the personal data currently processed by FriendsBook.
• Right to Correction & Erasure: You can update inaccurate profile information or request immediate deletion of personal records.
• Right of Grievance Redressal: You have the right to direct, prompt redressal through our designated Grievance Officer.
• Right to Nominate: You have the right to designate an authorized representative to exercise your data rights in the event of death or incapacity.

8. Statutory Grievance Redressal Mechanism

In compliance with Rule 3(2) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021: