COLLECTION NOTICE

Personal Data Collection Notice

Shown at the point of collection so users can understand what is being requested and why.

Account registration

Required: email address, username and password. Purpose: create and secure your StartupStack account and communicate account events.

Mobile verification

Required for platform accounts: country calling code and mobile number. Purpose: account contact, duplicate-account prevention and administrator review. Mobile verification is manual in this baseline.

Publisher KYC

Required for Publisher status: Aadhaar input for identity review; Individual Publishers provide Udyam/MSME; Organization Publishers provide GSTIN. Purpose: publisher trust and platform safety. Full Aadhaar is never stored.

Professional proof

Publisher applicants may provide a LinkedIn profile URL. Purpose: professional/social proof. The URL is manually reviewed by an administrator and is not identity verification.

Public profile

Information deliberately placed in a public profile or published article may be visible to readers, search engines and AI-assisted discovery systems. Users should not publish sensitive personal data in public content.

Consent and withdrawal

Where processing relies on consent, the user can withdraw consent using the platform’s available mechanism. Withdrawal does not invalidate processing already carried out lawfully before withdrawal and may affect services that require the data.