Privacy Policy

• Registration information: legal first and last name, display name, email address, phone number and city.
• Profile information you choose to share: photo, languages you speak and a short bio.
• Verification result: status, date, provider, a non-sensitive provider reference, and whether the minimum age requirement was met.
• Account security information: authentication records, session data and sign-in activity used to detect suspicious access.

We do not store identification document images, document numbers, dates of birth, addresses, citizenship, personal health numbers, barcode contents or machine-readable-zone data. See the Identity Verification Notice.

Submitting a police clearance certificate is entirely optional and is arranged and paid for by the member with their own local police service; Helping Bandhu takes no payment. When a certificate is uploaded we read the name, the issuing service and the issue date, compare the name with the account name, and retain only the result, the issuing service and that date. The image is held in memory for the length of that request and is never written to our database or file storage. We do not assess whether the certificate is genuine, and we do not collect or retain record contents, offences, certificate numbers, dates of birth or addresses.

• To confirm that each active account belongs to a real, identifiable person.
• To match people who need help with community members offering help in their city.
• To keep the community accountable and to investigate abuse reports.
• To meet our legal obligations.

Other members see the minimum necessary: your display name, city, languages you speak, your bio and whether your account is identity verified. Your legal name, email address, phone number and identification document are not displayed publicly.

We explain why identity verification is required before you begin, and we ask for your explicit consent to the processing described in the Identity Verification Notice. You may decline, in which case you can still browse public informational pages but cannot participate in the volunteer or request system.

Access to identity-related information is limited to staff who need it for a legitimate purpose. Administrators do not have access to identification documents. The administrative dashboard shows the verification status, date and provider only, and every privileged access is logged.

• Passwords are hashed and checked against known-breached password lists.
• Row-level database rules restrict every record to its owner or an authorised administrator.
• Verification results can only be written by trusted server-side code, never from the browser.
• Provider credentials are held server-side and never shipped to the browser.
• Rate limiting, bot protection and suspicious-login detection protect account access.

The result of the name check is retained while your account is active and for a limited period afterwards where required for abuse prevention or legal obligations. When you delete your account, your profile and that result are deleted from our database. The photo of your ID is processed only to read the printed name and is never written to our database or file storage.

We use Lovable Cloud for hosting, database and authentication services, and its AI service to read the printed name from the photo of your ID during the name check. We maintain agreements with these providers covering confidentiality, security and permitted use of personal information.

You may request access to the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, withdraw consent, or ask questions about our practices. Contact privacy@helpingbandhu.com.

We maintain a documented breach-response process: containment, assessment of real risk of significant harm, notification to affected individuals and to the applicable privacy regulator where required, record-keeping, and remediation.

Helping Bandhu may operate in Alberta. Before public launch, this implementation must be reviewed for compliance with applicable Canadian and Alberta privacy laws, including Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act and Canada's federal privacy legislation where applicable.