Last updated: August 7, 2026

1. Information We Collect

We collect personal information directly from you when you interact with our platform, create an account, purchase products or courses, participate in community discussions, or subscribe to our updates.

A. Account & Profile Data

  • Data Collected: Name, email address, username, profile picture (avatar), and bio.

  • Purpose: To manage your account, verify identity, display community profiles, track course enrollment, and provide access to digital spaces.

B. Community & Interaction Data

  • Data Collected: Posts, comments, direct messages, poll votes, course progress, quiz results, and knowledge base search terms.

  • Purpose: To power our interactive community spaces, run online learning modules, and improve help documentation based on user queries.

C. Marketing & Communication Data

  • Data Collected: Email address, marketing consent preferences, open/click rates, lead form responses, and user tags/lists.

  • Purpose: To send newsletter updates, automated course emails, promotional messages, and schedule appointments. You may unsubscribe from marketing communications at any time via the link in the footer of any email.

D. Financial & E-Commerce Transactions

  • Data Collected: Billing address, transaction history, order details, and payment processor tokens (e.g., Stripe/Razorpay IDs).

  • Note: We do not store full credit card numbers or raw payment credentials on our servers. All sensitive financial data is processed securely via third-party gateway APIs.

E. Security, Performance & Spam Prevention Data

  • Data Collected: IP addresses, browser user-agent strings, login attempts, site interaction logs, and comment inputs.

  • Purpose: To filter spam, protect the website against brute-force attacks and malware, and optimize front-end page load speeds.

2. How We Use Third-Party Services & Processors

While most of your data is stored securely in our self-hosted database, certain integrations require transmitting limited data to third parties:

  • Akismet (Automattic): When comments or forum posts are created, the text, user IP address, and browser metadata are sent to Akismet to evaluate for automated spam.

  • Payment Gateways (Stripe / Razorpay): Transaction details are securely passed via API for payment authorization and fraud detection.

  • Transactional Email Providers (Google / Mailgun): Your email address and message contents are routed through dedicated email deliverability infrastructure to ensure reliable delivery of account and marketing emails.

3. Cookies and Local Storage

Our website uses essential and functional cookies to maintain user sessions and optimize site performance:

  • Authentication Cookies: Set by WordPress and certain plugins to keep you logged in while navigating between spaces, courses, and pages.

  • Design & Page Builder Cookies: Some plugins may use localized session storage to store layout preferences or temporary display states (e.g., popups or launch transitions).

  • Security Cookies: Some plugins sets cookies to identify trusted site visitors and block malicious traffic.

4. Where Your Data is Stored

Because we use self-hosted tools, your personal data, course history, community activity, and email logs are stored directly within our secure web database rather than on external third-party marketing clouds.

We enforce SSL encryption across all web traffic and maintain strict administrative access controls to prevent unauthorized data access.

5. Your Data Rights

Under applicable privacy laws (such as GDPR or CCPA/CPRA), you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

  • Access & Export: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you (including community posts and course records).

  • Correction: Update or rectify incomplete or inaccurate profile information.

  • Erasure (“Right to be Forgotten”): Request the permanent deletion of your account, community activity, and marketing profile from our database.

  • Opt-Out: Unsubscribe from marketing lists at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at support@sdgconnect[dot]org.

6. Contact Information

If you have questions regarding this Privacy Policy or our data handling practices, reach out to us:

  • Email: support@sdgconnect[dot]org

  • Website: www.sdgconnect.org