Privacy policy

The Youth Matters (“The Youth Matters”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data.

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, process, store, disclose and protect personal data when you access or use The Youth Matters website, platform, services, features and related offerings (collectively, the “Services”).

The Youth Matters is an India-focused platform intended for individuals aged 18 to 32 years.

By using our Services, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.

1. Eligibility and Age Restriction

The Youth Matters is exclusively intended for individuals aged 18–32 years.

Persons below 18 years of age are not permitted to register for or use the Services.

As part of registration, we may require users to complete an age-verification process using a valid government-issued identification document.

2. Information We Collect

A. Account and Registration Information

• Name
• Email address
• Mobile number
• Date of birth or age
• Username and profile information
• Login and authentication information
• Information submitted in registration or account forms.

B. Age Verification Information

We use an OCR (Optical Character Recognition)-based age-verification process to help determine whether a user meets our 18–32 age requirement.

You may be asked to provide a valid government-issued identification document for this purpose.

The document may contain information such as your name, date of birth, photograph, document number and other information appearing on the document.

C. Uploaded Government ID

The uploaded identification document is processed for age verification.

The Youth Matters does not retain or store the uploaded government-issued identification document after the verification process, except where limited temporary processing or retention is undertaken by an authorised verification technology provider for legitimate technical, security, fraud-prevention or legal purposes.

The government ID is not intended to be displayed publicly on your profile.

D. Communications and User Content

• Messages
• Queries
• Complaints
• Suggestions
• Customer-support communications
• Reports
• Reviews or feedback
• Community posts, comments, photos, videos or other content you voluntarily submit.

E. Payment and Transaction Information

Where you purchase a product, service, event, membership or other paid offering, we may process information necessary to complete and manage the transaction.

Payments may be handled by third-party payment processors. Depending on the payment method, we may not receive or store complete card, banking or other payment credentials.

F. Technical and Usage Information

• IP address
• Browser type
• Device type
• Operating system
• Approximate location
• Pages or features accessed
• Date and time of access
• Referral information
• Device and session information
• Security and diagnostic information
• Cookie and similar technology information.

3. Why We Use Personal Data

• Creating and managing accounts
• Providing and operating our Services
• Verifying age and eligibility
• Preventing access by persons below 18 years
• Maintaining the integrity and safety of the platform
• Preventing fraud, impersonation and misuse
• Providing customer support
• Processing payments and transactions
• Communicating with users
• Moderating content and enforcing our policies
• Improving our Services
• Understanding usage and platform performance
• Detecting and addressing security incidents
• Complying with applicable legal obligations
• Establishing, exercising or defending legal claims
• Other lawful purposes communicated to you where required.

4. Legal Basis for Processing

• Your consent
• Processing necessary for providing requested Services
• Compliance with applicable legal obligations
• Certain lawful uses permitted under applicable Indian law
• Prevention or investigation of fraud, abuse or security incidents
• Other lawful grounds available under applicable law.

Where consent is relied upon, you may have rights concerning that consent as provided by applicable law.

5. Age Verification

Age verification is an important part of our platform-safety process.

Our OCR-based verification process is intended to determine whether you meet the platform's age requirements.

The uploaded government ID is processed for verification and is not retained by The Youth Matters as a permanent record.

We seek to limit the information used for verification to what is reasonably necessary for that purpose.

If verification cannot establish that you meet the eligibility requirements, we may decline registration or restrict access to the Services.

6. Sharing of Personal Data

• Technology and hosting providers
• Age-verification and OCR service providers
• Payment processors
• Security and fraud-prevention providers
• Customer-support providers
• Analytics and infrastructure providers
• Professional advisers
• Auditors
• Government authorities, regulators or law-enforcement agencies where required or legally permitted
• Parties involved in a corporate transaction, merger, restructuring or acquisition
• Other service providers acting on our behalf.

We require appropriate safeguards from service providers where applicable.

We do not sell personal data merely because it is collected through the platform.

7. Government ID and Verification Providers

Where a third-party provider performs OCR-based age verification, the provider may temporarily process the identification document and information extracted from it.

The precise retention and processing practices of such provider may be governed by its own contractual and privacy terms.

The Youth Matters will seek to use verification providers that provide appropriate security and privacy safeguards.

8. Security

• Access controls
• Authentication mechanisms
• Restricted administrative access
• Encryption or equivalent security protections where appropriate
• Monitoring and logging
• Secure infrastructure
• Incident-response procedures
• Data minimisation and deletion practices.

No electronic system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

9. Data Retention

We retain personal data only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, to provide the Services, meet legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, prevent fraud or otherwise fulfil legitimate purposes.

Uploaded government identification documents are not retained by The Youth Matters after the age-verification process, subject to limited temporary processing or retention by authorised verification providers where applicable.

Different categories of personal data may have different retention periods.

10. Your Rights and Choices

• Obtain information about processing
• Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information
• Request erasure where applicable
• Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent
• Raise a grievance
• Exercise other rights available under applicable Indian data-protection law.

Requests may be submitted through our designated privacy/grievance contact.

We may need to verify your identity before acting on certain requests.

11. Account Deletion

You may request deletion or closure of your account, subject to applicable law and legitimate retention requirements.

Deletion of an account may not immediately result in deletion of information that we are legally required or permitted to retain.

12. User-Generated Content

Please do not post any of the following publicly:

If you voluntarily post information publicly or within community areas, other users may be able to view, copy or otherwise use that information.

• Government identification documents
• Passwords
• OTPs
• PINs
• Bank or payment credentials
• Private addresses
• Sensitive personal information
• Live location information
• Another person's private information.

13. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies to operate, secure, understand and improve our Services. Please see our Cookie Policy below.

14. Third-Party Websites and Services

Our Services may contain links to third-party websites, applications or services. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third parties that operate independently from us. You should review their respective privacy policies before providing personal information.

15. International Processing

Some technology or service providers may process information outside India, where permitted under applicable law. Where applicable, we will take steps required by Indian law concerning such processing or transfer.

16. Children's Privacy

The Youth Matters is not intended for individuals under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly permit persons below 18 to register for the Services. If we become aware that an account has been created by a person below 18 years of age, we may restrict or terminate the account and take appropriate steps regarding associated personal data in accordance with applicable law.

17. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes will be published on this page with an updated “Last Updated” date. Where required by applicable law, we will provide additional notice or obtain consent.

18. Contact and Grievance

Privacy / Grievance Contact:

Email: support@theyouthmatters.com