Your details, and what we do with them.

The website at aksharabooks.com is run by Akshara Books, Plot 60A, Road 70, Journalist Colony, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad 500033. For anything about your personal data, write to aksharabooks@gmail.com with the subject “Privacy”.

We only ask for what is needed to do the thing you asked us to do.

• Request a book. Your name, a WhatsApp or mobile number, the book you are looking for and any notes you add. Email is optional. We use these to look for the book and get back to you. Nothing else.
• Newsletter. Your email address, so we can send occasional emails about new arrivals and staff picks. Every email has an unsubscribe option, and you can also ask us to remove you by writing to aksharabooks@gmail.com.
• WhatsApp. The “Ask”, “Reserve” and “WhatsApp us” buttons open a chat with the store in your own WhatsApp app with a message already typed for you. Nothing is sent until you press send, and the conversation is handled by WhatsApp under WhatsApp’s privacy policy. Reservations made this way are noted by the store so we can hold your book.
• Browsing the site. We count visits with a cookie-free analytics service (Vercel Web Analytics). It records which pages are viewed, roughly where visitors are from (country and city level), the device type and which buttons are used, and it cannot identify you personally. Search terms and catalogue filters are counted too, so the store learns which books people are looking for. What you type into a form is never included.
• Keeping out spam. Our forms use simple checks, and may use Cloudflare Turnstile, to tell people from bots. Turnstile looks at technical signals from your browser and does not use tracking cookies.
• Your display choice. If you switch between light and dark mode, that choice is saved on your own device only. It is not sent to us.

We do not sell books online, so we never ask for card or payment details on this website. We do not sell, rent or trade your details to anyone.

Store staff see your request so they can reply to you. To run the website we use a few service providers, who process data only on our instructions:

• Vercel hosts the website and provides the cookie-free visitor counts.
• Supabase stores the catalogue, book requests and newsletter list in a secured database.
• Resend may email the store an alert when a request comes in, so it is seen quickly.
• Cloudflare provides the anti-spam check on forms.
• WhatsApp (Meta) carries any conversation you start from the site.

Some of these providers keep servers outside India. We only work with providers who protect data in line with the law, and we share the minimum they need.

• Book requests and reservation notes are kept while we work on them and for a reasonable time afterwards, so we can answer follow-up questions, then deleted or anonymised.
• Newsletter addresses are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove you.
• Visitor statistics are anonymous and are kept in summary form only.

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 you can:

• ask what personal data we hold about you and how it is used;
• ask us to correct or update it;
• ask us to delete it, unless we are required by law to keep it;
• withdraw your consent at any time, for example by unsubscribing from the newsletter;
• nominate someone to exercise these rights for you if you are unable to;
• raise a complaint with us, and if you are not satisfied with our answer, with the Data Protection Board of India.

To use any of these rights, email aksharabooks@gmail.com. We will confirm who you are before acting, and reply within the time the law allows.

Our children’s books are for children; this website is meant to be used by adults. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18 without a parent or guardian’s consent. If you believe a child has sent us their details, write to us and we will remove them.

Data travels to and from this website over an encrypted connection, is stored in a database that only the store’s own sign-in can open, and is never shown publicly. No system is perfectly secure, so please do not send us more than we ask for.

If we change how the website handles your details, we will update this page and the date at the top. Bigger changes will be pointed out on the site.