Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

We collect various types of information depending on how you interact with our Website. The information we collect falls into the following broad categories:

1.1 Personal Information You Provide Directly

When you register for an account, place an order, or interact with certain features of our Website, you voluntarily provide us with personal information. This may include:

• Identity Information: Your full name as entered during account registration.
• Contact Information: Your email address, mobile phone number, and physical mailing address (including street, city, state, and pincode).
• Account Credentials: Your chosen password (stored in encrypted/hashed form only — we never store or have access to your plaintext password).
• Delivery Addresses: One or more shipping addresses you save in your account profile, including the recipient's name, phone number, street address, city, state, and pincode.
• Order Information: Product selections, quantities, applied coupon codes, selected payment method (online or Cash on Delivery), and any special instructions provided during checkout.
• Communication Data: Messages, enquiries, feedback, or complaints submitted through our Contact Us page or via email to our support address.
• Return/Refund Request Data: Information provided when submitting a return or refund request, including the reason for return, detailed explanations, and photographic or video evidence uploaded through our platform.

1.2 Information Collected Automatically

When you visit our Website, certain technical information is collected automatically through your browser and our server infrastructure. This includes:

• Device and Browser Information: Your device type (desktop, mobile, tablet), operating system, browser name and version, screen resolution, and language preference.
• Log Data: Your Internet Protocol (IP) address, the pages you visit on our Website, the date and time of your visit, the time spent on each page, referring URLs (the website that directed you to ours), and clickstream data.
• Session Information: We use server-side session management (PHP sessions) to maintain your login state and shopping cart contents during your browsing session. Session identifiers are temporary and are deleted when you close your browser or log out.

1.3 Information We Do Not Collect

We want to be transparent about the boundaries of our data collection:

• We do not collect or store your complete credit card numbers, debit card numbers, CVV codes, bank account numbers, or UPI PINs. All payment processing is handled entirely by our third-party payment gateway (Razorpay), and we only receive a confirmation of successful or failed payment along with a transaction reference ID.
• We do not use cross-site tracking systems, advertising trackers, or retargeting pixels to track your browsing behaviour across other websites. We use Google Tag Manager (GTM) solely to manage and deploy analytics tags and performance scripts to evaluate site speed, page loading, and general storefront usage without identifying individual users.
• We do not collect sensitive personal data such as biometric data, genetic data, religious beliefs, political opinions, or sexual orientation.

2. How We Use Your Information

We process and use your personal information for the following specific and legitimate purposes:

2.1 Account Management

• To create and manage your personal account on our platform.
• To verify your identity and email address through One-Time Password (OTP) verification during registration.
• To facilitate secure password reset processes when you use the "Forgot Password" feature.
• To maintain your saved delivery addresses for faster checkout on future orders.

2.2 Order Fulfilment

• To process, confirm, pack, and dispatch your orders.
• To calculate applicable shipping charges based on order value, weight, and delivery location.
• To generate shipping labels and Air Waybill (AWB) numbers through our logistics partner for tracking purposes.
• To provide you with shipment tracking updates and delivery confirmation.
• To process returns, refunds, and replacement requests when applicable.

2.3 Transactional Communications

• To send you order confirmation emails, shipping notification emails, delivery confirmation emails, and invoice emails.
• To send OTP verification codes for account registration and password reset.
• To communicate important updates related to your orders, such as cancellations, refund status, or delivery issues.
• To respond to your enquiries, complaints, or support requests submitted through our Contact Us page.

All transactional emails are sent through ZeptoMail (by Zoho), a dedicated transactional email delivery service. These are strictly service-related communications and are not marketing or promotional emails.

2.4 Improving Our Services

• To understand general usage patterns and improve the functionality, layout, and user experience of our Website.
• To identify and fix technical issues, bugs, or security vulnerabilities.
• To develop new product offerings based on aggregated purchase trends (we use anonymised, aggregated data for this purpose — never your individual personal data).

2.5 Legal and Security Purposes

• To detect, prevent, and address fraud, abuse, or other potentially harmful activities.
• To comply with applicable laws, regulations, legal processes, or enforceable governmental requests.
• To enforce our Terms and Conditions and protect our legal rights and the rights of other users.

3. Information Sharing and Disclosure

We value your trust and are committed to keeping your personal information confidential. We do not sell, rent, trade, or otherwise commercially transfer your personal information to third parties for their marketing or advertising purposes. We only share your information with the following trusted third-party service providers, strictly as necessary to operate our business and fulfil your orders:

Beyond these service providers, we may disclose your personal information only in the following limited circumstances:

• Legal Obligations: When required to do so by law, regulation, court order, subpoena, or other valid legal process issued by a competent authority in India.
• Protection of Rights: When we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, your safety, the safety of others, or to investigate fraud or respond to a government request.
• Business Transfers: In the event of a merger, acquisition, reorganisation, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, your personal information may be transferred to the acquiring entity, subject to the same privacy protections described in this Policy.

4. Data Storage and Security

We take the security of your personal information seriously and implement multiple layers of technical and organisational safeguards to protect it from unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. Our security measures include:

• Password Encryption: All user passwords are stored using BCRYPT hashing, a one-way cryptographic algorithm. Even our system administrators cannot view or recover your plaintext password.
• CSRF Protection: Our Website implements Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) tokens on all forms and sensitive actions to prevent unauthorised command execution from external sources.
• Input Sanitisation: All user-submitted data is sanitised and validated on the server side to prevent SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other common web vulnerabilities.
• HTTPS Encryption: All data transmitted between your browser and our servers is encrypted using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) / Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols.
• Restricted Access: Access to personal data within our systems is restricted to authorised personnel only, on a strict need-to-know basis.
• Server Security: Sensitive configuration files, database credentials, and backend directories are protected from public web access through server-level access controls and .htaccess rules.

While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal data, no method of electronic transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security, and you acknowledge that you provide your personal information at your own risk.

5. Data Retention

We retain your personal data for as long as your account remains active and for a reasonable period thereafter, as necessary to:

• Fulfil the purposes for which the data was collected (e.g., order history, warranty claims).
• Comply with applicable legal, tax, accounting, and regulatory requirements. For example, transaction records and invoices are retained in accordance with the Indian Income Tax Act and GST regulations.
• Resolve disputes and enforce our agreements.

If you wish to delete your account or request the removal of your personal data from our systems, please contact us at support@zeroartificial.net. We will process your request within a reasonable timeframe, subject to any legal obligations requiring us to retain certain data.

6. Cookies and Session Management

Our Website uses server-side PHP sessions to manage your login state and shopping cart contents during your browsing session. A session identifier cookie (typically named PHPSESSID) is stored in your browser for the duration of your visit. This cookie does not contain any personal information and is deleted automatically when you close your browser or log out of your account.

In addition to session cookies, Google Tag Manager may deploy transient analytics cookies or markers used for performance logging and client telemetry. We do not use persistent tracking cookies, third-party advertising cookies, or cross-site tracking technologies. We do not track your browsing activity on other websites, and we do not build user profiles for targeted advertising purposes.

If you disable cookies in your browser settings, you may still browse our Website, but certain functionality — such as maintaining your login session and shopping cart — will not work properly.

7. Your Rights and Choices

As a user of our Website, you have the following rights with respect to your personal information:

• Right to Access: You can view your personal information, saved addresses, and order history at any time by logging in to your account on our Website.
• Right to Correction: You can update or correct your name, email address, phone number, and saved addresses through your Account Settings page at any time.
• Right to Deletion: You may request the deletion of your account and associated personal data by contacting our support team. Please note that we may be required to retain certain data for legal compliance purposes (e.g., completed transaction records for tax/GST audit trails).
• Right to Withdraw Consent: Where you have provided consent for specific data processing activities, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time by contacting us. Withdrawal of consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the withdrawal.
• Right to Object: You may object to the processing of your personal data for certain purposes by contacting our support team.

To exercise any of these rights, please write to us at support@zeroartificial.net. We will respond to your request within a reasonable time frame, not exceeding thirty (30) days from the date of receipt.

8. Third-Party Links

Our Website may contain links to external websites or services that are not owned or controlled by us — for example, links to our logistics partner's tracking page, payment gateway interfaces, or social media profiles. We are not responsible for the privacy practices, content, or security of these third-party websites. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of every external website you visit through links on our platform.

9. Children's Privacy

Our Website and services are not directed to individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If we become aware that we have collected personal data from a child without verifiable parental consent, we will take steps to delete that information from our servers as soon as practicable. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us at support@zeroartificial.net.

10. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or other factors. When we make material changes to this Policy, we will update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we are protecting your data.

Your continued use of the Website after the posting of changes constitutes your acceptance of and agreement to the updated Privacy Policy. If you disagree with any changes, please discontinue using the Website and contact us to request the deletion of your account.

11. Grievance Officer

In accordance with the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the rules made thereunder, the contact details of the Grievance Officer who can be contacted for any complaints or concerns regarding the processing of personal information are as follows:

We will acknowledge your complaint within 48 hours of receipt and aim to resolve it within thirty (30) days from the date of receipt.