ALMMATE Privacy Policy

1. The Anti-Broker Zero-Sale Guarantee

ALMMATE was engineered precisely as an antidote to the aggressive lead-generation industry that plague Indian students exploring online education. Typical admission portals exist to collect your phone number and auction it off to call-centre brokers for ₹300 to ₹1,500 per lead.

ALMMATE is funded independently by its founding student community. We do not participate in lead aggregation, pay-per-click lead brokering, or commissioned student referrals.

2. Information We Collect

We only collect information strictly required to facilitate honest peer-to-peer discussions:

• Prospective Students: Your name, WhatsApp/telephone number (solely for mentor connection), the university you are evaluating, and your specific question.
• Mentors & Alumni: Your name, enrolled university, course, graduation year, LinkedIn profile, and verification documentation (such as university LMS dashboard screenshot or student ID).
• Technical Metadata: Anonymized browser version, device viewport, and security logs required to prevent scraping, DDoS attacks, and unauthorized bot harvesting.

3. How We Use Your Information

The data you provide is used exclusively for the following purposes:

• Connecting you 1:1 with an enrolled mentor at your chosen university.
• Delivering mentor responses to your question via direct WhatsApp or SMS.
• Verifying mentor authenticity to maintain our 100% verified student guarantee.
• Auditing reported telemarketers and admission fraud alerts sent by students.

4. Mentor Verification ID Protection

When a student applies to become a mentor, they submit proof of enrolment (e.g. ERP dashboard or student card). This information is:

• Reviewed manually by the ALMMATE verification team.
• Sensitive fields (such as Aadhaar or residential address) are redacted immediately.
• Verification proofs are strictly kept offline and never published publicly or shared with third parties.

5. Strict Anti-Telemarketing & No-Sharing Policy

We enforce a complete ban on third-party data sharing. Specifically:

• We never share your telephone number with university admission desks.
• We never share your data with educational loan providers or edtech resellers.
• If any user masquerades as a student to extract phone numbers for telemarketing, their access is terminated immediately and their IP is permanently blacklisted.

6. Cookies & Client-Side Storage

ALMMATE utilizes minimal local browser storage solely to preserve your active user preferences (such as dark/light display settings and modal states). We do not deploy invasive third-party cross-site advertising trackers or behavioural profiling cookies.

7. Your Rights Under DPDP Act 2023

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP) 2023, you have full ownership over your data:

• Right to Access: You can request a copy of any personal data stored with us.
• Right to Erasure ("Right to be Forgotten"): You may request complete deletion of your phone number, name, and inquiry history at any time.
• Right to Correction: You can update or amend any outdated contact information.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at privacy@almmate.in. All erasure requests are fulfilled within 48 hours.

8. Grievance Officer & Data Protection Desk

In accordance with the Information Technology Act 2000 and the DPDP Act 2023, our designated Grievance Officer is: