Privacy Policy & Data Protection Charter

1. Founder IP & Confidentiality Guarantee

We recognize that startup ideas, hardware schematics, source code, cap tables, and financial projections are critical proprietary assets. All pitch decks, Lean Canvases, and grant drafts uploaded to Founder OS remain the exclusive intellectual property of the respective founders.

SIES faculty, mentors, and staff are bound by institutional non-disclosure obligations. Your proprietary technical disclosures are never shared with external parties without your explicit, auditable consent.

2. Categories of Information Collected

• Identity & Contact Information: Name, collegiate email address, mobile number, college department, and student/alumni registration ID.
• Venture Telemetry: Startup sector, stage (ideation, MVP, traction), monthly recurring revenue (MRR), pilot farm or user metrics, and funding asks.
• Grant & Regulatory Filings: DPIIT recognition numbers, PAN/Udyam certificates, and Bill of Materials (BOM) estimates submitted for SISFS and DST PRAYAS grants.
• Interaction Logs: Mentor advisory bookings, office hour feedback notes, and AI Co-pilot query telemetry.

3. Legitimate Purposes of Processing

Your information is processed strictly for the following operational objectives:

• Evaluating applications for SIES Incubation Cohorts and makerspace lab access.
• Matching your venture with vetted domain mentors and scheduling 1:1 advisory sessions.
• Facilitating government grant eligibility checks (Startup India Seed Fund Scheme, DST NIDHI-PRAYAS).
• Providing institutional survival analytics and progress reports to accredited regulatory bodies (AICTE, DPIIT, DST).

4. Zero Sale of Personal Data & Third-Party Transfers

SIES Incubation Centre does not monetize, sell, or rent your personal data or startup disclosures to advertising networks, commercial data brokers, or third-party marketers.

Data is shared only with:

• Vetted Mentors: Provided limited access to startup dossiers only upon founder-initiated advisory bookings.
• Government Grant Secretariats: Submitted only when you authorize formal filing for schemes like SISFS or BIRAC BIG.

5. Data Security & Storage

Founder OS employs industry-standard encryption protocols (TLS 1.3 in transit and AES-256 at rest) hosted on secure Cloudflare Workers edge nodes. Role-based access control (RBAC) ensures only authorized incubation leadership can view institutional cohort data.

6. Grievance Redressal Officer

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