Privacy Policy

1Information We Collect

Linkora collects minimal, purpose-driven data required to operate collaborative project workspaces and collegiate hackathons:

• Account Credentials: Institutional or personal email address used exclusively for passwordless OTP authentication. We do not store plaintext passwords.
• Student & Faculty Profiles: Display name, username, bio, technical skill tags, GitHub handle, and academic interest categories you voluntarily configure.
• Workspace & Collaboration Artifacts: Kanban task statuses, milestone targets, squad discussion threads, and hackathon project deliverables.
• Audit & Moderation Telemetry: High-privilege administrative actions, session security events, and rate-limiting metrics to protect the platform against abusive traffic.

2How We Use Your Data

Your data is utilized strictly to provide, improve, and secure collegiate collaboration services:

• Matching student builders with complementary teammates based on algorithmic skill-score compatibility.
• Facilitating faculty milestone evaluations, hackathon submissions, and mentor feedback.
• Delivering critical account notifications and squad application acceptance updates.
• Never Selling Data: We do not sell, rent, monetize, or broker your personal information or student project deliverables to third-party advertisers.

3Security Architecture & Data Storage

• All network communication is strictly encrypted in transit using industry-standard TLS 1.3 / HTTPS.
• Database tables enforce cryptographic token verification and salted password hashes for private hackathons.
• Administrative endpoints are fortified with server-side role verification and tamper-resistant audit logs.

4Student Data Rights & FERPA / GDPR Alignment

We honor fundamental privacy principles and university data protection standards:

• Right to Access & Portability: You may review and export your project contributions, bio details, and squad applications at any time from your profile settings.
• Right to Rectification: You can edit and update your skills, role preferences, and profile details whenever needed.
• Right to Erasure ("Right to be Forgotten"): Students can request permanent deletion of their account and personal metadata by submitting an erasure request to platform administration.

5Cookies & Local Browser Storage

Linkora uses essential browser storage mechanisms (session cookies and `localStorage`) strictly to maintain your active authentication session, cache draft project submissions, and persist your preferred visual theme across page visits. We do not use intrusive cross-site tracking cookies.