Privacy Policy for Hindu Society of North America
Who We Are
We are the Hindu Society of North America. Our mission is to promote Hinduism and its traditions through events, services such as Puja and Havan, and other activities. Our website address is https://hsna.ca. For privacy-related concerns, you can contact us at contact@hsna.ca.
What Personal Data We Collect and Why
Contact Form Submissions: We collect the name, email address, phone number, and message provided in our contact form to respond to inquiries and to share information on future events and services.
Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics to track anonymous website traffic, such as the source and interactions, to help us improve the website experience.
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, as well as the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help detect spam. An anonymized string created from your email address (a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to check if you use it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here. Once your comment is approved, your profile picture becomes visible to the public alongside your comment.
Media
Event Photography & Videography
By attending any event hosted by Hindu Society of North America (HSNA), you provide explicit consent to be photographed, filmed, or recorded. These images/videos may be used indefinitely by HSNA for promotional purposes, including but not limited to:
Social media posts (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
HSNA website content and newsletters
Marketing materials (brochures, banners, digital ads)
Press releases and media coverage
No additional opt-in mechanism (e.g., signage, individual consent forms) will be provided at events. Attendance constitutes your agreement to this policy.
*To request removal of your image from HSNA-controlled platforms, contact [privacy@hsna.ca] within 30 days of publication.*
If you upload images to the website, avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included, as visitors to the website can download and extract location data from images on the site.
Cookies
Comments: If you leave a comment on our site, you may opt-in to save your name, email address, and website in cookies. This is for your convenience so you don’t have to re-enter details when leaving another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
Login Page: When you visit our login page, we set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded upon closing your browser.
Logged-In Users: When you log in, several cookies save your login information and screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me,” your login persists for two weeks. Logging out removes login cookies.
Post Editing: If you edit or publish an article, a cookie will be saved in your browser, containing no personal data, but indicating the post ID of the edited article. It expires after one day.
Embedded Content from Other Websites
Articles on our site may include embedded content (e.g., videos, images, articles) from other websites. This embedded content behaves as if the visitor accessed the other website directly. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with the embedded content, especially if you are logged in to that website.
LiteSpeed Cache
This site uses caching to provide a faster response time and improve the user experience. Caching may store a duplicate copy of each webpage displayed on this site. All cache files are temporary and are only accessed by third parties as needed to provide technical support from the cache plugin vendor. Cache files expire according to a schedule set by the site administrator but may be manually purged before expiration if necessary. We may use QUIC.cloud services to process and temporarily cache your data. For more details, please refer to QUIC.cloud’s privacy policy.
Who We Share Your Data With
We do not share personal data with companies outside of ordinary operations, such as Google and WordPress plugins. Google Analytics may collect and store data as part of our website’s analytics. If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
How Long We Retain Your Data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely to help us recognize and approve follow-up comments automatically. For users who register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. Registered users can view, edit, or delete their personal information (except for their username) at any time, and administrators can also view and edit that information.
What Rights You Have Over Your Data
If you have an account on this site or have left comments, you may request an exported file of your personal data, including any data you provided. You may also request that we erase any personal data we hold, excluding data we must retain for administrative, legal, or security reasons. Contact us at contact@hsna.ca to exercise these rights.
Where Your Data Is Sent
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. Data collected via Google Analytics and cached by LiteSpeed Cache may be processed on servers outside North America, following standard data protection practices.