Privacy Policy

1. A Quiet Word

Nadanam ("the school", "we", "us") is a school of Bharatanatyam in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, operated by QuansStudio. We collect very little, hold it carefully, and use it only to teach, communicate, and run the school well. This Privacy Policy explains exactly what we do with the information you share with us.

This policy is written in keeping with the Information Technology Act, 2000, the IT Rules, 2011, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA) of India.

2. What We Collect

2.1 Information You Give Us

• Enrollment details: student's name, date of birth, prior dance training (if any), parent's or guardian's name and contact (for students under 18), residential area, emergency contact.
• Health notes: any medical conditions, injuries, or physical considerations relevant to dance practice that you choose to share with the guru.
• Communication records: messages, emails, or contact form submissions you send us, and our replies.
• Payment information: records of fees paid (date, amount, mode). We do not store credit card or bank account numbers — these are handled by the payment service used at the time of payment.
• Photographs & recordings: images and videos taken in class, rehearsal, and performance — see section 6 for how these are used.

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Website usage: pages visited, time on page, links clicked.
• Device information: browser, operating system, approximate location (city level), language.
• Log data: IP address, request timestamps, error reports.
• Cookies: small files used for session login, preference memory, and (if you accept) light analytics. See section 8.

3. How We Use What We Collect

• To enroll students, schedule classes, and manage attendance.
• To send class reminders, schedule changes, and recital invitations to parents and students.
• To process and acknowledge fee payments, issue receipts, and maintain accounting records.
• To plan recitals, festivals, and the arangetram — including coordinating with venues and musicians.
• To respond to enquiries from prospective students and answer questions you send us.
• To share occasional updates about Nadanam — newsletters, festival announcements — to those who have opted in.
• To improve the website and our day-to-day operations.
• To meet our obligations under Indian law (taxation, accounting, court orders).

4. Why We Are Allowed to Process Your Data

Under the DPDPA 2023 and other applicable Indian law, we rely on:

• Consent — for things like newsletters, public use of photographs, and analytics cookies.
• Contract — to deliver classes, recitals, and other services you have enrolled for.
• Legitimate use — for security of premises and records, fraud prevention, and ordinary school administration.
• Legal obligation — where Indian law requires us to retain records or share information.

5. Who We Share It With

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only in the following narrow ways:

• Service providers: hosting, email, payment processing, and similar trusted vendors who help us run the school. They are bound by confidentiality obligations.
• Performance venues & musicians: for recitals and arangetrams, we share student names and programme details as needed for the event.
• Legal authorities: when required by Indian law, court order, or governmental request.
• With your consent: in any other case where you have explicitly agreed.

6. Photographs & Recordings — A Note on Children

Bharatanatyam is, in part, a public form. We photograph and occasionally film classes, rehearsals, and performances for archival, educational, and modest promotional use — our website, brochures, social media, and similar.

For students under 18, we use such images and recordings only with parental consent recorded at the time of enrollment. You may withdraw consent at any time by writing to us, and we will stop further use to the extent reasonably possible. (Material already printed, posted, or archived prior to withdrawal cannot always be retrieved.)

We do not tag children by full name in public posts unless you have specifically asked us to.

7. Where Your Data Lives, and How We Look After It

Your records are held on secure systems with restricted access. We use:

• Encrypted connections (TLS) for the website and online payments.
• Strong, role-based access — only the guru and authorised assistants see student records.
• Regular review of who can access what, and prompt removal of access when no longer needed.
• Reasonable security practices in line with the IT Rules, 2011 and the DPDPA 2023.

No system is perfectly secure, but we treat your information with the care we would expect for our own.

8. Cookies & the Website

The Nadanam website uses a small number of cookies:

• Essential — for login sessions, security, and core site functions.
• Preferences — to remember your dark/light theme, dismissed banners, and similar choices.
• Analytics — only if you accept them, to help us understand which pages people read. Anonymised, no advertising.

You can decline non-essential cookies via the banner shown on first visit, and you can clear or block cookies through your browser at any time.

9. How Long We Keep Things

We keep enrollment and contact records for as long as a student is active with Nadanam, and for a reasonable period after they leave — to issue references, maintain school history, and meet our legal obligations. Financial and accounting records are retained for the period required by Indian tax law (typically eight years).

Photographs and performance recordings may be retained as part of the school's archive — these are part of the lineage and history of Nadanam, kept with care.

10. Your Rights Under the DPDPA, 2023

You — or, for a student under 18, the parent or legal guardian — have the right to:

• Access a summary of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
• Erase personal data, subject to records we are required to keep by law.
• Withdraw consent for processing that depends on consent (such as photo use or newsletters), without affecting prior lawful processing.
• Nominate another individual to exercise your rights in case of death or incapacity, as provided under the DPDPA.
• Raise a grievance — see section 12.

To exercise any of these, please write to us via the contact page. We will respond within 30 days.

11. Children & Parental Consent

Many of our students are children. As required by the DPDPA, we collect and process personal data of a student under 18 only after obtaining verifiable consent from a parent or legal guardian. We do not use such data for tracking, advertising, or behavioural profiling. We use it solely to teach, communicate with the family, and run the school.

Parents and guardians may, at any time, ask to review or update the records we hold about their child.

12. Grievances

If you have a concern about how your data is handled, please first write to us via the contact page — we take such matters seriously and will work to resolve them.

13. Cross-Border Storage

Some of the services we use (e-mail, hosting, payment) may store data on servers outside India. Where this happens, we use providers that operate to recognised standards of data protection, and we restrict transfers to countries permitted under the DPDPA, 2023.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated by email and through a notice on the Nadanam website at least fifteen (15) days before they take effect. Continued use of our services after such changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

15. Reach Us

Questions, concerns, or simply curiosity about how we look after your information are warmly welcomed.