Privacy policy

This policy explains what personal data PhD Desk collects, why, how long we keep it, and the rights you have over it. PhD Desk is operated by Saaira Technologies, No. 16 A/2, Mead Street, WCC Road, Nagercoil, Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu, India (“we”, “us”). We process personal data in line with India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the rules made under it.

What we collect

• Enquiry details you give us through the consultation form, phone, email or WhatsApp. These are your name, email address and phone number, the service you are interested in, your PhD stage and any message you write.
• Technical details sent with the form: the page you submitted it from, your IP address and your browser’s user-agent string. We use these only to detect spam and abuse.
• Research material you choose to share with us during a consultation or engagement: chapters, papers, data, code and reviewer comments.
• Billing details needed to invoice you, if you engage us.

Please do not send us sensitive personal data about research participants unless it has been anonymised. We do not ask for it. If your data includes identifiable participant information, tell us first. Then we can agree how it will be handled.

Why we use it

• To reply to your enquiry and give you a quote. We do this on the basis of the consent you give when you submit the form.
• To carry out work you have engaged us for, and to invoice you.
• To meet legal obligations, such as keeping tax records.

We do not sell your data or share it with marketers. We add you to our email updates list only if you sign up for it yourself. We do not use your research material for any purpose other than your project. We never reuse it in anyone else’s work.

Who can see it

Only the people working on your enquiry or project can see it. That means our coordinators and the subject reviewer, editor, analyst or developer assigned to you. All of them are bound by confidentiality obligations. Our website host and email provider process data on our behalf to run those services. We will disclose data to authorities only where the law requires it.

How long we keep it

• Enquiries that do not become engagements: deleted within 12 months of our last contact.
• Research material: kept for the engagement and up to 90 days after it ends, so we can handle follow-up revisions. If you ask, we delete it sooner.
• Invoices and billing records: kept for as long as tax law requires.
• Email updates sign-ups: kept until you ask to be removed. See “Email updates” below.

Email updates

You can sign up for email updates on our admission tracker, our guides page and at the foot of every page. When you do, we store your email address, the updates you ticked, the date and the page you signed up on. The choices are new PhD admission notifications and new guides and tools. We use your address only to send you the updates you ticked. We do not share the list with anyone, and we do not sell it. If we use an email service to send the updates, it handles your address on our behalf and for no other purpose.

We keep your address until you ask us to remove it. To be removed, reply to any of our update emails, or write to [email protected]. We will then delete your address from the list. To stop automated sign-ups, we also count sign-up attempts from each IP address. The count covers only the last hour, and older entries are cleared out.

Cookies and analytics

This website does not set advertising or tracking cookies. If we enable Google Analytics, it loads only after you first interact with a page. It then sets cookies to measure visits in aggregate. You can block it with your browser’s privacy settings or an extension. The site will still work normally.

Free tools. Our free tools run in your browser. What you type into them (a DOI, an ISSN, your admission date, your answers) is not sent to our server and is not stored. We record only that a tool was used, copied from, downloaded from or printed, or showed an error. With that, we record the page, the page you first landed on, the referring site, your IP address and browser type. This is so we can see which tools are useful. The citation generator sends the DOI you enter to Crossref (crossref.org) to look up the reference. Crossref’s own privacy policy applies to that request. The thesis template builder loads a document library from cdn.jsdelivr.net when you download a template. So that service sees your IP address. Your choice of university is not sent with it.

Saved pages, highlights and reading settings. If you save a page, highlight text, add a note, or change the text size or theme, that is stored only in your own browser (localStorage). It stays there so it is ready when you come back. It is never sent to us, and it does not follow you to other devices. You can see, export or delete all of it on the Saved pages page, or by clearing this site’s data in your browser. The Translate menu opens the page in Google Translate, and Google’s privacy policy applies there.

PhD checklists. The ticks you make on our PhD checklists are stored the same way, only in your own browser (localStorage). They are never sent to us. “Reset this list” clears them, and so does clearing this site’s data in your browser.

Site search. The suggestions that appear as you type in the search box are worked out in your browser, from a list of our pages. What you type there is not sent anywhere until you press Enter. Then your words go to our server in the page address (for example …/search?q=turnitin), and we use them only to show the results. We don’t keep a separate record of searches. Like any page address, a search address can appear in our web server’s logs and in Google Analytics page reports.

AI tools. Five of our free tools send the text you paste to OpenAI, which generates the feedback. They are the viva question predictor, research title helper, reviewer comment explainer, research question sharpener and abstract feedback. We do not store your text. To avoid charging twice for the same request, we keep the AI’s answer for up to two days. An answer can quote parts of your text. So the answer is stored encrypted with a key made from your text. That means it can only be read by someone who already has that text. We count how many AI checks each IP address uses per day to apply the free limit. OpenAI processes the text under its own terms and privacy policy.

Your rights

You can ask us to tell you what personal data we hold about you, to correct or update it, or to erase it. You can also withdraw consent at any time. That stops further processing. It does not affect processing already done. To do any of these, email us at [email protected]. We will respond within 30 days.

Grievances

If you have a concern about how we handle your data, contact our grievance officer at [email protected] or by post at the address above. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

Security

We restrict access to personal data and research material to the people who need it. We store enquiry records outside the public web directory. And we use encrypted connections (HTTPS) for this website. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your data, we will notify you and the authorities as the law requires.

Changes to this policy

We will update this page if our practices change, and change the date at the top. The terms of service cover the rest of our relationship with you.