Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 13, 2026

This Privacy Notice for Hidden Stories (“we,” “us,” or “our”) describes how and why we might access, collect, store, use, and/or share (“process”) your personal information when you use our services (“Services”), including when you:

Visit our website at https://hiddenstories.news or any website of ours that links to this Privacy Notice
Engage with us in other related ways, including any marketing or events

Questions or concerns? Reading this Privacy Notice will help you understand your privacy rights and choices. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, please do not use our Services. If you still have questions, contact us at info@hiddenstories.news.

Summary of Key Points

A quick overview. Details for each point are in the sections below.

What we process

Personal information you give us (name, phone, email) and basic technical data, depending on how you use the Services.

Sensitive information

We do not process sensitive personal information.

Third-party data

We do not collect information about you from third parties.

Why we process

To provide, improve and administer our Services, communicate with you, prevent fraud and comply with the law.

Sharing

Only in specific situations and with specific third parties, described in Section 3.

Security

We use organizational and technical safeguards, but no system is 100% secure.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights over your personal information.

Exercise your rights

Email us at info@hiddenstories.news and we will act on your request under applicable law.

1. What information do we collect?

In Short: We collect personal information that you provide to us, plus limited technical data collected automatically.

Personal information you disclose to us

We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide when you express an interest in obtaining information about us or our Services, when you subscribe to updates, participate in activities on the Services, or otherwise contact us. This may include:

Names
Phone numbers
Email addresses
Any message or content you choose to send us (for example news tips or feedback)

Sensitive information. We do not process sensitive information.

All personal information that you provide must be true, complete and accurate, and you must notify us of any changes.

Information collected automatically

When you visit our Services we automatically collect certain information, such as your IP address, browser type, device and operating system, pages viewed, time spent, referring website and approximate location. This helps us keep the Services secure and understand how readers use them. It is collected through cookies and similar technologies (see Section 4).

2. How do we process your information?

In Short: We process your information to provide, improve and administer our Services, communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law. We may also process it for other purposes with your consent.

We process your personal information for a variety of reasons, depending on how you interact with our Services, including:

To respond to inquiries and provide support: to answer your emails, messages and requests.
To send newsletters and updates: only where you have subscribed, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
To operate and improve the Services: to analyze traffic, fix bugs, and improve our content and design.
To keep the Services safe: to detect, prevent and respond to fraud, abuse, spam and security incidents.
To show relevant advertising: where advertising is displayed on the Services (see Section 4).
To comply with legal obligations: including responding to lawful requests from authorities.

3. When and with whom do we share your personal information?

In Short: We may share information in specific situations described in this section and/or with the following third parties.

We may need to share your personal information in the following situations:

Service providers: trusted vendors that help us run the Services, such as website hosting, analytics, email delivery and advertising partners. They may only use your data to perform services for us.
Legal reasons: where required by law, court order or government request, or to protect our rights, safety and property.
Business transfers: we may share or transfer your information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.

We do not sell your personal information for money.

4. Do we use cookies and other tracking technologies?

In Short: We may use cookies and other tracking technologies to collect and store your information.

We may use cookies and similar tracking technologies (like web beacons and pixels) to gather information when you interact with our Services. Some of these help us maintain the security of our Services, prevent crashes, fix bugs, save your preferences, and assist with basic site functions.

We also permit third parties and service providers to use online tracking technologies on our Services for analytics and advertising, including to help manage and display advertisements or to tailor advertisements to your interests. These advertisements may appear on our Services or on other websites. Details on how to refuse certain cookies are set out in our Cookie Policy.

Google Analytics

We may share your information with Google Analytics to track and analyze the use of the Services. The Google Analytics Advertising Features that we may use include Demographics and Interests Reporting. To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across the Services, visit tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. You can also opt out through Ads Settings, or via optout.networkadvertising.org and networkadvertising.org/mobile-choice. For more on Google’s practices, see the Google Privacy & Terms page.

Advertising

Third-party vendors, including Google, may use cookies to serve ads based on your previous visits to our Services or other websites. You can manage personalized advertising through Google Ads Settings.

Managing cookies

Most browsers accept cookies by default, but you can set your browser to remove or reject them. Doing so may affect certain features of the Services.

5. Third-party websites and content

In Short: Our Services may link to or embed content from other websites that we do not control.

Our articles may contain links to external websites and embedded content such as videos, social media posts and maps. These third parties may collect data about you when you interact with their content. We are not responsible for their privacy practices, and we encourage you to read their privacy policies.

6. How long do we keep your information?

In Short: We keep your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Notice unless otherwise required by law.

We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law (such as tax, accounting or other legal requirements).

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymize it, or, if this is not possible (for example, because it is stored in backup archives), securely store it and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.

7. How do we keep your information safe?

In Short: We aim to protect your personal information through a system of organizational and technical security measures.

We have implemented appropriate and reasonable technical and organizational security measures designed to protect the personal information we process. However, no electronic transmission over the Internet or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, so we cannot promise that hackers, cybercriminals or other unauthorized third parties will not be able to defeat our security and improperly collect, access, steal or modify your information. Transmission of personal information to and from our Services is at your own risk. You should only access the Services within a secure environment.

8. Do we collect information from minors?

In Short: We do not knowingly collect data from or market to children under 18 years of age.

We do not knowingly collect, solicit data from, or market to children under 18 years of age, nor do we knowingly sell such personal information. By using the Services, you represent that you are at least 18 or that you are the parent or guardian of a minor and consent to such minor dependent’s use of the Services.

If we learn that personal information from users under 18 has been collected, we will deactivate the account and take reasonable measures to promptly delete such data from our records. If you become aware of any data we may have collected from children under 18, please contact us at info@hiddenstories.news.

9. What are your privacy rights?

In Short: Depending on your country, province or state of residence, you may review, change or terminate your account and exercise rights over your data at any time.

Your rights

Depending on applicable law (including the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 of India, and, where relevant, the GDPR/UK GDPR and U.S. state privacy laws), you may have the right to:

Access the personal information we hold about you
Correct inaccurate or incomplete information
Request deletion of your personal information
Withdraw your consent at any time
Nominate another person to exercise your rights in the event of death or incapacity (under Indian law)
Raise a grievance with us and, if unresolved, with the relevant data protection authority

Withdrawing your consent: If we rely on your consent to process your personal information, you may withdraw it at any time by contacting us using the details in Section 13. This will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal, nor processing based on lawful grounds other than consent.

Cookies and similar technologies: Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. You can usually set your browser to remove or reject cookies, though this could affect certain features of our Services.

If you have questions or comments about your privacy rights, email us at info@hiddenstories.news.

10. Controls for Do-Not-Track features

Most web browsers and some mobile operating systems include a Do-Not-Track (“DNT”) feature you can activate to signal your preference not to have data about your online browsing activities monitored and collected. At this stage, no uniform technology standard for recognizing and implementing DNT signals has been finalized. As such, we do not currently respond to DNT browser signals or any other mechanism that automatically communicates your choice not to be tracked online. If a standard is adopted that we must follow, we will inform you in a revised version of this Privacy Notice.

11. Do we make updates to this notice?

In Short: Yes, we will update this notice as necessary to stay compliant with relevant laws.

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated “Last updated” date at the top of this page. If we make material changes, we may notify you by prominently posting a notice or by sending you a notification. We encourage you to review this Privacy Notice frequently to stay informed of how we are protecting your information.

12. How can you review, update, or delete the data we collect from you?

Based on the applicable laws of your country, you may have the right to request access to the personal information we collect from you, details about how we have processed it, correct inaccuracies, or delete your personal information. You may also have the right to withdraw your consent to our processing. These rights may be limited in some circumstances by applicable law.

To make a request, email us at info@hiddenstories.news with the subject “Data Request”. We may need to verify your identity before acting on it.