Privacy policy

What we collect

When you book

• Your first and last name
• Your email address
• Your WhatsApp number
• The first names you give us for the people you are booking for
• How you heard about us, if you tell us
• Your booking itself: which gathering, how many seats, the amount paid, your booking reference and whether you checked in at the door

We do not collect your postal address, and we never see your card, UPI or bank details. Those go straight to Cashfree, our payment provider.

When you just visit

• Your IP address and basic details about your browser and device, used to keep the site working and to block bots and spam
• If you tap “I’d come” on an idea, a random identifier stored in your own browser so the same person cannot vote twice. It is not linked to your name or email.

Why we use it

• To give you your seat: taking payment, sending your pass, checking you in at the door.
• To tell you what you need to know: reminders before a gathering, a change of venue or time, and answers when you write to us.
• To handle refunds and changes when you cannot make it.
• To keep the site working and honest: stopping bots, spam and people blocking seats they do not intend to use.
• To decide what to run next: looking at which gatherings fill up and which ideas people like. This is counted in aggregate.
• To meet our legal and tax obligations.

We do not sell your information, and we do not use it for advertising.

Who else sees it

We use a small number of companies to run MakeWave. They may only use your information to do their job for us.

• Cashfree Payments — takes your payment and handles refunds. They receive your name, email, phone and the amount.
• Resend — sends our emails. They receive your email address and the contents of the email.
• Neon — hosts our database, where your booking is stored.
• Hostinger — hosts the website and our email inboxes.
• Arcjet — checks requests to the site for bots and abuse, and sees your IP address.
• Google Maps — shows the venue map. If you interact with it, Google’s own privacy policy applies.

We may also share information where the law requires it, or where it is necessary to protect someone’s safety.

Where it is stored

Our database is hosted in Singapore, and our email provider sends from servers in Japan. Your information therefore leaves India and is processed abroad by the companies listed above, under contracts that require them to protect it.

How long we keep it

• Your booking and payment records are kept for as long as our tax and accounting obligations require.
• Passes and QR codes stop working once a gathering has passed.
• Sign-in codes expire after ten minutes.
• If you ask us to delete your information, we will, except for anything we are legally required to keep.

How we protect it

The site and our API run over encrypted connections. Our database is reachable only over an encrypted connection and only by our own systems. The admin tools are limited to a few named people, who sign in with a code sent to their email rather than a shared password. No system is perfect, but we treat your information as if it were our own.

Your rights

You can ask us to:

• tell you what information we hold about you,
• correct anything that is wrong,
• delete your information, where we are not required to keep it,
• stop sending you anything that is not about a booking you have made,
• nominate someone to act for you if you are unable to.

Write to help@makewave.in and we will respond as soon as we can. If you are not happy with how we handled it, you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

Children

Our gatherings and this site are meant for adults, and we do not knowingly collect information about anyone under 18 except the first name a parent or guardian gives us when booking a seat for them. If you believe we hold more than that about a child, tell us and we will delete it.

Cookies and browser storage

We do not use advertising or tracking cookies, and there is nothing to consent to. The site does keep a few small things in your own browser, which never reach our servers as part of a profile:

• the details you have typed into the booking form, so you do not lose them if the page reloads — cleared when you close the tab,
• a note that you have already seen the opening animation,
• the random identifier behind the “I’d come” taps described above.

You can clear these at any time in your browser settings. The site still works without them.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we use your information, we will update this page and the date at the top. If the change is significant, we will tell the people it affects by email.