Privacy notice
One notice for everything on this website (djjs.us, djjs.uk and djjs.co.uk): the public pages, our tablet welcome desks and the Sangat Portal. Written to be read in a few minutes.
Version 2026-10-14. Data controller: Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan UK, Divya Bhawan, 96D Westend Lane, Harlington, Hayes UB3 5LX, United Kingdom (registered charity no. 1080700).
At a glance
- We use your details only to welcome you, keep in touch about satsang and programs, and run the Sangat Portal. We never sell, rent or trade them, and never share them with data brokers, advertisers or marketing services.
- Your records are kept and managed in DJJS’s own database for this website, never on event-ticketing platforms. Two exceptions, the Akhand Gyan Google Form and staff’s Google Sheets, are explained below.
- Your sadhna minutes, sessions and personal vows are yours: no one else sees them.
- We keep a scrambled, one-way code of your internet address to stop spam, never the address itself.
- The public pages of djjs.us use Google Analytics to count visits (cookies, explained below); djjs.uk and djjs.co.uk never load it. The Sangat Portal, the Junior Sadhaks pages, the admin desks and the welcome desks do not, and it never loads when your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track. Our own cookie-free visit count runs everywhere except the welcome desks.
- You can see, correct or ask us to delete your data at any time from My account & settings, or by writing to web@djjs.us; for a copy of everything we hold about you, write to web@djjs.us and the sangat office sends it to you.
Who is responsible
The data controller for your personal data on this domain is Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan UK, Divya Bhawan, 96D Westend Lane, Harlington, Hayes UB3 5LX, United Kingdom (registered charity no. 1080700). djjs.uk and djjs.co.uk are the UK branch’s addresses of one website shared with Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan in the United States (djjs.us), which runs the website and its database for both. How to reach us is under Contact and complaints.
Where your data lives
Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan keeps member accounts, the Master Address Book, form answers, RSVPs and sadhna logs in its own database for this website, on secure, encrypted server infrastructure run by our hosting provider, with access limited to the people whose sewa needs it. Two exceptions: Akhand Gyan print subscriptions taken on DJJS’s Google Form (Google Workspace) are imported into this database from that form’s responses, and authorized staff can link a desk table (such as a form’s answers) into DJJS’s own Google Sheets, a link they can revoke at any time. We never use third-party ticketing platforms. We do not sell, rent or monetise personal data, and we do not share it for advertising. The few outside services that handle data when you use a particular feature (for example PayPal when you pay, or the email service that delivers our messages) are listed under Services we rely on.
Public pages and welcome desks
What we collect
When you join the sangat, RSVP or fill in the form on a welcome-desk tablet (the reception kiosk at /kiosk), we collect your name, mobile or WhatsApp number, email address, mailing address (city and state kept as separate fields), preferred language and the activities you are interested in. For an RSVP we also record the program and how many people are coming.
How we use it
Your details are added to the DJJS Master Address Book so we can welcome you by email, send your Sangat Portal invitation, confirm RSVPs and plan seating and langar and, if you agree, mail program invitations or email our newsletter.
Who can see it
Only DJJS administrators and the coordinators whose desk needs it (for example the dispatch team that mails Akhand Gyan). Welcome-desk tablets clear every entry as soon as it is sent and never suggest previous entries; if the tablet is offline, an entry waits on that tablet only until it can be sent.
When a welcome desk scans your Devotee Pass or a family pass (or you enter its code), we record that you, or that family member, checked in at that centre or program on that day, so the desk can welcome you and count attendance.
Location, maps and reminders
“Use my location” in the ashram directory works entirely in your browser to find the closest ashram; your location is never sent to us. The map images come from OpenStreetMap, which receives your internet address like any website you visit.
If you turn on Sadhna & Fasting Reminders (the bell), your browser gives us a subscription address for its push service (Google, Mozilla, Apple or Microsoft) so we can send reminders; we also keep your browser’s user-agent text (browser, version and operating system) so the reminders desk can tell devices apart. When you are signed in it is linked to your account, and the Ekadashi reminder arrives at sunrise for the city in your profile (never a more precise location). Tap the bell again to turn reminders off on that device.
The Sangat Portal
What we collect
Your email, first and last name, how you’d like to be greeted, your city, state and country, time zone and password (stored only as a salted hash that no one can read back). Your WhatsApp number and mailing address are used for Akhand Gyan dispatch and invitations and are visible only to you and the admins whose desk needs them.
Then what you choose to add: sadhna sessions, bhajan and sewa sign-ups, Rudripath counts, RSVPs (including the household members you add for headcounts), comments and forum posts, direct messages, feedback and any screenshot you attach, and how you arrange your dashboard.
Who can see it
Other members see only your first name and city, and only where you take part (for example a bhajan slot or a comment). On the Akhand Sadhna grid your name appears only if you switch that on. Direct messages are seen by you and the person you write to; a message its recipient reports can be reviewed by moderators. Admins and moderators can see your email to manage accounts; nobody can see your password.
Stories you share in Transformation Chronicles are published on the public site only after a moderator approves them, under the display name and city you choose (or as “A devotee”), and you can withdraw a story at any time.
Samadhan and Rakt Sewa. If you register as a blood donor, we keep your blood group (health information), region, city, whether you are available and your last donation date, only with your explicit consent to be contacted; Samadhan coordinators can look you up when someone needs blood, and you can pause or delete the record at any time. A relief report a volunteer files keeps the volunteer’s name, the place and the situation and, only with the family’s consent, their phone number; only Samadhan coordinators see it.
Self-care answers and fasting data are health information. They are kept only on your own device, are never sent to the server and are never visible to admins.
Vrata pledges. If you tap “✦ I am observing this Vrata” on a sacred fast (an Ekadashi, Purnima or Navratri), we keep only that you chose to observe that fast on that date, and when you chose it. Nothing about what you eat, how the fast went or your health is sent. The sangat sees only how many members observe a fast, once at least three do, never who. You can withdraw a pledge with the same button; your pledges are in your data download and are erased with your account.
Guided tours and sewa teams. When the portal or a sewa desk shows you a guided tour, we keep which tour it was, the step you reached and whether you finished or skipped it, so it doesn’t start again; “Replay tour” starts it afresh. If a branch’s Regional Admin adds you to a volunteer team (for example a satsang or shop sewa desk), we keep which team, who added you and when, and that team’s desks open for you for your own branch only. Both are in your data download and are erased with your account. Super admins’ full backups and exports are kept off the public website, are written to a ledger with the operator’s IP address, and are deleted from the server after 14 days.
Community guidelines
Comments can’t include phone numbers, email addresses, links or offensive language. Blocked attempts are logged with the personal details masked, so moderators can spot spam without seeing your contact details.
Forms, registrations and the calendar
SewaForms (form links we share) are how we take program registrations, seva rosters and intake forms. Answering is voluntary and the answers are stored in our own database. If you are signed in, your answer is linked to your account; a form may fill in your name, email, phone and home centre from your profile (you can change them before sending) and may accept one response per member, which you can view and edit later.
Who sees the answers: DJJS staff with the forms permission, and the coordinators assigned to that particular form, who see that form’s answers only and nothing else (not the member directory and not other forms). Downloading answers as a spreadsheet is limited to super admins and authorized staff; exported files are protected against spreadsheet formula tricks.
Sangat Calendar and RSVPs: when you RSVP to a program we record that you (and any guests you add) are coming, so the sewadars can prepare seating and langar. About a day before, one reminder email is sent to you from web@djjs.us. Other members never see who has RSVPed; a program with limited places shows only how many places remain.
Regional inquiries: the “Your region” panel in the Sangat Portal lets you send a question to the sewadars of a DJJS branch (for example the United States or the United Kingdom). We ask for your name, a phone number, optionally an email, the topic and your message, and, if you are signed in, we link it to your account. It is seen only by DJJS administrators and the coordinators of the branch you chose, who can mark it in progress or resolved, assign it to a sewadar and add internal notes; coordinators of another branch never see it, and inquiries are never exported. To limit how many messages arrive in an hour we keep a scrambled internet-address code made for this form alone and erase it after about 48 hours.
Automatic confirmations, receipts and reminders are sent from web@djjs.us.
Your sadhna is private
Your meditation minutes, sadhna sessions, streaks, milestones and any personal resolve (sankalp) you record are private to you. We never publish them with your name. The sangat sees only combined totals (for example the number of sadhaks in sadhna this hour), and only where enough members are behind a number that no one can be picked out. Admins whose desk needs it (such as the Akhand Sadhna rosters) can see the sessions linked to a slot.
Why we may use it (lawful bases)
Under the UK and EU GDPR (Article 6) we rely on:
- Consent for optional newsletters and emails, Akhand Gyan dispatches you ask for, WhatsApp and push reminders, and the cookies only djjs.us sets for analytics. You can withdraw it at any time (see Your rights).
- Legitimate interests in running our community: your account and its security, the Akhand Sadhna rosters, coordinating volunteer sewa, programs and RSVPs, and stopping spam and abuse. We weigh these against your interests, and you can object (see Your rights).
- Legal obligation for donation, payment and order records that tax and accounting law requires us to keep.
How we protect it
- Every page and form travels over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection.
- Passwords are stored only as salted hashes; sign-in tokens only as one-way hashes.
- To stop spam and repeated sign-ups we keep a scrambled, one-way code of your internet address, never the address itself, and these codes never appear in our admin screens. The limits on sign-in, password-reset and pass-code attempts use the same kind of code for your internet address and email, and are deleted after about a day. Like any website, our hosting provider’s standard server logs record internet addresses for security and operations, and keep them for a limited time.
- Permissions are checked on our server for every request: each coordinator sees only the desks their sewa needs, and form coordinators only their own forms. A regional coordinator (for example of the United Kingdom branch) sees only that branch’s records, can never change a member’s password or role, and can never download a member list or any other export. Each time a regional coordinator opens or changes their branch’s records, we note who, what, when and a scrambled, one-way code of their internet address (never the address itself) in our audit log, kept for 400 days.
- Changes made on the admin desks are recorded in an audit log.
Children and youth
Children never have accounts or contact details with us. On Junior Sadhaks pages, a child’s stars and journal are recorded only through a parent’s or guardian’s signed-in account, under the first name the parent added to their household, and only that parent can see them. Kids Mode is a lock on the family’s own device. The Junior Sadhaks pages (/kids and /junior-sadhaks) never load Google Analytics, and no page does on a device in Kids Mode; only our own cookie-free visit count runs there.
Questions sent through the Inner Lab (/inner-lab) are anonymous: we ask for no name, email or account. To limit how many questions arrive in an hour we keep a scrambled internet-address code made for this form alone (it can’t be matched with any other record), and we erase it about two hours after the question arrives. Answers are published without any detail about who asked.
We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us personal information, write to web@djjs.us and we will delete it.
Cookies and analytics
djjs_session is set only when you sign in to the Sangat Portal. It holds a random sign-in token (never your password), cannot be read by scripts, is sent only over an encrypted connection to the website it was set on (djjs.us, djjs.uk or djjs.co.uk) and its subdomains, and ends when you sign out or after 30 days (or when you close the browser, if you chose not to stay signed in). For security, each sign-in session on our server also keeps your browser’s user-agent text; it is deleted with the session.
djjs_ref is set only when you open a member’s invitation link. It holds that member’s invitation code for up to 30 days, so that if you create a Sangat account in that time the member is credited with introducing you. They see only how many people joined, never who.
Google Analytics. Only the public pages of djjs.us load Google Analytics 4 (djjs.uk and djjs.co.uk never do, so no analytics cookie is set there), which sets its own cookies (named _ga…) to count visits and see which pages are read. It is never loaded on the Sangat Portal (including the Sangat Calendar, the Rudri practice room, your Devotee Pass and your subscriptions page), the Junior Sadhaks pages, the admin desks or the welcome desks, on an account-activation link, an Inner Science certificate link, a SewaForms form or a Divya Vani search (/wisdom, where the address holds the words you typed); never when your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track; and never on a device in Kids Mode. When a page opens, Google receives its address without what follows the “?” (only campaign, tab and theme labels are kept), so no activation token, invitation or certificate code or form details reach it. We use it only to understand and improve the site, never for advertising, and Google processes this data under its own privacy policy. Managing cookies: turn on Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track in your browser and Google Analytics is never loaded, or block or delete cookies in your browser’s settings; the site works the same without it, and only the sign-in cookie is needed to use the Sangat Portal.
Our own visit count. Every page of this website, the Sangat Portal and the admin desks counts visits for the office itself, without Google and without a cookie: your browser keeps a random visit number in its local storage (replaced after 30 minutes without activity) and, while the page is open in front of you, tells our server every two minutes which part of the site you are on (public pages, the portal or the desks). We store only a scrambled form of that number, never your IP address; when you are signed in we also note your account and the state on your profile, so the office can see how many devotees and guests are on the site right now and how many visits there were this week. Nothing about which pages you read is kept, and none of it is shared.
Your browser also stores a few settings on your device: light or dark mode, dismissed announcements, display preferences, your language, your self-care and fasting data, and on welcome-desk tablets the desk settings and any entries waiting to be sent. We set no advertising cookies. PayPal, YouTube and Google Maps may set their own cookies only when you use them.
Services we rely on
- Hosting: our hosting provider runs the secure servers our website and database live on.
- Google Workspace: messages from web@djjs.us are delivered through Google’s mail service (Gmail); Akhand Gyan print subscriptions can be taken on DJJS’s Google Form, and authorized staff can link a desk table into DJJS’s own Google Sheets (see Where your data lives).
- Payments and giving: PayPal and PayPal Giving Fund. You pay on their own pages; your card or bank details never reach us. We keep the order, the amount, delivery details and their reference.
- WhatsApp reminders (only if you opt in): sent through WhatsApp (Meta) to the number you gave.
- Maps and places: OpenStreetMap map images; we look up the approximate centre of a city name (never a street address) through OpenStreetMap’s Nominatim service to suggest programs and ashrams near you.
- Push reminders: your browser’s push service (Google, Mozilla, Apple or Microsoft), only if you turn the bell on.
- Apple Wallet and Google Wallet (only if you tap Add to Wallet on your Devotee Pass): the pass holder’s name, status, home ashram, member-since date and, on a family pass, the relationship, with the pass’s QR code.
- Only when you press play or open them: YouTube (privacy-enhanced mode), Google Maps and Zoom.
International transfers
djjs.us, djjs.uk and djjs.co.uk are one website with one database, and some of the services above are run from the United States. If you are in the UK or the EU, your personal data may therefore be processed outside the UK and the EEA. It always travels over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection, and where a provider transfers personal data internationally we rely on the safeguards it provides for such transfers. Write to us (see Contact and complaints) for details of the safeguards that apply.
How long we keep it
Your account and what you add stay while your account is open. When an account deletion request is approved, the account is closed and its Address Book entry, household, sadhna logs, sign-ups and RSVPs, Junior Sadhaks journal, stories, donor record, reminders and messages are erased. Feedback, Digital Sewa tasks and relief reports stay without the link to the account (a relief report also loses the volunteer’s name). Payment records (orders, shop receipts and Akhand Gyan subscriptions) are kept for the accounts and for delivery, no longer linked to an account; a shop receipt loses the name and contact details, and a Nimit Sewa pledge keeps only its amount, tier, program and status. Regional inquiries stay too, without the link to the account and without the name, phone and email they were sent with. Form answers, and entries made on a public page or a welcome desk, are kept as program records until the office removes them; once an account is erased, the public-page and welcome-desk entries made with its email lose their name and contact details. Sign-in sessions end after 30 days, sign-in limits’ keyed codes are deleted after about a day, the Inner Lab’s sender code after about two hours, the inquiry form’s sender code after about 48 hours, the Maha-Sadhna presence tokens are deleted within a day, our own visit count keeps each visit’s live record for 24 hours and its daily tally (no account, no address) for 35 days, and technical error reports are deleted after 30 days.
Your rights
Wherever you live, and under the UK GDPR, the EU GDPR, the CCPA as amended by the CPRA (California) and similar laws, you have the right to:
- access your data and get a copy of it (a subject access request: write to web@djjs.us from the email on your account, and the sangat office sends you a copy);
- rectification: correct it (in My account & settings, or by asking us);
- erasure (the “right to be forgotten”): in My account & settings choose Request Account Deletion, or write to us; the sangat office reviews each request, your account stays open until then, and we tell you the outcome;
- restrict how we use your data while a question about it is settled;
- data portability: receive the data you gave us in a structured, machine-readable form, or have it sent to another organisation where this is technically possible;
- object to our use of your data based on legitimate interests, and to any direct marketing at any time;
- withdraw consent to emails, postal mail, WhatsApp or push reminders at any time;
- be treated the same whether or not you use these rights. We do not sell or “share” personal information as the California law defines it, so there is nothing to opt out of.
If you shared your details on this website or at a welcome desk without creating an account, just ask us and we will update or remove your entry. We answer every request within 30 days.
Contact and complaints
For any privacy question, request or complaint, including access, correction or erasure, write to our data contact at web@djjs.us, or message the UK desk on WhatsApp at +44 020 8754 9306.
If you are in the UK, you also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk. In the EU you can complain to the data protection authority where you live. We would be grateful for the chance to put things right first.