Privacy Policy

Faurus builds technical assessment and code evaluation platforms. This Privacy Policy explains plainly what data we collect when you use our software, how it is processed and protected, and your statutory rights under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (India) and applicable global data protection standards.

1. Who We Are & Services Covered

This service is operated by Faurus (Operated by Anant Vardhan Pandey), located at AECS Layout, Kundalahalli, Whitefield, Bangalore, Karnataka, India. For privacy enquiries, write directly to ceo@faurus.app.

This Privacy Policy covers the following digital properties:

• faurus.app — Main platform landing website and information portal.
• code.faurus.app — Core online judge, competitive programming arena, and practice platform.
• exam.faurus.app — Proctored institutional examination and contest portal.
• compiler.faurus.app — Online polyglot sandbox compiler and playground.

2. Data We Collect

We collect only the information necessary to provide, protect, and evaluate technical assessments:

A. Account Information

• Direct Registration: Username, email address, display name, and optional profile fields (photo, educational institution, major, GitHub/blog links, bio, and preferred programming languages).
• Single Sign-On (Google): Full name, verified email address, and profile photo provided by Google OAuth.
• Single Sign-On (GitHub): Username, display name, email address, and avatar.
• Security Credentials: Passwords are stored cryptographically hashed using industry-standard one-way salt/hash functions (never plain text). Two-factor authentication (2FA) secrets are retained if you enable two-factor protection.

B. Activity & Coding Telemetry

• Code Submissions: Source code, programming language, sandbox execution verdicts (AC, WA, CE, TLE, MLE), execution runtime in milliseconds, peak memory consumption in kilobytes, and submission timestamps.
• Platform Progress: Problems attempted, solved milestones, contest entries, contest submissions, leaderboard ratings, and streak history.
• Community & Discussions: Posts, questions, replies, code snippets, and votes submitted in public discussion forums.

C. Security & Session Logs

• Active login sessions, IP addresses, browser user agent strings, and last activity timestamps.
• Security audit logs of sign-ins, sign-outs, password changes, and failed authentication attempts to guard against brute-force attacks and abuse.

D. Proctored Contests & Exams

• During proctored sessions: fullscreen exits, tab/window switches, window focus loss, heartbeat intervals, and an integrity violation timeline.
• With the desktop examination client: operating system type, virtual-machine detection checks, and a list of flagged background applications.
• No unsolicited camera or microphone capture: Standard practice problems and regular web contests never record or access your webcam, microphone, or desktop screen.
• AI Viva Audio/Video: Camera and microphone streams are processed in real-time strictly during your active evaluation session to facilitate live proctoring and spoken architectural defense. Spoken answers are transcribed for comprehension scoring; raw audiovisual media is not permanently retained or utilized for training third-party foundation models.

E. Artificial Intelligence Features

When you use optional AI capabilities (Nexus AI assistant, interactive hints, or AI Viva defense):

• The problem description, your submitted code snippet, and your chat messages are sent to third-party AI model providers (Groq, Google Gemini) to generate answers.
• Zero personal identity transmission: Your name, email address, and username are never transmitted in these model prompts.
• Inference requests are processed under strict privacy agreements where inputs are not stored permanently or used for public model training.

F. Verification, Payments & Analytics

• Captcha Verification: Google reCAPTCHA or hCaptcha may execute on registration, login, and password reset forms to prevent bot attacks; they receive device and IP telemetry.
• Payments: When paid passes are purchased, transactions are processed securely via Razorpay. Faurus never receives or stores your complete debit/credit card numbers, CVV, or UPI PIN. Faurus retains only plan duration, transaction amount, Razorpay order/payment IDs, status, and digital invoices.
• Product Analytics: compiler.faurus.app utilizes PostHog for aggregate, anonymized usage telemetry. The landing site loads Google Fonts, which transmits standard browser header IP telemetry to Google servers.

G. Cookies & Local Storage

We do not use advertising or tracking cookies. We only use strictly essential storage:

• sessionid cookie — Keeps you authenticated across pages (active for up to 14 days).
• csrftoken cookie — Cryptographic protection against Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks.
• Device LocalStorage: Stores your local interface preferences: dark theme, editor keybindings, split-editor layout, tour status, daily goal, personal notes, and local chat history.

3. How We Use Your Data

We process collected data solely for legitimate operational and educational objectives:

• Operating the Core Service: Executing code in isolated microVM sandboxes, validating test cases, updating global rankings, and providing evaluation feedback.
• Personalized Telemetry: Generating your Weakness Core radar, topic recommendations, and consistency analytics.
• Academic & Contest Integrity: Anti-cheating analysis, automated plagiarism comparison, and verifying examination rules.
• Transactional Notifications: Account verification, password reset links, security notices, and contest scorecards. We do not transmit spam or unsolicited promotional communications.
• Security & Abuse Prevention: Blocking DDoS attacks, rate-limit enforcement, and protecting platform infrastructure.
• We do not sell your personal information to data brokers, advertisers, or third parties.

4. What Other People Can See

• Public Profile: Username, ladder display name, profile avatar, solved problems counter, global percentile, and public forum contributions.
• Public Submission Feed: The live submission stream displays your username, problem title, verdict (AC/WA), programming language, and runtime, but never your source code.
• Code Privacy: Your source code is strictly private. It is visible only to you, Faurus platform superadmins, and the problem author/curator, unless you explicitly choose to publish or share a contest submission after contest freeze lifts.
• Institutions & Universities: If you enroll via a university license, college lab, or enterprise cohort, authorized faculty mentors and exam administrators of that institution have access to your submissions, exam video/integrity logs, and performance reports.

5. Service Providers & Infrastructure

We partner with trusted enterprise infrastructure providers to operate Faurus:

6. Data Retention & Deletion

• Primary Hosting Location: All primary databases and sandbox engines are hosted within India (AWS Mumbai). Certain AI inference and CDN networks process data globally.
• Account Deletion: You may request account deletion at any time by emailing ceo@faurus.app. Upon verification, your personal account records will be permanently deleted within 30 days, excluding transaction receipts required for tax compliance.
• Automated Backups: Database backup snapshots are retained in secure cold storage for up to 5 days before routine rolling overwrite.
• Security Logs: Retained for 90 days for forensic attack investigation and audit trails.
• Coding Submissions: Historical code submissions remain associated with your profile until account deletion or permanently purged upon request.

7. Your Rights under India's DPDP Act, 2023

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA 2023) and international data protection laws, you possess the following rights:

• Right to Access: View a summary of personal data being processed about you.
• Right to Correction & Updating: Modify outdated profile information via your account settings.
• Right to Erasure: Request deletion of your personal data and account records.
• Right of Grievance Redressal: Submit a complaint regarding data processing to our Grievance Officer (detailed below), and escalate to the Data Protection Board of India (DPBI) if unsatisfied.
• Right to Nominate: Nominate another individual to exercise your privacy rights in the event of death or incapacity.

8. Children & Minors

The platform is designed for students and professional software engineers. The minimum age of use is 13 years of age. Under Section 9 of the DPDP Act 2023, anyone under 18 years of age requires verifiable parental or lawful guardian consent. We do not track, profile, or deliver targeted advertisements to minors.

9. Security Measures

We employ layered defenses to safeguard platform data:

• All traffic encrypted in transit via Transport Layer Security (TLS 1.3 / HTTPS).
• Code submissions execute in hard-isolated Linux sandboxes restricted by kernel namespaces, control groups (cgroups), and seccomp system-call filters.
• Role-based access controls (RBAC) ensuring only authorized engineers have administrative infrastructure access.
• In the event of a confirmed data incident, affected users and statutory authorities (including CERT-In) will be notified as mandated by law.

10. Policy Changes

We may update this Privacy Policy as our services and legal frameworks evolve. Substantial revisions will be communicated via email or a platform announcement banner before becoming effective. The "Last updated" date at the top of this document indicates the current version.

11. Grievance Redressal & Contact

If you have questions, privacy requests, or complaints regarding how your personal information is handled, contact our designated Grievance Officer: