This policy explains what personal data HWVibes collects when you read, comment on or contact the site, why we collect it, who we share it with and the choices you have.
Last updated: 24 September 2026
- Who we are
- Please do not send us health information
- What we collect and when
- Cookies and similar technologies
- Google AdSense and advertising
- How we use data and our legal bases
- Who we share data with
- International transfers
- How long we keep data
- Security
- Your rights
- Children
- Links to other websites
- Changes to this policy
- Contact
Who we are
HWVibes (https://hwvibes.com) is a free general health-and-wellness education website. It is owned and operated by Mohammad Faisal Khan, founder and editor, who is based in India. For the purposes of data protection law, he is responsible for the personal data described in this policy (the “data fiduciary” under Indian law and the “controller” under the GDPR).
Our privacy and grievance contact is Mohammad Faisal Khan, reachable at contact@hwvibes.com or through our contact form. We aim to respond to privacy requests within 30 days.
Please also read our Terms of Service and Medical Disclaimer.
Please do not send us health information
Health information is sensitive personal data. We do not ask for it and cannot use it to give you personal advice. Please do not include your own or anyone else’s symptoms, diagnoses, test results, medicines or medical history in comments, quiz answers or messages to us.
If you send us health information by mistake, we will delete it once we have replied. Comments containing personal health details may be edited or not published.
HWVibes is for general education only, not medical advice or a substitute for a doctor; please consult your own doctor before acting on anything you read here. In an emergency, call your local emergency number (in India 112, or 108 for an ambulance; in the US 911; in the UK 999).
What we collect and when
You do not need an account to read HWVibes. The table shows what we, or services working for us, may process.
| When | What is collected | How and by whom |
|---|---|---|
| Visiting any page | IP address, device and browser type, operating system, referring page, pages viewed, date and time | Automatically, through server logs at our hosting provider (Hostinger), our security firewall (Wordfence) and our page cache (LiteSpeed Cache) |
| Using the contact form | Name, email address, subject and message | Sent to us through our form plugin (Fluent Forms) and stored on our website and in our email |
| Leaving a comment | Name, email address, optional website, the comment itself, IP address and browser user agent | Stored by WordPress. A hashed version of your email may be sent to Gravatar to check whether you have a profile picture |
| Voting in a poll or taking an on-site quiz | Your vote or answers, plus a cookie and/or IP address to prevent repeat voting | Stored by our poll and quiz plugins (WP-Polls, Quiz and Survey Master) |
| Viewing third-party embeds | Technical data such as IP address and browser data; the provider may set its own cookies | Collected directly by the provider, for example Opinion Stage for embedded quizzes and polls, or a video platform for embedded videos |
| Using the added-sugar converter | Nothing. The tool runs entirely in your browser and does not send or store what you enter | Not applicable |
| Using “Listen to this article” | Standard technical data only (as for any page request) | Audio files are served from our own site; no extra personal data is collected |
| Advertising and analytics, when active | Cookie identifiers, IP address, device and browser data, pages viewed and ad interactions | Collected by Google (AdSense, and Google Analytics if used) and, for ads, its certified partners, subject to your consent where required |
Our recipe cards and search engine optimisation settings are handled by plugins that run on our own site. We do not use them to collect extra personal data about you.
Cookies and similar technologies
Cookies are small text files stored by your browser; similar technologies include local storage and pixels. We group them into four types:
- Necessary and security: needed for the site to work and to protect it from attacks and spam.
- Preferences: remember choices you make, such as your name and email when you comment, or that you have already voted in a poll.
- Analytics: show us, in aggregate, which pages are read. Used only if analytics is active and, where required, with your consent.
- Advertising: used by Google and its partners to deliver, measure and, with consent where required, personalise ads.
| Provider | Type | Purpose | Typical lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress (our site) | Necessary | Checks that your browser accepts cookies and supports logged-in site administration | Session or short term |
| Wordfence (security) | Necessary and security | Firewall, bot detection and login protection | Session to short term |
| WordPress comments | Preferences | Remembers your name, email and website if you tick the box when commenting | Up to about one year |
| WP-Polls, Quiz and Survey Master | Preferences | Records that you have voted so the result is not counted twice | Varies by poll or quiz |
| Opinion Stage and other embeds | Varies | Set by the embed provider under its own privacy policy | Set by the provider |
| Google AdSense, including the DoubleClick cookie (when active) | Advertising | Serves ads, limits repeats, measures performance and, with consent where required, personalises ads | Set by Google; some last up to about two years |
| Google Analytics (if used) | Analytics | Counts visits and shows how pages are used in aggregate | Set by Google; some last up to about two years |
You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, although parts of the site such as comments or polls may then not work properly. Where a consent message is shown, you can change your choices at any time.
Google AdSense and advertising
We use or may use Google AdSense to show display ads. Google AdSense is not active on HWVibes at the time of this update. When it is active, the following applies:
- Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user’s prior visits to this website or other websites.
- Google’s use of advertising cookies, including the DoubleClick cookie, enables it and its partners to serve ads to our visitors based on their visit to HWVibes and/or other sites on the internet.
- You may opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings.
- You can opt out of some third-party vendors’ use of cookies for personalised advertising at www.aboutads.info/choices or, in Europe, www.youronlinechoices.eu.
- To learn more, see How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.
Consent in the EEA, UK and Switzerland. Visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland will be asked for consent through a consent message before non-essential cookies are used or personalised ads are shown. You can accept, refuse or manage your choices, and change them later.
Non-personalised ads. If you refuse consent or opt out, you may still see ads. These are non-personalised ads, based on context such as the page you are reading and your approximate location rather than your browsing history. Google may still use cookies for frequency capping, aggregated reporting and fraud prevention.
For how ads are selected and the standards we apply to them, see our Advertising Policy.
How we use data and our legal bases
We use personal data only for the purposes below. Under the GDPR and UK GDPR we rely on the legal basis shown. Under India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, we rely on your consent or on legitimate uses the Act permits, such as data you voluntarily provide for a specific purpose.
| Purpose | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Running, caching and delivering the site | Legitimate interests in operating a working website |
| Protecting the site from attacks, spam and abuse | Legitimate interests in keeping the site and its readers safe |
| Replying to your message, correction request or privacy request | Responding to your request; legal obligation for privacy requests |
| Publishing and moderating comments | Your choice to comment (consent) and our legitimate interests in moderation |
| Counting poll votes and preventing duplicates | Legitimate interests in fair results |
| Analytics and personalised advertising, when active | Consent, where required by law |
| Complying with law and protecting our rights | Legal obligation and legitimate interests |
We make no automated decisions with legal or similar effects on you, and we do not feed reader data into AI tools.
Who we share data with
We share personal data only as needed with:
- Hosting: Hostinger, which hosts our website, database and server logs.
- Security: Wordfence, which provides our firewall and login protection and processes IP addresses to detect threats.
- Embedded services: Gravatar (hashed email for comment avatars) and embed providers such as Opinion Stage, which receive data directly from your browser.
- Advertising and analytics partners, when active: Google and its certified ad partners, as described above.
- Legal reasons: courts, regulators or law enforcement where the law requires, or to protect the rights and safety of our readers, ourselves or others.
We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share your messages with advertisers or affiliate partners.
International transfers
HWVibes is run from India, and our service providers may store or process data in other countries, including the United States. This means your data may be processed outside the country where you live, where data protection laws may differ. Where the GDPR or UK GDPR applies, we rely on our providers’ safeguards for such transfers, such as standard contractual clauses or adequacy decisions, where available.
How long we keep data
- Contact form messages and emails: up to 24 months, then deleted, unless we need to keep a message as part of a record of a correction we made.
- Comments: while the comment is published; spam and unapproved comments are deleted periodically.
- Security and server logs: short term, for as long as needed to protect the site and investigate any incident.
- Poll and quiz records: for as long as the poll or quiz is live and its results are shown.
- Cookies: for their set lifetimes, as described in the cookie section, or until you delete them.
- Health information sent by mistake: deleted promptly.
Security
We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal data, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), a web application firewall and login protection. No website is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a personal data breach affects you, we will notify you and the relevant authorities where the law requires.
Your rights
Your rights depend on where you live. We will honour requests under the laws below where they apply to you.
India (Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023)
- Access a summary of the personal data we process about you and how we process it.
- Correction, completion, updating and erasure of your personal data.
- Grievance redressal through our grievance contact named above, and, if you are not satisfied, a complaint to the Data Protection Board of India.
- Nominate another person to exercise your rights if you die or become unable to do so.
- Withdraw consent at any time, as easily as you gave it.
EEA and UK (GDPR and UK GDPR)
- Access, rectification and erasure of your personal data.
- Restriction of processing and objection to processing based on legitimate interests.
- Data portability for data you provided to us.
- Withdraw consent at any time, without affecting earlier processing.
- Complain to a data protection supervisory authority in the country where you live or work.
California (CCPA as amended by the CPRA)
- Know what personal information we collect, use and disclose.
- Delete and correct personal information.
- Opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell personal information. If personalised advertising is active, you can opt out through Google Ads Settings, the consent choices on our site, or by contacting us.
- Not be discriminated against for exercising your rights.
How to exercise your rights
Email contact@hwvibes.com or use our contact form with “Privacy request” in the subject, and tell us what you would like us to do. We may ask you to confirm your identity, for example the email address you used to comment. We aim to respond within 30 days, free of charge.
Children
HWVibes is not directed at children and is not intended for under-18s to use without a parent or guardian. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children; if you believe a child has sent us some, contact us and we will delete it.
Links to other websites
Our articles link to other websites, such as research sources, health organisations and occasionally retailers. They have their own privacy policies, and we are not responsible for how they handle your data. See our External Links Policy for how we choose links.
Changes to this policy
We will update this policy when our site, tools or the law change, for example when advertising or analytics become active. The “Last updated” date shows when it last changed, and where the law requires, we will ask for your consent again.
Contact
For privacy questions, requests or grievances, contact Mohammad Faisal Khan at contact@hwvibes.com or through our contact form. We usually reply within 3 to 7 business days and aim to resolve privacy requests within 30 days.