Reader Privacy Policy

Welcome to the Reader Privacy Policy for My Town News. If you are a resident, neighbor, or community member who reads hyper-local news, answers polls, or participates in quizzes on our platform, this policy applies to you.

We are committed to securing your personal information and ensuring full transparency about the data we collect to customize your local news experience.

1. OTP Login & Authentication

Unlike reporters, Readers do not use passwords. We prioritize ease of use and identity verification:

• Mobile Verification: We collect your mobile phone number to authenticate your login sessions. Access is granted through a secure One-Time Password (OTP) sent to your device.
• Access Security: The generated OTP is short-lived. We do not store plain-text credentials or passwords for Reader accounts in our databases.

2. Personalization & Hyper-Local Data

To deliver news that matters to your neighborhood, we customize your dashboard based on location parameters:

• Selected Location: We store your chosen city and state preferences to filter local news, announcements, and advertisements.
• Saved Bookmarks: When you bookmark articles to read later, this selection is saved under your reader profile.
• Activity & Quizzes: We track interactive quiz submissions and community poll votes to aggregate community responses (your individual votes are anonymized in final reports).

3. Real-Time Notifications

For readers using our mobile applications:

• FCM Tokens: We collect Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) device tokens to route breaking news warnings and local notifications directly to your phone.
• Control: You can manage or disable push notification permissions at any time through your mobile device system settings or your app profile settings page.

4. Your Account & Data Deletion

We respect your right to privacy. You have full ownership of your personal profile records:

Upon requesting deletion, your profile, bookmarks, and notification settings will be permanently expunged from our database records within 7 business days.

5. Questions or Support

For questions related to the Reader Privacy Policy or to query your data storage details, you can contact our privacy support team at:

• 📧 Email: support@mytownnews.com
• 📞 Phone: (555) 123-4567
• 📍 Corporate Office: 123 Main Street, My Town, USA 12345