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Privacy Policy

Last updated: January 2025

EcoHubs.community ("we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting your personal data in accordance with Ecuador's Organic Law on Personal Data Protection (Ley Orgánica de Protección de Datos Personales - LOPDP) and international data protection standards.

1. Data Controller

The data controller responsible for your personal data is:

  • Entity: EcoHubs.community
  • Location: Ecuador
  • Contact: privacy@ecohubs.community

2. Legal Basis for Processing

In accordance with Article 10 of the LOPDP, we process your personal data based on the following legal grounds:

  • Consent: When you voluntarily provide information through our contact or application forms
  • Legitimate Interest: For website analytics to improve our services (with anonymized data)
  • Legal Obligation: When required by applicable laws

3. Personal Data We Collect

We may collect the following types of personal data:

3.1 Contact Form Data

  • Name
  • Email address
  • Message content

3.2 Application Form Data

  • Full name
  • Email address
  • Location/country
  • Skills and experience
  • Motivation and interests

3.3 Automatically Collected Data

  • IP address (anonymized)
  • Browser type and version
  • Pages visited and time spent
  • Referring website

4. Purpose of Processing

In compliance with the transparency principle of the LOPDP, we use your personal data for:

  • Responding to your inquiries and messages
  • Processing community membership applications
  • Sending relevant updates about EcoHubs.community (with your consent)
  • Improving our website and services through anonymized analytics
  • Complying with legal obligations

5. Cookies and Analytics

We use cookies and similar technologies to enhance your experience:

5.1 Essential Cookies

These are necessary for the website to function and cannot be disabled. They include cookies for remembering your cookie consent preferences.

5.2 Analytics Cookies (Google Analytics 4)

With your consent, we use Google Analytics 4 to understand how visitors interact with our website. We have configured GA4 with privacy-enhancing settings:

  • IP anonymization enabled
  • Secure cookie flags (SameSite=Strict)
  • No data sharing with Google for advertising purposes

You can withdraw your consent at any time by clearing your browser cookies and declining when the consent banner appears again.

6. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services that may process your data:

  • Ghost CMS: For blog content delivery
  • Google Analytics: For website analytics (consent-based)

Each third-party service has its own privacy policy governing their data processing activities.

7. Your Rights Under LOPDP

Under Ecuador's LOPDP, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

  • Right of Access: Request information about what personal data we hold about you
  • Right to Rectification: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data
  • Right to Erasure: Request deletion of your personal data
  • Right to Data Portability: Receive your data in a structured, commonly used format
  • Right to Withdraw Consent: Withdraw consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing
  • Right to Object: Object to processing based on legitimate interests

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at privacy@ecohubs.community. We will respond within 15 business days as required by the LOPDP.

8. Data Retention

We retain your personal data only for as long as necessary:

  • Contact form data: 2 years from last interaction
  • Application data: Duration of membership consideration plus 1 year
  • Analytics data: 14 months (Google Analytics default)

9. International Data Transfers

Some of our third-party service providers may process data outside of Ecuador. When this occurs, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place as required by the LOPDP, including:

  • Use of services with adequate data protection certifications
  • Standard contractual clauses where applicable

10. Security Measures

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data, including:

  • HTTPS encryption for all data transmission
  • Secure server infrastructure
  • Access controls and authentication
  • Regular security assessments

11. Children's Privacy

Our services are not directed to individuals under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children.

12. Updates to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the new policy on this page with an updated revision date.

13. Contact Information

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our data practices, please contact us:

14. Supervisory Authority

If you believe your data protection rights have been violated, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Superintendencia de Protección de Datos Personales (SPDP) of Ecuador.