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Privacy Policy

Last updated: 23 July 2026

Rainflower is a youth-led rainwater research programme. Students, coordinators and advisors use this site to record rainfall measurements, run experiments, publish findings and earn RAINDROPS rewards. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, who can see it, and the choices you have.

Many of our participants are school students, and some are under 18. We take that seriously — see Children and guardian consent.

If you have a question about anything here, write to us at info@rainflower.world.

1. Who we are

"Rainflower", "we" and "us" refer to the Rainflower programme, which operates this website at rainflower.world. We are the controller of the personal information described below. You can reach us at any time at info@rainflower.world.

2. Information you give us

When you create an account

  • Your full name and a username
  • Email address (this is how you sign in and how we contact you)
  • Country, and where provided, city or district
  • For students: school or institution name, grade or year, and a WhatsApp number if you choose to give one
  • How you heard about Rainflower, and the coordinator whose link you signed up through
  • A password, which we store only as a salted one-way hash — we never store or can read your actual password

On your profile

  • Profile photo, short biography, and any social or website links you choose to add

Profile information is optional beyond what is required to register. Anything you put on your profile is public — see What is public.

Guardian consent (for participants under 18)

When a parent or legal guardian signs the consent form for a student, we collect and store:

  • The guardian's full name, relationship to the student, and contact details
  • The last four digits of the guardian's national ID — we never collect or store the full number
  • A drawn signature image, the date and time of signing, and the IP address the form was signed from
  • The completed consent form itself, which we generate and keep as a PDF record

We keep this because it is the record that a guardian permitted the student to take part. It is visible only to the student, their coordinator, and Rainflower administrators.

Research and participation data

  • Rainfall measurements and experiment reports you submit, including the station or location they relate to
  • Survey responses, posts, comments, document notes and ratings
  • RAINDROPS earned and spent, reward transactions, shop orders and any cash-out requests

3. Information collected automatically

  • Security and activity logs. We record significant account actions (such as sign-in, approval or account changes) together with your IP address, browser user-agent and a timestamp. We use these to keep accounts secure, investigate abuse and support you when something goes wrong.
  • Referral visits. When someone opens a coordinator's sign-up link, we record the visit — device type, IP address and referring page — so coordinators can see whether their outreach is working.
  • Basic usage. Page view counts on documents and pages.

We do not use advertising trackers, and we do not sell personal information.

4. Cookies and local storage

We use a small number of cookies, all of them functional. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

  • rf_token — keeps you signed in. Essential.
  • rf_lang — remembers whether you are reading in English or Bengali.
  • rf_theme — remembers light or dark mode.
  • rf_rain_unit — remembers whether you prefer millimetres or inches.
  • rf_admin_token, rf_imp_log, rf_no_auto — used only for administrator sessions and support access.

Your browser's local storage also holds small display preferences, such as whether you last viewed a list as cards or rows. You can clear cookies and local storage in your browser at any time; if you clear rf_token you will simply be signed out.

5. Third-party services

Some parts of the site load resources from other companies. When that happens, your browser contacts them directly and they may see your IP address.

  • Open-Meteo — supplies live and historical rainfall data. We request weather for fixed division coordinates in Bangladesh, not for your location.
  • YouTube — embedded videos. We use youtube-nocookie.com where we can, and videos only load after you click play.
  • Google Fonts and jsDelivr — fonts and small display libraries.
  • Cloudflare Turnstile — protects sign-up forms from automated abuse.
  • Our email provider — delivers verification, notification and consent emails.

These providers process your data under their own policies. We do not share your account information with them for marketing.

6. What is public, and what is not

Public — visible to anyone on the internet:

  • Your username and display name, profile photo, biography and social links
  • Your role, country, badge, RAINDROPS total and join date on the team pages
  • Posts, published documents and research findings you contribute

Not public — restricted to you, your coordinator where relevant, and Rainflower administrators:

  • Your email address, WhatsApp number and password
  • Guardian consent records, signatures and the last four digits of an ID
  • Security logs, IP addresses, reward transactions and shop orders

If you would rather something on your profile were not public, remove it from your profile at any time, or ask us at info@rainflower.world.

7. How we use your information

  • To run your account, sign you in and let you take part in the programme
  • To connect students with their coordinator and let coordinators support their students
  • To record and publish rainfall research, including aggregated and anonymised findings
  • To calculate and pay out RAINDROPS rewards and process shop orders
  • To email you about your account, your submissions and programme news
  • To keep the platform safe and to investigate misuse
  • To meet our legal and safeguarding obligations, including keeping guardian consent records

We may publish research results, charts and summaries drawn from measurements you submit. Where a published finding identifies an individual contributor, we credit them by username or display name — never by email, phone number or address.

8. Children and guardian consent

Rainflower is designed for school students, and we expect many participants to be under 18.

  • Every participant under 18 must have a parent or legal guardian complete and sign our consent form before taking part.
  • The consent form explains what the student will do, what we collect, and what may be published. A guardian can decline any optional item, such as use of the student's photograph.
  • A guardian may withdraw consent at any time by writing to info@rainflower.world. We will deactivate the student's account and remove or anonymise their personal information, keeping only what we must for legal or accounting reasons.
  • We never ask children for more information than the programme needs, and we do not use children's information for marketing.

If you believe a child has registered without guardian consent, please contact us and we will act promptly.

9. Sharing your information

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising. We share it only:

  • With your coordinator, who can see the students they mentor, including school, grade and account status
  • With Rainflower administrators, who can access accounts to provide support and keep the platform safe
  • With service providers who host the site, deliver our email and process rewards, acting on our instructions
  • Where the law requires it, or to protect the safety of a participant or the public

10. How long we keep it

  • Account and profile information — for as long as your account is open.
  • Guardian consent records — for the duration of participation and afterwards while we may need to evidence that consent was given.
  • Research measurements — kept indefinitely as part of the scientific record, in anonymised or credited form even after an account closes.
  • Security logs — kept for a limited period for investigation, then deleted.
  • Reward and order records — kept as long as needed for accounting.

11. Your rights and choices

You can, at any time:

  • See and edit your profile, or change your email and password, from your dashboard
  • Ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you
  • Ask us to correct anything that is wrong
  • Ask us to delete your account and personal information
  • Ask us to stop sending non-essential email
  • Object to a particular use of your information, or ask us to restrict it

Send any of these requests to info@rainflower.world and we will respond within a reasonable period. Where a student is under 18, a parent or guardian may make the request on their behalf. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to complain to your local data-protection authority.

12. Security

The site is served over encrypted connections. Passwords are stored only as salted hashes. Access to accounts and records is limited by role, and administrative access is logged. No system is perfectly secure, but if a breach ever affects your personal information we will tell you and the relevant authorities as required.

13. International transfers

Rainflower operates internationally, and our servers and service providers may be located in a different country from you. Wherever your information is processed, this policy applies to it.

14. Changes to this policy

We will update this page when our practices change, and we will change the "last updated" date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use your personal information, we will tell participants by email.

15. Contact us

Questions, requests or concerns about privacy — including anything relating to a child's participation — should go to info@rainflower.world. We read every message.