Privacy Policy

We collect personal data only when you interact with our website or competition portal. This includes:

• Account & registration data — your name, email address, country of residence, and any profile information you provide when creating an account.
• Entry data — images you submit, category selections, titles, and descriptions associated with your entries.
• Payment data — transaction references and billing details processed securely through Stripe. We do not store full card numbers on our servers.
• Communication data — messages you send us via the contact form or by email.
• Technical data — IP address, browser type, device information, pages visited, and time spent on the site, collected automatically via Google Analytics.

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

• To process your competition entry and manage your account.
• To handle payment transactions securely via Stripe.
• To communicate with you about your submission, results, and competition-related announcements.
• To publish winners' names and winning images on our website and in the annual book, as set out in our Terms & Conditions.
• To send you occasional newsletters and updates about Women Photography Awards, where you have given consent. You may unsubscribe at any time.
• To analyse website traffic and improve our services using anonymised data from Google Analytics.
• To comply with legal obligations where required.

We process your data on the legal bases of contractual necessity (to fulfil your competition entry), legitimate interests (to operate and improve our services), consent (for marketing communications), and legal obligation where applicable.

Under the GDPR, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right of access — you may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to rectification — you may ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Right to erasure — you may request that we delete your personal data, subject to any legal obligations we must fulfil.
• Right to restriction — you may ask us to limit how we process your data in certain circumstances.
• Right to data portability — you may request your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
• Right to object — you may object to processing based on legitimate interests or for direct marketing purposes.
• Right to withdraw consent — where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at info@womenphotographyawards.com. We will respond within 30 days. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Austrian Data Protection Authority (Datenschutzbehörde) at www.dsb.gv.at.

Our website uses cookies — small text files stored on your device — to ensure the site functions correctly and to help us understand how visitors use it. We use the following types of cookies:

• Essential cookies — required for the website and competition portal to operate. These cannot be disabled.
• Analytics cookies — we use Google Analytics to collect anonymised data about site usage, including pages visited, time on site, and traffic sources. This helps us improve the experience for all users. Google Analytics data is processed in accordance with Google's privacy policy.
• Functional cookies — used to remember your preferences and settings between visits.

You can manage or disable non-essential cookies through your browser settings at any time. Note that disabling cookies may affect the functionality of certain parts of the site. For more information about Google Analytics and how to opt out, visit tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

We share your data only with trusted third-party service providers who assist us in operating the competition. All third parties are contractually required to handle your data securely and in compliance with GDPR.

• Stripe — our payment processor. Stripe handles all card transactions securely and is PCI-DSS compliant. Your payment data is processed directly by Stripe and never stored on our servers. See stripe.com/privacy.
• Google Analytics — used to analyse website traffic. Data collected is anonymised and aggregated. See policies.google.com/privacy.
• Hosting provider — our website and data are hosted on secure servers. Your data does not leave the European Economic Area (EEA) without appropriate safeguards in place.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to any third party for marketing purposes.

We retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected. Specifically:

• Account and entry data is retained for one year following the close of the competition, after which it is securely deleted unless you have an active account.
• Payment records may be retained for longer where required by applicable financial or tax regulations.
• Winners' names and images published on our website and in the annual book are retained indefinitely as part of the competition record.
• Analytics data collected via Google Analytics is retained in anonymised, aggregated form.

Women Photography Awards is the data controller responsible for your personal data. If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or how we handle your data, please contact us:

• Email: info@womenphotographyawards.com
• Website: womenphotographyawards.com/contact
• Based in: Feldkirch, Vorarlberg, Austria

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to contact the Austrian Data Protection Authority (Datenschutzbehörde) directly at www.dsb.gv.at.