1. The short version
- We collect only what is needed to run mandal pages and to sell the own-address plan.
- We never store a visitor’s IP address as it is. Visitor counts use one-way codes that expire within 2 days.
- We never sell or rent personal data. Every page shows Google AdSense ads, and Google may set its advertising cookies; our own pages (home, Explore, sign-up and the vote contest pages) also use Meta’s pixel to measure our ads. Mandal pages and invitations never load Meta’s pixel.
- Donation money never passes through us. Donor phone numbers and addresses are never shown publicly.
- You can ask to see, correct or erase your data, or complain to our grievance officer.
2. Who is responsible for your data
For accounts, mandal pages, payments for an own address and the website itself, the data fiduciary under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) is Shantanu Bombatkar, Pune, Maharashtra.
Donor records are different. When a mandal records donors, issues pavati receipts, saves organiser UPI accounts or records expenses, the mandal decides what to record and why, so the mandal is the data fiduciary for that data. We store and process it on the mandal’s behalf and only as it instructs, the way a notebook maker has no say in what is written in the notebook.
3. What we collect and why
Your account
Your email address, your password (stored only as a one-way hash), and your mobile number if you sign in with one. We use them to sign you in, keep the account secure, and write to you about your mandal or a payment. We send offers and festival tips only if you say yes — at most one every two days during a festival — and every one has a one-tap unsubscribe. Saying no changes nothing else about your account. Our emails carry a tiny image and tracked links, so we can see whether an email was opened or a button tapped. Blocking images in your mail app stops the image. We use this only to improve our emails.
Mandal pages
Everything the team adds: name, city, area, type, founding year, photos, aarti timings, events, committee names and phone numbers, social and live-darshan links, the map link, reels, and the mandal’s UPI ID and QR code. A published page is public on the internet, so add only what you’re happy for anyone to see.
Team members
The email address and role of each person a mandal adds, and a log of who added, changed or removed whom.
Paying for an own address
The plan, the address, the amount, the status, the payment partner’s order and payment references, the UPI transaction reference (UTR) you type in, and any refund. For an online payment, the mobile number you give goes to the payment partner for its receipt; we don’t save it in our records. We never see card numbers, bank passwords or UPI PINs. The payment partner’s notifications to us may contain your name, email and phone: only our administrators can read them.
Payment screenshots. If you send a screenshot as proof of a UPI payment, it may show your name, your bank or UPI app, and your UPI ID. We store it privately, and only our administrators can see it. We use it for one purpose only: matching your payment against the money we received. We keep it as a payment record, along with your other payment details, for 8 years, as Indian tax and accounting law requires, and delete it sooner on request where the law allows.
Donors (recorded on a mandal’s behalf)
The name a donor wants shown, the amount, whether to stay anonymous or hide the amount, and when they agreed to be listed. For an “I donated” request, the 12-digit UTR too. When a mandal uses the pavati book: the receipt number, date, payment mode, the volunteer who issued it, and, only if the donor gives them, a phone number and address. Also organiser names, UPI IDs and QR photos, and expenses with bill photos. A mandal uses this to keep its accounts, send receipts and thank-you messages, and show its top-donor board.
Visitors to mandal pages
To tell a mandal how many people visit, our database makes a one-way code from a secret that changes every day, the page, your connection’s IP address and your browser type. The IP address and browser details themselves are never stored. The code, and a one-way code of the IP used only to stop one connection inflating the count, are deleted within 2 days, and the daily secret with them, so old codes can’t be linked to anyone. We also keep plain counts: visits, visitors, where visits came from (such as WhatsApp or search), and device type, operating system and browser family.
Your browser also keeps a random device number in its own storage, so a mandal can see how many visitors return. We only ever receive it as a one-way code that is different for each mandal, and delete those codes after 120 days. Views by a mandal’s own team are not counted.
Reports and messages
When someone reports a page: the page, the reason, what they wrote, and any contact detail they chose to give. When you write to us on WhatsApp or by email: your message and contact details, to reply.
“Write it for me”
Only when a team member presses it, we send the mandal’s name, city, area, type, founding year and any notes typed in the box to NVIDIA’s model, and get a draft back. Nothing about your account is sent, and the draft is saved only if you choose to use it. We count drafts per mandal per day to keep within a limit of 20.
4. Consent and your choices
- Creating an account is your consent to this notice. You can withdraw it at any time by asking us to delete the account. That doesn’t undo what was lawfully done before, such as a completed payment.
- Donors are shown only with their consent. A donor who sends an “I donated” request must tick that they agree to be listed. When the team adds a donor, it must tick “This donor agreed to be listed”, and our server, not the browser, records the time. Without consent a donor is kept in the mandal’s records but never shown. Donors are anonymous, with the amount hidden, unless they choose otherwise.
- The team can edit, hide or remove anything on a page at any time from the editor.
5. What is public
- Everything on a published mandal page.
- Top-donor board entries, only with consent: the name or “Anonymous devotee”, and the amount only if allowed.
- A pavati receipt at its own link, which is long and unguessable: receipt number, date, the donor’s name, amount, payment mode and who issued it. Never the donor’s phone number or address. Anyone with the link can open it, so share it only with the donor.
- If a mandal switches it on, a “Where the money goes” summary: totals by category, with no names.
6. Who processes data for us
We share personal data only with these service providers, only for the purposes above, under their contracts:
- Supabase: database, sign-in and file storage, hosted in Mumbai, India.
- Vercel: hosts and delivers the website; its servers see your IP address to send you pages and keep short-lived request logs.
- ImageKit: stores and delivers photos, QR codes and bill photos.
- NVIDIA: “Write it for me” drafts, only when that button is pressed.
- Cashfree Payments or Razorpay: online payments and refunds for an own address, under RBI rules and their own privacy policies. Only one is used at a time.
- Resend: sends sign-in codes and password-reset emails, and the festival emails you’ve said yes to.
Some of these providers process data outside India. The DPDP Act allows this except to countries the Government of India restricts, and we don’t use any such country. Apart from Google AdSense, the Meta Pixel and the Meta server events described below, we never share data with advertisers. We disclose data to authorities only when the law requires it.
Some mandal pages also show a Google Maps map, and can play YouTube videos or Instagram reels when you tap them. Those services receive your IP address and may set their own cookies, under their own policies; see our cookie notice.
Every page, mandal pages and invitations included, loads Google AdSense, which shows ads. Google and its partners receive your IP address, browser details and the page you opened, and use cookies to show ads, including ads based on your earlier visits to this and other sites, under Google’s policies. You can turn off personalised ads in Google’s Ads Settings.
Our own pages (the home page, Explore, the looks, the committee and invitation pages, sign-up and sign-in, and the vote contest pages at /vote) load the Meta Pixel, so we can tell whether our Facebook and Instagram ads work. Meta receives your IP address, browser details and the page you opened, and sets its own cookie, under Meta’s privacy policy. Mandal pages, invitations and the dashboard never load it.
When you register a mandal page or an invitation, ask for your mandal’s name, or your name goes live, our server also tells Meta that it happened (Meta’s Conversions API), so an ad that brought you is counted once even if your browser blocked the pixel. We send a one-way scrambled (hashed) copy of your email address and account id, and at registration the contact phone you gave; your IP address, browser details and Meta’s cookie ids when the request is your own; and, for a name, the plan and its price. We never send your mandal’s content, donations or password.
When you vote in India’s Favourite Ganpati Bappa, or verify your email for it, our server tells Meta that a vote or a verification happened, but only if your browser already carries Meta’s cookie from our ads or our own pages. We send your IP address, browser details and Meta’s cookie ids and, for a verification, a hashed copy of your email address and account id. We never send which page you voted for. Without Meta’s cookie, your vote never reaches Meta.
7. How long we keep it
- Accounts and mandal pages: until you ask us to delete them. We delete within 30 days of your request; backup copies are overwritten in the normal cycle.
- Payment records (amount, date, references, refunds, and any payment screenshot you sent us): 8 years, as Indian tax and accounting law requires, or sooner on request where the law allows. The payment partner’s raw notifications are cut down to the references after 180 days.
- Visitor codes: within 2 days; device codes after 120 days. Plain counts are kept for as long as the page exists.
- “Write it for me” counters: 30 days.
- Reports: 12 months after we close them, to spot repeat abuse.
- Donor records, receipts, organiser accounts and expenses: for as long as the mandal keeps them, and deleted with the mandal. Numbered receipts can’t be deleted, only cancelled, so a mandal’s accounts stay honest; see below for how a donor’s details are removed on request.
8. Your rights
Under the DPDP Act you can ask us:
- for access: a summary of your personal data, what we do with it, and who we share it with;
- for correction: to correct, complete or update it;
- for erasure: to delete it, unless the law requires us to keep it;
- to nominate someone to use these rights for you if you die or can’t act for yourself;
- for grievance redressal: to deal with a complaint about how we handle your data.
Write to support@myind.ai or support@myind.ai from the email linked to your account, so we know it’s you. We acknowledge within 24 hours and act within 15 days. Much of this you can do yourself: the team can edit or unpublish a page at any time, and owners and treasurers can download the mandal’s data from its Export page.
If you’re not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India. The Act also asks you not to impersonate anyone or file false complaints.
9. If you are a donor
The mandal decides what it records about you, so ask the mandal first to correct your details, hide you from its board, or remove your phone number or address. If it doesn’t act within 15 days, write to us with the mandal’s link and your receipt number.
We will then remove your phone number and address, and replace your name on the receipt with “Name removed on request”, unless the mandal shows that the law requires it to keep them. The amount and date stay, because they are part of the mandal’s accounts.
10. Children
The service is for adults acting for a mandal: nobody under 18 may create an account, and we don’t knowingly collect a child’s data or track children. If a page shows a child, the mandal must have a parent’s agreement and must not add the child’s name, school or address. A parent can ask us to remove a child’s photo or details; we do so within 72 hours.
11. India’s Favourite Ganpati Bappa (the vote contest)
To count a vote we keep which page it was for, the day, and one-way codes (hashes) of your network and your browser, only to catch rigging; we never store your IP address itself. Your phone gets our um_vd cookie so it can vote once a day. The network and browser codes are erased once the results are final.
If you verify your email with a code, we also keep your email address, so your votes count 5 points and you get entries in the voter draw. The results page shows only a short draw code for each winner, never a name or email.
If you win, we ask for your name as on your bank account, your UPI ID and, if you choose, a mobile number, only to pay the prize, and we keep them with our payment records. The full contest rules are at utsavmandal.com/vote/rules.
13. Security and data breaches
Every connection is encrypted (HTTPS). Passwords are hashed. Database rules limit each team member to what their role allows, payment logs are readable only by our administrators, and secret keys never reach the browser. If a breach affects your data, we tell you and the Data Protection Board of India without delay, as the DPDP Act and its rules require, with what happened and what you can do.
14. Changes and contact
We update this policy when what we collect or who processes it changes; the date at the top shows the latest version, and we email account holders about significant changes. Our grievance officer is Shantanu Bombatkar (support@myind.ai). Everything else: contact us.