Privacy Policy — Jyotim
Jyotim ("we", "us") is a devotional app that guides you through pujas, mantra and paath practice, and — if you choose — prepares a personal Vedic astrology (kundli) reading.
This policy explains what we collect, why, and what control you have.
1. The short version
Your birth details never leave your phone.
The birth date, time and place you enter for your kundli, the reading itself, and the puja dedications you set are stored only on your own device, in encrypted form. We do not upload them, and none of our servers hold them. We cannot read them, and neither can anyone who obtains our systems, because we never receive them in the first place.
What does leave your phone: your phone number when you sign in, your name and email if you add them to your profile, a coded form of your phone's device identifier, usage and crash data, tied to your account, and a note to Google and Meta when you install the app, sign up or subscribe, so we can see which of our ads work. Your profile is entirely optional — leave it blank and every part of the app still works. None of it carries your birth details.
2. What we collect, and where it goes
2.1 Stays on your device — never transmitted
| What | Why we ask for it |
|---|---|
| Birth date, birth time, birth place | To calculate your kundli and personalise remedies. The calculation runs on your phone, not on a server. |
| Your relationship to the person a puja is for — for example, your husband or your daughter | So the priest's voice can dedicate the puja to them. We ask for the relationship only, never their name. |
| Your practice history, streaks, reminders, and puja progress | To resume where you left off and to send the reminders you asked for. |
All of the above is encrypted on your device, and is not included in device backups in readable form.
2.2 What leaves your device, and why
| What leaves | Why |
|---|---|
| Your phone number | To sign you in, to keep each introductory offer to one per person, and — only if you subscribe through our payment partner — so its payment screen does not ask you to type it |
| Your name and email, if you add them to your profile | So we can address you properly, reach you about your practice or your account, and restore them if you reinstall the app or change phones. Both are optional: leave them blank and nothing stops working. |
| A coded form of your phone's device identifier (the Android ID) | To make sure each introductory offer is taken once per device, not once per phone number. We keep only a coded form that cannot be turned back into the identifier, and use it for nothing else. |
| Your account number — a random number, not your name and not your phone number | To tie your practice, your subscription and your usage events to one account, so everything is still there when you sign in again |
| The one-time sign-in code | To send it to you by SMS, or on WhatsApp if the SMS cannot be delivered |
| Usage events — which screens you opened, which pujas you completed — tied to your account | To see which parts of the app help people and which confuse them, and to decide what to build next |
| Crash reports | To find and fix bugs |
| Which plan you bought, whether it is still active, and when it renews | To switch Jyotim Select on, keep it working if you reinstall or change phones, and know when it renews |
| If you subscribe through Google Play: the purchase record Google sends, with your random account number | To switch your subscription on, keep it working if you reinstall or change phones, and know when it renews or ends |
| That the app was installed and opened and how long it is used; when you sign up, start an introductory offer or buy a plan, with the plan and its price; your device advertising identifier, your IP address and basic technical information about your device — sent to Google and Meta | To tell which of our ads on Google and on Meta (Facebook, Instagram) brought people to Jyotim, so we can measure them and spend on the ones that work (§2.3) |
| Your device advertising identifier — free version only | To show ads, to limit how often the same ad repeats, to show ads chosen for you unless you switch that off, and to help our advertising provider detect fraud |
| Your device's IP address, when an ad is requested — free version only | It tells our advertising provider roughly which area you are in. It is not your exact location, and we never receive it ourselves |
| Which ads you were shown and tapped, and basic technical information about your device and how the app performed — free version only | So ads work and can be measured, and so faults in them can be found |
| Requests for puja audio and images | To download the puja content to your phone |
That is the whole list. Your birth details, your kundli and your puja dedications are not on it — they stay on your phone (§2.1).
Your usage and crash data are linked to your account, so we can see how one person's experience of the app actually goes rather than only totals. That account is a random number, not your name or your phone number — and the events themselves never carry your name, your birth details or your astrological readings. The app blocks such data automatically before anything is sent, rather than relying on us to remember.
Some of this is handled by service providers acting on our instructions, and some of it is processed on servers outside India, which Indian law permits.
As with any internet request, whoever serves the puja content necessarily sees your device IP address and which files were requested. We do not use that to build a picture of you. Advertising is the one exception, and it is described in §2.3: there your IP address reaches our advertising provider, which does use it — for the area you are in, and to detect fraud.
2.3 Advertising and payments
The free version of the app is supported by ads. Our advertising provider uses your device's advertising identifier — a resettable ID that Android provides, not your name and not your birth details — to show ads, to limit how often the same ad repeats, and to show ads chosen for you based on your activity across apps (personalised ads). Where the law requires your consent first, the app asks before doing so. You can switch personalised ads off at any time in the app's Settings — you still see ads, just not personalised ones — and you can reset the identifier or switch them off for your whole device in Settings → Google → Ads. Subscribers to Jyotim Select are shown no ads at all.
What the advertising provider receives, and what it does with it. Besides the advertising identifier, our advertising provider receives your device's IP address, which ads you were shown and tapped, and basic technical information about your device and the app. It uses these to serve and measure ads, to work out roughly which area you are in, and to detect fraud and abuse — for its own purposes as well as ours, under its own privacy policy. None of this carries your name, your birth details or your kundli. Subscribers to Jyotim Select are shown no ads, so none of it is sent at all.
Measuring our own ads (Google and Meta). We advertise Jyotim on Google and on Meta (Facebook and Instagram). To learn which of those ads bring people to the app, the app includes Google's measurement tool (Google Analytics for Firebase) and Meta's (the Meta SDK). They receive: that the app was installed and opened, and in general terms how it is used (such as when and for how long it is open); when you sign up, start an introductory offer or buy a plan, with the plan and its price; your device advertising identifier, a random identifier they create for this installation of the app, your IP address, and basic technical information about your device (such as its model and Android version). Google and Meta use this to measure our ads and to show them to people likely to find Jyotim useful — for their own purposes as well as ours, under their own privacy policies. They do not receive your phone number, your name, your email, your account number, your birth details or your kundli. This measurement runs for Jyotim Select subscribers too. If you switch personalised ads off in the app's Settings, or decline them where the app asks, the app tells Google not to use this data for advertising and stops sending your advertising identifier to Meta; you can also reset or delete the identifier for your whole device in Settings → Google → Ads.
Your birth details and your kundli are never used for advertising, and are never shared with any advertising provider. They cannot be — they never leave your device.
When you subscribe, the payment is handled by the provider you pay through: Google Play, or our payment partner for UPI AutoPay, cards and net banking. They receive your payment details; we do not. What reaches us is only whether a subscription is active, which plan it is, and when it renews — never your card number, UPI ID, or bank credentials. If you pay through our payment partner, we pass it your phone number so that its payment screen does not ask you to type it in. We do not give it your name, your email or anything else about you. If you pay through Google Play, a subscription service acting on our instructions receives the purchase record Google sends, together with your random account number, and tells us whether your subscription is active. It receives no phone number, name or email, and no identifier of your device.
3. Signing in with your phone number
To use Jyotim you sign in with your mobile number. We send a one-time code to that number by SMS — or on WhatsApp, if the SMS cannot be delivered; entering the code signs you in.
What we store. Your phone number, on our servers in India, linked to a random account identifier — together with whatever you have chosen to put in your profile. You can change or clear any profile field at any time in the app. Everything else in the app — and our analytics — uses that identifier, never the number itself. Your number is not sent to our analytics or advertising providers. Beyond the messaging provider described below, the only other party that receives it is our payment partner, and only if you subscribe through it (§2.3).
Why we ask for it. To sign you in, and to make sure each introductory offer is taken once per person. We do not send you marketing messages on it without asking you first.
Who else sees it. The SMS carrying your code — or, if it cannot be delivered, the WhatsApp message — is sent through a messaging provider acting on our instructions (a WhatsApp message is delivered by WhatsApp). They receive your number only to deliver that message.
How long we keep it. For as long as your account exists. Deleting your account (Section 6) deletes it — apart from the coded markers described in Section 5.
4. Why we are allowed to process this (legal basis)
Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act), we process your personal data on the basis of your consent, which you give by entering the details yourself — your phone number when you sign in, your birth details when you ask for a kundli. You are told what each field is for at the point where you enter it. You may withdraw consent at any time by deleting your data (Section 6 below) or by uninstalling the app.
5. How long we keep it
Your birth details, your kundli and your practice record live only on your own device, so you control their retention. They are kept until you delete them in the app or uninstall the app.
Your phone number, your profile and your account are kept for as long as your account exists, and deleted when you delete your account.
Coded markers are kept after deletion — only if you took an introductory offer. An offer can be taken once per person and once per device, so that a deleted account cannot claim it a second time we keep a coded record of the phone number and of the devices that account used. They cannot be turned back into your phone number or your device's identifier, they hold nothing else about you, they are never shared, and they are used for nothing else.
A subscription still running after deletion. Deleting your account does not cancel a payment mandate. While such a subscription is still running, we keep a coded link between your phone number and it, so that if you sign in again with the same number, what you are paying for works again. It holds nothing else about you.
Usage and crash data are retained by our providers under their own retention schedules — currently up to 12 months for usage events and up to 90 days for crash reports. When you delete your account, we permanently remove the link between you and that data, so whatever is still held cannot be traced back to you.
What Google and Meta receive to measure our ads (§2.3) is kept by them under their own policies. It was never linked to your account, your name or your phone number, so deleting your account does not reach it.
6. Your rights, and how to actually use them
Under the DPDP Act you have the right to access, correct, and erase your personal data, to grievance redressal, and to nominate someone to exercise these rights on your behalf.
- See or correct your data: your name and email are in the app under Profile → Personal Details, and your birth details can be corrected from the kundli screen. Changing them there updates them everywhere we hold them.
- Delete your account and data: open the app → Settings → Mera data delete karein. This deletes your account, your phone number and your profile from our systems, and permanently unlinks your usage and crash data so it can no longer be connected to you. On your phone it removes your birth details, profile, sankalp, practice history and reminders, cancels any scheduled reminders, and destroys the encryption key so that anything remaining is permanently unreadable. It cannot be undone.
- Uninstalling the app removes everything held on your phone — but it does not delete your account. To delete the account itself, use Delete my data before uninstalling, or write to support@jyotim.com afterwards (the steps are at jyotim.com/delete-account).
- Usage and crash data are linked to your account for as long as it exists. When you delete your account, we permanently delete that link. What remains cannot be connected back to you — not by us, and not by anyone else — and survives only inside overall totals, in the way a completed survey response does. You can ask us about your data at any time at support@jyotim.com.
Grievance Officer
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, contact our Grievance Officer:
- Email: grievance@jyotim.com
- Address: A-19, Ground Floor, FIEE Complex, Okhla Industrial Area Phase-2, New Delhi, Delhi 110020, India
We will acknowledge your complaint within 7 days and resolve it within the period required by law. If you remain dissatisfied, you may escalate to the Data Protection Board of India.
7. Children
Jyotim is meant for adults. We do not ask your age when you sign in. Under India's DPDP Act anyone under 18 is a child, and a child's personal data may be processed only with a parent's or guardian's consent — so if you are under 18, please use Jyotim only with a parent's or guardian's permission.
The kundli reading checks again. It is the one part of the app that asks for a birth date, and if the date entered shows the person is under 18, the reading is not generated and the details are not saved.
If you believe a child is using an account without a parent's or guardian's consent, contact us at support@jyotim.com and we will delete that account.
8. Security
Personal data on your device is encrypted.
Your phone number and your profile are held on our servers in India, restricted so that only the sign-in system can read them, and never written into logs or analytics.
No system is perfectly secure, and we will not claim otherwise. What we can say is that we hold as little as possible: your birth details and your kundli never reach us at all, so no breach of ours can expose them.
9. Changes to this policy
If we change what we collect or how we use it — for example if we start keeping something new on our servers, or if we add a new provider — we will update this policy and the "Last updated" date above, and where the change is significant we will tell you inside the app.
10. Contact
Email: support@jyotim.com Address: A-19, Ground Floor, FIEE Complex, Okhla Industrial Area Phase-2, New Delhi, Delhi 110020, India