Privacy Policy

1. Information you choose to provide

Ordinary browsing does not require a Bharat Sethu account. When you submit or manage content, contact us, volunteer, or use an interactive feature, you may provide information such as:

• name, email address and phone/mobile number;
• business or service details and public contact information;
• event details, venue information and event flyers/images;
• volunteer interests and messages;
• messages entered into Sahaya Sethu or other search/help features.

Some listing contact information is intended for public display when a listing is approved. Private management or submitter contact information is used for administration and is not intentionally published unless the form clearly identifies it as public-facing.

2. How information is used

• to review, approve, reject, update or remove submitted listings and events;
• to contact a submitter when clarification or follow-up is needed;
• to provide listing-owner and volunteer workflows;
• to operate search, site navigation, anti-abuse controls and service reliability;
• to send submission and moderation notifications;
• to improve Bharat Sethu's community content and user experience.

3. Flyer reading and AI-assisted features

When you choose Read flyer & pre-fill event details, the selected flyer is sent securely to OpenAI for visual extraction of event information. Bharat Sethu requests that this processing be performed without storing the image for model-training purposes. The pre-fill step does not itself publish or save the flyer in Bharat Sethu; the original flyer is stored by Bharat Sethu only when you submit the event.

Sahaya Sethu may also send the text of your query, together with limited Bharat Sethu context needed to answer it, to OpenAI. Do not enter passwords, payment-card details or other highly sensitive information into these features.

4. Infrastructure and service providers

Bharat Sethu uses Cloudflare infrastructure to deliver the site/app, store approved content and uploaded media, apply rate limits and protect services from abuse. OpenAI is used for selected AI-assisted features described above. Email delivery providers may process recipient addresses and message contents needed to send administrative or submission emails.

5. Device, network and analytics information

Bharat Sethu may process limited technical information supplied by your browser or network, such as an IP address, for security, rate limiting and abuse prevention. The project also uses privacy-oriented counters/analytics for aggregate usage such as visits or app-install events. Bharat Sethu is designed not to require access to your contacts, SMS messages, call logs, precise location, microphone, camera or general device files for ordinary browsing.

6. Images and files

When you deliberately choose a flyer, logo or other image, Bharat Sethu processes that selected file for the purpose shown in the form. The Android application is intended to use the system file/photo picker rather than broad storage access.

7. Retention and moderation

Submitted records may be retained while they are pending review and, if approved, while they remain useful to the community. Administrative and audit records may be retained where needed for integrity, security, dispute handling and safe moderation. Time-limited event and offer content can expire from public display according to the dates associated with that content.

8. Your choices

You may choose not to submit optional information. Listing owners can use the private management workflow made available to the verified management email/device. You can also request correction or removal of information you submitted. A dedicated deletion-request page is available at bharatsethu.com/data-deletion, subject to legitimate administrative, security and legal retention needs.

9. Children

Bharat Sethu is a general community service and is not designed or directed specifically to children. The Google Play release is intended for adults aged 18 and over.

10. Security

Bharat Sethu uses HTTPS and server-side controls intended to protect data in transit and reduce unauthorised access. No online service can guarantee absolute security, so users should avoid submitting information that is not needed for the community purpose.

11. Changes to this policy

This policy may be updated when Bharat Sethu features, providers or legal requirements change. The effective date above will be updated when material changes are published.

12. Contact

For privacy questions or corrections, contact admin@bharatsethu.com. For deletion requests, use the dedicated Data Deletion Request page.

This policy describes the current Bharat Sethu service. Store-specific disclosures, including Google Play's Data safety section, are maintained consistently with the app's implemented behaviour.