Privacy & Cookie Policy

Vedha360 is offered in India and in a range of other countries (for example the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, the UAE and other Gulf states). It is not offered to, or directed at, residents of the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, Russia, or mainland China, and is not intended for use there. If you are in one of those regions, please do not use the Service.

• Account (when you sign in): a Firebase user id, and an email address or the identifier from your chosen sign-in provider (Google, Microsoft, X). Anonymous use creates only a random device-linked id.
• Preferences you set: language, text size, chosen deity (iṣṭa-devatā), city/approximate location for the Panchāng (optional), reminders, and your consent choices.
• Content you create (stored only with your consent): journal entries, and—if you are a Premium member—private deity images you upload.
• Voice recordings: if you use “record-your-own” mantras, we capture audio from your device microphone (only when you start a recording), upload it, and store it on our servers. Your recordings are private to you and are not shared.
• Pooja booking details: if you book a pooja, the sankalpa the rite requires — the names of those it is offered for, your gotra, and where the rite calls for it, a birth nakṣatra or the names of your departed. We collect these only because the rite cannot be performed without them.
• Live pooja sessions: while a session is running, your audio (only if you turn your microphone on) passes through our streaming provider so the priest can hear you. Your camera is never switched on.
• Recorded poojas: you are not present and nothing of yours is captured. The video is of the priest performing the rite, and it names you and your family aloud because the sankalpa requires it.
• Activity: features you use, reading progress, and your questions to “Ask Vedha,” used to provide and improve those features.
• Device & technical data: app version, device type, language, and basic diagnostics.
• Payment data: subscriptions are processed by Apple, Google, or Razorpay. We receive confirmation of your purchase and entitlement—we do not receive or store your full card details.
• Analytics: anonymous usage measurement, only if you accept analytics cookies.

Your spiritual and religious preferences are sensitive personal data. We collect them only with your explicit consent, store the minimum needed, never sell them, and never use them to build an advertising profile. Your “Ask Vedha” questions are processed only to answer them. You can withdraw consent or delete this data at any time.

• To provide the Service (readings, daily wisdom, Panchāng, Ask Vedha, reminders, the Virtual Temple).
• To remember your preferences and personalise your experience, where you’ve consented.
• To process subscriptions and provide support.
• To keep the Service secure and prevent abuse (including screening uploaded images for safety).
• To improve the Service through anonymous analytics, where you’ve accepted them.

• Essential — required for the site to work (e.g. remembering your language and consent choice, keeping you signed in). Always on.
• Analytics — optional, anonymous usage measurement to improve the app. Off unless you accept.

We do not use third-party advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. You choose via the consent banner, and can clear cookies in your browser at any time to be asked again. The mobile apps do not use cookies; equivalent choices are in Me → Privacy & data.

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with service providers who help us run Vedha360, under contracts that limit their use of it:

• Google Firebase — sign-in and authentication, and abuse prevention via Firebase App Check (Google reCAPTCHA v3), which sends device and behavioural signals to Google to confirm requests come from a genuine app.
• Cloudflare — bot and abuse screening at sign-up via Cloudflare Turnstile, which sends your IP address and basic browser signals to Cloudflare to distinguish humans from bots.
• Microsoft Azure OpenAI / Anthropic — AI providers that power “Ask Vedha”. When you ask a question, the question text is sent to the provider solely to generate an answer; it is not used to train their models.
• Microsoft Azure — hosting, database, and infrastructure.
• LiveKit — the streaming provider that carries a live pooja session between you and your priest. Audio and video pass through it in order to reach the other end.
• Apple, Google, Razorpay — subscription and pooja payments.
• Analytics provider — anonymous usage, only with your consent.

Separately from these providers, if you book a pooja we give your sankalpa details to the priest performing it. They are an independent practitioner, not a processor acting on our instructions, and they receive those details for one reason: to name you correctly during the rite. They receive your names, gotra and any nakṣatra or departed-name details the rite requires. They donot receive your email address, your account, or any other booking.

We may also disclose data if required by law or to protect rights and safety.

Vedha360 is operated from India and your data is primarily processed and stored on Microsoft Azure infrastructure in India. By using the Service from another country, you understand your data is processed in India under this policy.

We use industry-standard safeguards (encryption in transit, access controls). No method is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your data. We keep personal data only as long as needed to provide the Service or as required by law, and delete or anonymise it after that. You can delete any individual voice recording at any time, and all of your recordings are deleted when you delete your account. You can delete your account at any time, which removes your personal data.

• Access & export — get a copy of your data (in-app: Me → Privacy & data → Download my data).
• Delete — erase your account and data (in-app, or by emailing us).
• Withdraw consent — turn off any optional processing at any time.
• Do not sell/share — we don’t sell your data; nothing to opt out of, but you may contact us to confirm.

To exercise any of these, use the in-app controls or email privacy@vedha360.com. Residents of certain U.S. states (e.g. California) have additional rights, which we honour on request.

Vedha360 is intended for adults. We do not knowingly create accounts for, or collect personal data from, children under 13. The children’s stories are designed to be read by a parent to a child from the parent’s own account—we do not collect any data from the child. If you believe a child has provided us data, contact us and we will delete it.

Booking a pooja involves the most sensitive data we handle, so it is worth setting out plainly. This applies whether the rite is delivered live or as a recording.

• Your sankalpa — names, gotra, nakṣatra, and for a śrāddha the names of your departed — is sensitive personal data under India’s DPDP Act. We collect it only because the rite requires it, show it only to the priest performing your booking, never publish it, and delete it when you delete your account.
• The session is private to your booking. Access is granted per person for the scheduled time only; there is no shareable meeting link, and nobody else can join. A recorded pooja has no audience at all — only the priest is present.
• Your camera is never enabled. Where the rite calls for you to repeat the sankalpa aloud, you choose whether to switch your microphone on, and you can switch it off again at any time.
• We may record a live session — as a keepsake for you, and as evidence if a booking is later disputed. Where a session is being recorded we tell you before it begins and show an indicator throughout.
• A recorded pooja is recorded by definition; that is what you are buying, and we say so before you pay.
• Any recording is private to you and to us. It is never published. You watch it through a link that is created when you press play and expires after a short time, so there is no permanent address that could be forwarded or indexed. You can ask us to delete it, and it is deleted with your account.
• Your priest is told your first name and your sankalpa. They are not given your email address or your account details.

This section applies if you apply to offer poojas on Vedha360 as a priest. It covers what we collect during your application and verification, and what becomes public if you are approved.

• What we collect: your identity details (full legal name, display name, date of birth, mobile number, email, languages, sampradāya, Veda śākhā, years of experience, training and credentials, and a short introduction); your photo; proof of identity (the ID type, the ID number, a copy of the ID document, and any certificates you choose to upload); your address; the temples where you serve; the rites you perform and how; your weekly availability; and notes our verification team keeps of its calls and conversations with you.
• Why: to verify your identity and credentials before you are listed, and to keep the families who book you safe. We rely on your consent under India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, which you give on the application form before submitting.
• Aadhaar: we never collect or store a full Aadhaar number. If you choose Aadhaar as your ID, we ask only for the UIDAI masked Aadhaar (with the first 8 digits hidden) and the last 4 digits of your number. A full 12-digit Aadhaar number is refused by the form and by our servers.
• Who can see it: only named members of the Vedha360 verification team. ID documents are kept in private storage and are opened only through links that expire after 5 minutes; every view is logged against the staff member who opened it.
• What becomes public: only if you are approved, your public profile shows your display name, photo, tradition, languages, temples (by name and city), and short introduction. Your legal name, date of birth, contact details, address, ID details and documents are never shown publicly.
• Retention: if your application is rejected or withdrawn, your ID documents are deleted after 90 days. If you are approved, your records are kept for as long as you are listed with us.
• Your rights: you may ask to see or correct what you have given us, and you may withdraw your application (and your consent) at any time — from the application page while it is open, or by writing to us at the address in the Contact section below.

We do not collect your PAN or bank details on the application. If you are approved, payouts are set up separately through our payment provider, Razorpay, which carries out its own verification.

Premium members may upload a private image of their cherished deity for the Virtual Temple. These images are private to you, are screened automatically for safety before being stored, and are not shared. You are responsible for having the right to use any image you upload, and you can delete it at any time.

We may update this policy; material changes will be notified in-app or by email and the “last updated” date above will change.

Questions or requests? Email privacy@vedha360.com.