Privacy policy
What we store and why — in plain language.
Draft: this page describes what the app actually does today. It must be reviewed by a lawyer (including India's DPDP Act 2023) before launch. A contact email will be added before launch.
In short
- You don't need an account to read. Readers have no accounts — accounts exist only for our reporters and editorial staff.
- No ad tracking, no third-party analytics, no social-media trackers. We do not sell your data.
Kept only on your device
- Your language, theme, text size and chosen area are stored as cookies, which the server reads only to show the page correctly.
- Saved stories and the places and reporters you follow are kept in your browser (localStorage), with a copy of your follows in a cookie so we can show you relevant news.
- If you allow location on the Nearby page, it is used in your browser to find nearby places; we do not store your precise location.
Stored on our server
- Alerts: if you turn on notifications we store a random device id (httpOnly cookie), the channels you picked, your area and your browser's push endpoint. Turning alerts off removes the push endpoint.
- Read counts: only a total and per-day number of reads for each story. We do not record who read what.
- News tips: the text, place and photo you send are stored for verification. If you give contact details they are kept separately, visible only to admins, and never published. Photos stay private until verified.
- Local marketplace listings: the details you submit (including any phone number) are stored and may be published after review.
- Story reports: the reason and details, plus a one-way hash of your connection to prevent abuse — never the raw IP address.
- Staff accounts: name, login id, password hash, two-factor settings, sign-in history and an action log. Documents uploaded for reporter verification are private.
- For rate limiting, IP addresses are held in server memory for a short time only and are not written to disk.
Third parties
- Weather: our server asks Open-Meteo using district-level coordinates. Your browser never contacts them and none of your data is sent.
- Channel news: our server fetches headlines from other outlets' RSS feeds. Their thumbnails load in your browser from those publishers' own image CDNs (without a referrer), so those CDNs can see your IP address. Reading the full story takes you to their site.
- X (Twitter) posts: only the post's text, author and date are shown from our server. Tapping through to X means X's own privacy policy applies.
- Web Push: notifications are delivered through your browser vendor's push service (Google, Mozilla, Apple or Microsoft).
Your choices
- Clearing your browser's cookies and site data removes everything kept on your device. You can switch alerts off on the You page.
- To have a tip or listing you sent removed, contact us.