Privacy Policy

1. Scope & Role

This Privacy Policy applies to the BharatGeoTag mobile, desktop and web application (the "Service") published by Trivartha ("we", "us", "our"). Trivartha is the Data Fiduciary of any personal data you choose to share with us through the in-app support, premium upgrade, or feedback flows, in accordance with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 ("DPDP Act").

Most data processed by BharatGeoTag — your photos, location fixes, project metadata and field reports — stays on your device. We do not operate a backend that ingests your captures. Where we do receive personal data (for example, your Google Play purchase receipt when you upgrade to BharatGeoTag Pro), we act as the Data Fiduciary and process it only for the purposes stated in this policy.

2. Key Definitions

• Personal Data / Personal Information — any data that identifies or can reasonably identify a natural person.
• Data Principal — the individual to whom Personal Data relates (you).
• Data Fiduciary — the entity that determines the purpose and means of processing (Trivartha).
• Data Processor — a third party that processes data on our behalf (e.g. Google Play Billing).
• Processing — any operation performed on Personal Data, including collection, storage, use, disclosure or erasure.

3. What We Collect

BharatGeoTag is designed around the principle of data minimisation. Below is the exhaustive list of data the Service may collect.

3.1 Data you capture directly (stored on-device)

3.2 Data we may receive when you contact us or upgrade

• Support communications — your name, email and the contents of any message you send to support@trivartha.com.
• Google Play purchase receipt — anonymised product identifier, purchase state, obfuscated account ID and signed purchase token, validated server-side via the Play Developer API solely to confirm Pro entitlement.
• Crash & error reports — none. The Service does not embed a crash-reporting SDK. Diagnostics stay inside the device's flutter console in debug builds only (kDebugMode-gated) and are never transmitted.
• Advertising — the free plan shows advertisements served by Google AdMob. When you have not opted out of personalised ads, the Google Mobile Ads SDK may read your device's advertising identifier (ANDROID_ID / gms_adid) and send it with the ad request so that ads can be selected and frequency-capped. That identifier is shared with Google and the ad networks in Google's mediation chain only as part of the ad request. It is not linked by us to your project, visit, inspection or property data and is not used for user management. Pro subscribers never see ads and no advertising data is collected for them.
• Limited analytics — the free plan reports a small set of advertising events (an ad impression, an ad click, a failed ad request, a rewarded-ad completion and the length of a foreground session) to Firebase Analytics. These events carry an ad-format label, a placement label and a numeric error code only — never your user id, email, GPS coordinates, project names, visit names or any photo. You can read what "About ads in BharatGeoTag" says in Settings → Privacy, and you can withdraw consent there at any time.

3.3 Data we explicitly do not collect

4. Permissions & Their Purpose

You may revoke any of the above permissions at any time through your device settings; doing so will disable the corresponding feature in the app and surface a friendly in-app message instead of crashing.

5. How We Use Your Data

• To provide the core Service — stamping the JPEG with location, address, sensor and weather data; persisting photos, projects, visits and inspections; generating PDF Field Reports.
• To honour your privacy preferences — the in-app PrivacyShareDialog lets you strip GPS or EXIF metadata from a copy of the JPEG before sharing. Your "remember my choice" preference is stored on-device.
• To manage your Pro entitlement — validating Google Play purchase receipts; storing the resulting entitlement in platform secure storage (Android Keystore / iOS Keychain / Linux libsecret / Windows DPAPI).
• To respond to you — when you write to support, we use the contact details you provided solely to reply.
• To comply with law — preserving records we are legally required to keep (for example, GST invoices for Pro purchases, retained by our payment processor).

6. Storage, Security & Retention

All user-generated content (photos, project data, custom fields, company branding, stamp templates, premium entitlement) is stored on your device in the application-private documents directory obtained from path_provider's getApplicationDocumentsDirectory(). Other apps and the operating system cannot read this directory without root access.

We apply the following technical safeguards:

• Atomic writes. Every JSON repository writes through a tmp → rename helper (core/security/path_safety.dart) so partial writes can never corrupt state.
• Path-traversal protection. User-supplied filenames are funnelled through safeBasename() before they reach the filesystem.
• Encrypted premium entitlement. The Pro entitlement is mirrored to platform secure storage, never to plain JSON on disk.
• Debug-only logging. AppLogger is gated by kDebugMode; release builds emit no log lines.
• Advertising (free plan only). To show and frequency-cap advertisements, and — only with your consent — to select ads that are relevant to you. You can withdraw this at any time; see Settings → Privacy.
• Zero-server capture. We have no remote service that receives your photos or location fixes.

7. Third-Party Services

The Service relies on a small, named set of third-party endpoints. Each is invoked only when you have explicitly enabled the feature in Settings, and only the minimum data needed to fulfil the request leaves the device.

8. Sharing & Disclosure

We do not sell, rent or trade your Personal Data. We share data only in the following narrow circumstances:

• With your action. When you tap Share, the app passes the selected JPEG/PDF to the OS share sheet. The recipient is chosen by you; from that point their privacy practices apply.
• With processors. Google (Play Billing), Apple (StoreKit) and our payment processor solely to validate Pro entitlement and pay us.
• With the advertising partner (free plan only). Google AdMob and the ad networks in Google's mediation chain receive the advertising identifier and the ad request so that an advertisement can be served and measured. This is the only disclosure of your advertising identifier. It happens only while you have not opted out of personalised ads, and it never happens for Pro subscribers. Turning on "Non-personalised ads" in Settings → Privacy stops the ad request from carrying the advertising identifier.
• For legal reasons. If we receive a valid order from a competent Indian authority, or to prevent imminent harm, in accordance with the DPDP Act and the Information Technology Act, 2000.
• In a business transfer. If Trivartha is acquired or merges, Personal Data held by us may be transferred to the acquirer under confidentiality obligations no less protective than this policy.

9. Children's Privacy

The Service is intended for professional users (engineers, surveyors, inspectors, journalists, project managers) and is not directed to children under 18. We do not knowingly collect Personal Data from children. If you believe a child has provided us data, contact the Grievance Officer and we will erase it.

10. Your Rights & Choices (DPDP Act 2023)

As a Data Principal you have the right to:

• Confirm whether we process your Personal Data.
• Request access to a summary of the Personal Data and the processing activities related to you.
• Correct inaccurate or misleading Personal Data.
• Erase Personal Data (subject to lawful retention grounds).
• Withdraw consent at any time, with the same ease as it was given.
• Nominee appointment — under §11 of the DPDP Act, you may nominate another individual to exercise your rights in the event of your death or incapacity.
• Grievance redressal — file a complaint with our Grievance Officer (see §13).

Most of these rights can be exercised immediately and automatically from within the app — see our Data Deletion and Account Deletion guides. For anything that requires our involvement, we will respond within 15 days, as required by the DPDP Act.

11. International Transfers

We are headquartered in India and the on-device data we describe above never leaves India. The limited data we receive through Google Play Billing may be processed on Google's global infrastructure; by using the Service you understand that Google may process such data outside India under its own privacy framework. In the free plan, the advertising identifier and the ad request are also processed on Google's global advertising infrastructure for the same reason. We do not transfer your on-device content (photos, GPS fixes, project or visit data) to any overseas recipient.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The Effective date at the top of this page reflects the latest revision. Material changes (for example, a new third-party processor) will be announced through an in-app banner at next launch. Continued use of the Service after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

13. Contact & Grievance Officer

For any question, complaint, or to exercise your rights under the DPDP Act / IT Act, please contact:

If we are unable to resolve your complaint within 15 days, you may escalate it to the Data Protection Board of India under §27 of the DPDP Act, 2023.