Privacy Policy

1. What we collect

When you sign up, we collect your phone number (the only required field — it powers your account). When you fill in your profile, we additionally collect: name, surname, city + PIN code, gender, date of birth, and optionally an email address, profile photo, sub-community, and short bio. If you list a profession, we record the profession, specialty, and your description of what you do.

We do not collect your home address. Listings for things like a room, a vehicle, or a PG carry only the area/city/PIN; the exact location is shared directly between members when they connect, never published. Business and service listings carry full address and hours because the whole point of those is to be findable.

2. How we use it

Your profile powers the member directory, the cross-community search (Community Intelligence), and the matching that lets seekers find offers and vice versa. Contact details are gated — counts are visible; phone and email are revealed only when a member actively connects with you, or when you have an active listing where contact is the whole point.

3. Aggregate vs individual

Community Intelligence shows counts — e.g. “12 doctors across Mumbai” — not lists of names. Drill-downs reveal individuals only after a member opts to contact, and only the contact details that member has chosen to expose. Phone numbers, emails, and dates of birth are never shown in aggregate views; year-of-birth bands are derived server-side so the raw DOB is never returned to the browser.

4. WhatsApp messaging & opt-in (Meta-required clause)

At sign-up you can opt in to receive WhatsApp messages from Jay Hatkesh. We send two types of WhatsApp messages, both via Meta WhatsApp Cloud API using pre-approved templates:

• Utility notifications — e.g. when another member expresses interest in your listing, or when your listing is about to expire. Triggered by your own activity.
• The fortnightly community digest — at most one curated WhatsApp message every 15 days, with new listings, professional spotlights, and community events. Marketing-category template.

You can opt out at any time from your profile settings; the next sync will exclude you from any further WhatsApp sends. The sign-in OTP itself is delivered over WhatsApp using an Authentication-category template and is not subject to the opt-in — without it you cannot sign in.

5. Email

Email is optional. We only ever send: payment receipts for the listing fee, and an OTP fallback if WhatsApp delivery fails. Every email carries an unsubscribe link. We do not use email for discovery or marketing.

6. Who else sees your data

We do not sell member data. We use the following service providers strictly to operate the platform, and only the minimum data they need for their function:

• Supabase — database, authentication, storage.
• Meta — WhatsApp message delivery via the Cloud API.
• Razorpay — payment processing for the listing fee.
• Resend — transactional email delivery (receipts, OTP fallback).
• Vercel — web hosting + edge delivery.
• Anthropic (Claude API) — Gujarati spelling checks and editorial assistance for the magazine; member text only, no personal data sent.

7. Data deletion

You can request deletion of your account and personal data at any time — see Data & Account Deletion for how. Deletion removes your profile, listings, inquiries, and reviews you authored. Records that are part of a community audit trail (e.g. reports about other members you filed, or payments you made) are anonymised rather than deleted, to keep the connector audit honest.

8. Security

Database access is row-level-secured: a member cannot read another member's gated contact details unless they have connected. Server-only secrets (payment keys, message-delivery tokens, signing secrets) are never shipped to the browser. Sessions are short-lived access tokens auto-refreshed by the client; refresh tokens are stored in platform-secure storage (httpOnly cookies on web, device keychain on mobile).

9. Children

Jay Hatkesh is not directed at users under 18. If you believe a minor has signed up, contact us and we will remove the account.

10. Changes to this policy

Material changes trigger a re-acceptance flow at next sign-in. The version you accepted is stored on your member record.

11. Contact

For privacy questions or data-deletion requests, contact us at legal@jayhatkesh.in.