Privacy Policy

Last updated 28 October 2026 · version 2026-10-28

Vanagrha is free for members. We do not sell your data, show ads, or build profiles for advertising. Here is what we hold, why, who else sees it, how long we keep it, and what you can do about it.

Who we are

Vanagrha (the app at app.vanagrha.in) is run by AG OPC, registered at Life Science Education Trust, 57/1, Agrahara, Yelahanka, Kogilu, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560064 (“we”, “us”). We decide why and how your personal data is used, so under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 we are the “data fiduciary”.

AG OPC also offers garden design and building services. Your Vanagrha data is not used to sell you those services. We will only contact you about them if you separately ask us to, or opt in to it.

Our Grievance Officer is Anish Garg, Director, Vanagrha. Write to anish@vanagrha.com, or use the complaints form (no account needed). This one address is for everything: complaints, privacy questions and security problems.

Who can use Vanagrha

Vanagrha is for people aged 18 or older. When you sign up, you confirm this with a separate tick, and we record when you did. If we learn that someone under 18 has an account, we close it and delete their data.

Vanagrha is offered to people in India.

What we collect and why

We collect only what the app needs. The table lists each kind of data, why we use it, and who can see it.

Data we collect
What	Why we use it	Who can see it
Sign-in details: your email address. If you sign in with Google, Google tells us your email and (if you allow it) your name and photo.	To create your account and sign you in. To contact you about your account.	Only you and us. We do not copy your Google name or photo into your profile unless you add them.
Your profile: the handle you choose; a name, photo and city if you add them.	To show who made a garden, comment or answer, and to show gardens near you.	Everyone (your handle, and your name, photo and city if you add them).
Your agreements: which version of the Terms you accepted, which version of this policy you consented to, when, and when you confirmed you are 18 or older; when you last saw the house rules.	To prove what you agreed to, as the law requires, and to remind you of the rules every 3 months.	Only us.
What you make: gardens (title, plan, plants, notes, photos), comments, questions, answers, experiences and suggested plant facts.	To keep your work, show it to others when you choose, and run the community.	Only you, unless you share it.
Your garden’s place: the point you pin on the map, or your device’s location if you allow it. The outline you trace on the map.	To work out sun, climate and weather for your garden.	Only you. It is removed from any garden you share.
What you do in the app: likes, saves, follows, gardens you mark “not interested”, people you block or mute, reports and appeals.	To show your feed, protect you from people you blocked, run reports fairly, and stop abuse.	Numbers of likes and followers are public, and so is whom you follow. Blocks, mutes, reports and “not interested” are private.
Garden view counts: how many times each shared garden was viewed.	To show gardeners how many people saw their garden.	Totals only. We keep no record of which gardens you viewed.
Notification settings: if you turn on notifications, your browser’s push address for your device, and which kinds of notice you want.	To send care reminders and replies to your phone.	Only us, and the browser company’s service that delivers the message.
Error reports: if the app crashes, a short technical report: the error, where in our code it happened, your browser and system type, the app version and the time. Emails, numbers, places and IDs are masked out first.	To find and fix bugs.	Only us and Sentry, our error-reporting service. It has no name, email, account, IP address, location or anything you wrote, and is kept 30 days.
Security records: when you sign in, delete your account or download your data; your IP address and device details in our providers’ logs.	To keep the service safe, investigate misuse, and keep the logs the law requires.	Only us and our providers.
Complaints and reports: what you tell us, your email, and your name if you give it, whether or not you have an account.	To deal with your complaint or report, as the IT Rules require.	Only us. Automated tools help us sort them (see below).

What we do not collect: no advertising or analytics trackers and no tracking cookies; no contacts list, no microphone, and no camera except when you choose to take or pick a photo; no payment details (nothing is paid for in the app); no government ID, and no passwords.

We use your data only to run your account; keep and show your gardens and posts; work out sun, climate and weather; send the notifications you asked for; run the community fairly and keep it safe; meet our legal duties; and answer you. We do not sell your data, use it for advertising, or use it to market our other services to you.

What is public

Your handle is public. So are your name, photo and city if you add them.
A garden you share is visible as you chose: to everyone, or only to people with the link. Its location is never shown. Gardens shared with everyone can be copied by other members with “Make it mine”: they get a copy of the plan, credited to you, without your photos.
Text you contribute (comments, answers, experiences, questions and plant-fact suggestions) is public under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence (CC BY-SA 4.0), so anyone may reuse it if they credit you. See the Terms.
Your photos stay yours. You give us a licence to show them as you chose.
If someone copied or reused your text or plan while it was public, we cannot take their copy back.

We use these companies to run the service. They process data for us, under contract, only to provide their service to us. Our main database is in Singapore, so most of your data is stored outside India.

Companies that handle data for Vanagrha
Company	What for	Where
Supabase	Database, sign-in and server functions	Singapore
Amazon Web Services (S3)	Photos and files, and our nightly database backup	Mumbai, India
Railway	Hosting the app	Singapore
Anthropic (Claude API)	Sorting reports so the most urgent reach a person first: text and details only, never images or who you are. Under Anthropic’s commercial terms it may not use what we send to train its models, and it deletes it within 30 days unless the law or its usage policy requires it to keep it longer	United States
Mapbox	The satellite map and place search	United States
Open-Meteo	Weather forecasts. Our server asks for them with your garden’s position rounded to about 1 km; Open-Meteo does not see your IP address	Switzerland
Sentry (Functional Software, Inc.)	Error reports when the app crashes, with no personal details	Germany (EU)
Cloudflare (Turnstile)	A check at sign-in that you are not a bot	Global
GitHub (Microsoft)	Runs our nightly backup job; the database passes through its server and is encrypted there before it is stored	United States
Resend	Sending sign-in emails	United States

Some companies act on their own account, under their own privacy policies, not for us:

Google, if you choose Sign in with Google.
Mapbox and Cloudflare may collect technical data about your device and use of the map or the bot check, for their own security and service.
Google, Apple or Mozilla, whose push services deliver notifications to your browser if you turn notifications on.

Your data may therefore be transferred to the countries above. We also share data with courts, police or government bodies when the law requires it, and then only what is lawfully asked for.

How automated tools help us. Automated tools, including Anthropic's Claude, help us sort and prioritise reports, so the most urgent reach a person first. They never dismiss, close or decide a report or complaint: a person does. We never send images to them. Our system also automatically hides some content while it waits for a person (see the Community Guidelines).

How long we keep it

How long data is kept
Data	How long
Your account, gardens, posts and photos	Until you delete them or your account. When you delete your account, it is closed at once, and your gardens, posts and saved plants are removed from Vanagrha straight away.
Photo files after you delete them or your account	Deleted from our storage within 30 days
Content we removed, and your registration details after you leave (email, sign-up and last sign-in dates, handle, name, and the versions you accepted)	180 days, as the IT Rules require, in a store no one can reach through the app. Then deleted.
Database backups	Every night an encrypted copy of the database is stored in our storage in Mumbai, and each copy is deleted after 7 days, so deleted data can remain in a backup that long.
“Not interested” choices	30 days
Security records (sign-ins, deletions, downloads, admin actions)	1 year
Complaints, reports and moderation decisions	3 years after the matter is closed
Error reports	30 days
Garden view totals	With the garden. No record of who viewed

Your rights and how to use them

These rights become legal rights under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 on 13 May 2027. We honour them now, as our policy. You may:

Get your data. Settings, Download my data, gives you one file with everything you made and what we hold about your account.
Correct it. Change your handle, name, photo and city in your profile. For anything else, write to anish@vanagrha.com.
Delete it. Settings, Delete my account. “How long we keep it” above explains what is kept, and for how long.
Withdraw consent. Turn off location or notifications in Settings or in your phone or browser, or delete your account. Withdrawing is as easy as giving consent.
Know who we shared it with. Write to anish@vanagrha.com.
Nominate someone to use your rights if you die or cannot act. Write to anish@vanagrha.com from your account's email, with your nominee's name and contact details. When they act, we ask them for proof of who they are and of the death or incapacity.
Complain. Use the complaints form or write to anish@vanagrha.com.

If you write to us, please write from the email address on your account, so that we know it is you. We reply within 7 days.

Things we ask you about separately

Each is asked when it is needed, and you can say no and still use Vanagrha:

your device's location, to place your garden;
notifications, such as care reminders;
any marketing, or any contact about our garden design or building services. We send none today. If that changes, we will ask first, separately.

Keeping it safe, and breaches

Data is encrypted in transit, and our database and file-storage providers encrypt it at rest. Access to the database is limited by strict rules for each kind of data, and admin access needs two-step sign-in. You can turn on two-step sign-in for your own account in Settings. Hidden data in photos, such as GPS position, is stripped when they are uploaded.

If a breach affects your data, we will tell you without delay, say what happened and what you can do, and report it to CERT-In and, from 13 May 2027, the Data Protection Board of India, as the law requires. To report a security problem, write to anish@vanagrha.com.

Storage on your device

The app keeps only what it needs on your device: your sign-in, gardens saved for offline use, your settings, and an offline copy of the app. There are no advertising or analytics cookies. Our Storage notice has the details.

Changes, versions and languages

This is version 2026-10-28. If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app and ask for your consent again. The English text is the one that counts. A Kannada version will be available by 13 May 2027.

Complaints

Please come to us first, at anish@vanagrha.com or through the complaints form. If you are unhappy with our answer, you may, from 13 May 2027, complain to the Data Protection Board of India.