Privacy policy
Effective 1 October 2026
Bharpai exists to settle group expenses, not to collect data. This page lists everything we store, why, who else touches it, how long we keep it, and your rights. Bharpai is run by Sourav Mishra, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India, who is the data fiduciary under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.
Children
Bharpai is only for people 18 and older, the age of adulthood under Indian data protection law. The app asks you to confirm this before it takes your email, and the waitlist asks too. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18, we do not track or profile children, and we show no ads to anyone. If you believe a child has given us their data, write to support@bharpai.app and we will delete it.
What we store
When you use the app signed in, your data lives on our servers in Mumbai, India, tied to your account, so a new phone or a reinstall gets everything back the moment you sign in. The phone keeps a copy so the app works offline.
- If you use the app: your email address (your account), and the splits you create, tied to your account so they come back when you sign in on another phone: titles, amounts, and the names of the people you picked. The app can read your contacts on your phone to fill names in; only the names you pick are ever uploaded, never your contact book or phone numbers.
- Your account backup: your display name, optional profile photo, UPI IDs, language, and if you use Pro, your rosters, templates and recurring split settings, plus small notes on each split such as whether you archived it. These are kept so a new phone gets everything back.
- Sign-in sessions: a random token per signed-in phone. We store only a scrambled form of it. Logging out ends that phone's session.
- If you run or join a khata: the khata name, member names, expenses, and the UPI ID each member chooses to add so others can pay them.
- If you pay through a settle or khata link: the name you tap, any partial amount and reason you type, and an anonymous device identifier in a cookie so the page remembers who you are. No account, no phone number, no email.
- If you join the waitlist: your name, email address, the IP address you signed up from (only to stop one source flooding the list), that you confirmed you are 18 or older, and whether the welcome email reached you.
- Sign-in codes: a one-time code tied to your email, deleted when used or after 10 minutes.
- Server logs: each request's time, path, status and IP address, kept 14 days to investigate faults and abuse, then deleted automatically.
What never touches us
- Your money. Payments move directly between UPI apps. We have no wallet, no escrow, no payment gateway, and we never see or hold funds.
- Your bank details. We never ask for OTPs, PINs, card numbers, or bank credentials, anywhere, ever. Anyone who does while claiming to be Bharpai is a fraudster.
- Your receipts. Bill photos are read on your phone, on-device. The image is never uploaded.
- Your screen. No session recording, no screen replay, no keystroke capture, in the app or on any page.
Who else handles data for us
| Service | What for | What it sees |
|---|---|---|
| Vultr (servers in Mumbai, India) | Runs the Bharpai server and database | Everything listed above |
| Google Workspace | Sends sign-in codes and emails | Your email address and the message |
| Google Play and RevenueCat | Sell and verify Pro subscriptions | A pseudonymous licence ID and your purchase; Google holds the payment details, we never see them |
| Vercel | Hosts bharpai.app and counts page views | Your IP address when you visit the website; the page-view counter sets no cookies and builds no profile |
| Google ML Kit | Reads receipt photos, on the phone | The photo is processed on your phone and never uploaded. Google's library may send Google anonymous performance statistics about the scanner itself. |
| Cloudflare Turnstile | Checks the waitlist form is used by a person, not a bot | Browser signals and IP address on that form only |
Fonts, scripts and images on every Bharpai page are served from our own domains, so opening a settle link sends nothing to Google or any font service. Some of these providers process data outside India; they do so under contract and only to provide their service to us.
Cookies
Bharpai uses two small cookies and nothing that tracks you across sites:
| Cookie | Where | Why | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| sp_device | Settle and khata pages | A random ID so the page remembers which name you picked and what you marked as paid. Without it, anyone on your phone could lose your place. | 1 year |
| bp_lang | Khata pages | Remembers English or Hindi after you tap the language switch. | 1 year |
Both are needed for the page to work as you asked, so there is no cookie banner. There are no advertising, analytics or third-party cookies. The website's page-view counter sets no cookies at all.
What we never do
We do not sell or share your data with anyone for their own use. We show no ads. We do not use third-party analytics that profile you. Usage numbers we look at are aggregate counts on our own server.
Emails
Sign-in codes are sent only when you ask for one. Waitlist emails are sent only if you joined the list; every one of them has a one-click unsubscribe link and our postal address, and unsubscribing takes effect immediately.
Your rights
Under the DPDP Act, 2023 you can ask us what personal data we hold about you, have it corrected or completed, have it erased, withdraw consent at any time, and nominate someone to exercise these rights if you die or become unable to. Write to support@bharpai.app; we answer within 15 days.
Retention and deletion
We keep your account data on our servers for as long as your account exists, and delete it when you delete the account. A split or khata you delete is removed from our servers straight away, along with its settle link. To delete your account and everything tied to your email on our servers, use bharpai.app/delete-account: it takes a one-time code and finishes on the spot. The same option is in the app under Settings, Delete account. Both remove your splits, khatas, account backup and sessions with it. Logging out clears this phone and ends its session; your account and its data stay until you delete them. Server logs expire on their own after 14 days.
Grievance officer
Sourav Mishra, Grievance Officer, Bharpai, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. support@bharpai.app with the subject "Grievance". We acknowledge within 24 hours and resolve within 15 days. You can also complain to the Data Protection Board of India.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date above changes with it, and material changes will be announced in the app before they take effect.
Questions: support@bharpai.app