Privacy Policy

Last updated: 4 October 2026

This Privacy Policy describes how GaadiMate ("we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, and protects your personal data when you use the GaadiMate mobile application and website (collectively, the "Service"). It is issued in compliance with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 ("DPDP Act") and the Information Technology Act, 2000.

1. Who we are

GaadiMate is operated by Shweta Chaudhary as a sole proprietorship based in India. For the purposes of the DPDP Act, we are the "Data Fiduciary" responsible for processing your personal data. You, the user, are the "Data Principal."

2. Data we collect

We collect only the minimum data needed to provide the Service.

2.1 Vehicle information

• Vehicle Registration Number (e.g. DL3CAB1234)
• RC details: make, model, variant, fuel type, registration date, owner name as it appears on the RC, chassis and engine numbers (only the last 4 digits are stored; the rest is masked)
• Insurance details: insurer name, policy number, expiry date
• Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificate validity
• Traffic challan (e-challan) records, fetched against your registration number when you ask for them
• Service history you enter or upload (dates, kilometres, work performed)
• Photographs of service center bills you choose to scan

2.2 Account and contact information

• Phone number (optional, for sign-in). The sign-in code is shown to you by the app itself, as a notification on the same phone; we do not send an SMS, so signing in does not prove that the number is yours. Signing in establishes an identity and nothing more: your vehicles, service history, bills, and reminders stay on your device and are not uploaded to an account.

2.3 Optional data

• Vendor contacts you save yourself (name, phone number, address, opening hours), kept on your device so your mechanic, tyre shop, or towing contact is at hand, including on the emergency screen
• Your location, only if you use the nearby-help feature (where it is available in your version of the app) and allow the location permission: your current position, or an area name you type, used to list service centers, tyre shops, towing, and battery shops near you
• Ratings you choose to give a service center after scanning a bill: a star rating, three yes/no answers, and an optional private note of up to 500 characters. A rating is kept with the workshop's details as printed on the bill (its name, its city or pincode, and its phone number) and a one-way hash of your device identifier. If the bill prints no area, the area you type is used
• Suggestions you send (Help build GaadiMate): the kind you pick (something isn't working, an idea, something could be better, or something that worries you), the text you write (up to 1,000 characters), the screen you pick, if any, and your one answer if we ask you a question about it. Only if you turn on "Credit me as": the first name and city you type. Each suggestion is kept with your phone's platform (Android or iOS), the app version, the status we give it and any note we show you with it, and the hashes described under Help build GaadiMate in Section 4

2.4 Technical data

• Your app's version, stored alongside a hashed device identifier with our crash records, scan-diagnostic records, and app-usage records; it is not stored with the current advisor chat records described in Section 4. Each stored advisor chat record carries its own internal prompt-revision tag instead, stamped by the backend, which says which version of the advisor answered and nothing about your device
• A device identifier: the app makes a random identifier for your installation and sends it with each request to our backend. The backend keeps only a one-way hash of it. For installations the backend registers, it also keeps a one-way hash of the app's install identifier and a one-way hash of the network (IP) address the installation registered or first called from, together with usage counters and timestamps, so that we can apply fair-use limits
• Lookup limits: a keyed one-way hash of each registration number you look up (never the number itself), linked to your device's hash, and counts of lookups per day, so that one person cannot fetch records in bulk and so that we can control what each lookup costs us
• App-usage events: which steps you reach in onboarding, sign-in, and adding a vehicle (for example, the registration number was refused on format, or a lookup failed and the coded reason), and, for reminders, whether you allowed notifications, whether a renewal or service reminder was scheduled or tapped, and whether a document's expiry passed unrenewed. These are coded events and small counts, with no registration number, document date, name, or typed text. Each is stored with the time the event happened, the app version, and a hashed device identifier. When the app lacks a picture for your vehicle's model, generation, and colour, it also reports that combination (with no device identifier) so we can add the picture
• Scan diagnostics: for each bill scan, whether it started, finished or failed, the kind of failure, how long each stage took, the number of pages, whether it was a PDF, whether a corrective second read was needed, whether the retake-photo card was shown, whether the phone lacked the image-processing module, and the app version. No bill contents

3. How we use your data

• To track renewal dates (PUC, insurance, scheduled service) and remind you before they expire
• To suggest service intervals based on your vehicle's manufacturer recommendations
• To analyse service center bills you upload, comparing line items against typical service schedules and flagging items that may not be necessary
• To answer questions you ask the in-app advisor about your vehicle, using the records you already hold in the app
• To show you the vendor contacts you have saved, including from the emergency screen
• To improve the advisor using de-identified records of advisor questions and answers, unless you turn off More → Settings → Help improve advisor answers, which is on by default
• To find and fix failures and crashes, to see how many people get through setup and adding a vehicle, and to apply fair-use limits on lookups, scans, and advisor use per device
• To list nearby service centers, tyre shops, towing, and battery shops for you, and to show ratings from other owners, including a workshop's score on the bill screen, which appears only after 3 or more phones have rated it
• To decide which vehicle models, service-bill wordings, and vehicle pictures we should add next
• To read and act on the suggestions you send through Help build GaadiMate, to show you what happened to each one and any badge it earned, and, only if you turn on "Credit me as", to credit you in What's new

4. Where your data is stored

The vast majority of your vehicle data lives on your device, not on our servers. A local SQLite database on your phone holds your vehicle records, service history, reminders, and uploaded bill images.

Data is transmitted off your device only in the following situations:

• Vehicle verification: When you add a vehicle, your registration number is sent to GaadiMate's backend, which forwards it to our vehicle-records provider to fetch the official RC, insurance, and PUC details. The same route is used when you ask for your traffic challan records. Our provider credentials are held by the backend; the app never holds them. Our backend passes the provider's reply to your app and does not store it; it logs the request metadata described under Bill analysis below, plus a keyed one-way hash of the registration number (never the number itself). For a challan lookup it also logs the field names of the reply, how many challans it held, any status word that is a plain word (such as "pending"), and only the format, not the content, of each challan date, payment date, amount, payment source, and state code (letters and digits are replaced by placeholders, so a date shows as a pattern of digits and separators). It never logs an actual date, amount, place, or offence text. When a vehicle's make and model are not yet in our service-schedule library, its make, model, and fuel type (with no owner, registration number, or device detail) are added to a list of models we should add.
• Bill analysis: If you choose to scan a service bill, the bill image itself is sent to GaadiMate's backend, which forwards it to our AI provider (Google) to read and analyse. Every scan works this way (a single photo, a multi-page bill, or a PDF) and pages are resized before they are sent. Your device also reads the photo on its own to suggest which of your vehicles the bill belongs to; that on-device reading is not sent anywhere. Once the bill is read, the line items it extracted (item text and prices) are sent through GaadiMate's backend to our AI provider again for analysis, together with your vehicle's make, model, and fuel type, its odometer reading, and your recent service history from the app (dates, odometer readings, and short summaries); the registration number is not part of it. Any line the first read could not name is sent again, as text, to a more capable model to name it. The advisor's optional bill-line explainer, when we switch it on, can also send flagged bill lines to our second AI model provider (see Advisor and monthly report below) to write the explanation. GaadiMate's backend does not store bill images, and does not store the text read from them except in the beta-testing case described under Diagnostics below. It logs request metadata for operational purposes: the time, which service was called, the outcome and any error kind, response time, token counts, and a hashed device identifier. If a scan finds a service line whose wording we cannot yet explain, that wording (lower-cased, with any word containing a digit removed, and cut to 60 characters) is added to a list of lines to write explanations for, with no vehicle, device, or amount attached.
• Battery documents: If you choose to read a battery warranty card or a battery bill, its pages are sent through GaadiMate's backend to our AI provider (Google) to read, exactly like a bill scan: the pages are resized before they are sent, GaadiMate's backend does not store the images or the text read from them, and it logs the same request metadata described under Bill analysis above. The card image and the details it gave stay on your phone. Nothing is saved until you check the details and tap Save, and only the last four characters of a battery serial number are kept. A warranty card you file under Documents without reading it is not sent anywhere.
• Advisor and monthly report: When you ask the in-app advisor a question or open a monthly report, a de-identified summary of that vehicle's records is sent to GaadiMate's backend and on to our AI provider. For some advisor answers the backend may use a second AI model provider instead of Google; it receives the same de-identified material. Wherever "our AI provider" appears in this policy, it means whichever of these handled the request. The summary is assembled so that it carries no owner name, no full registration number, no chassis or engine number, no phone number, no address, and no policy number. Your typed question is scrubbed the same way before it is sent. Apart from the request metadata described above and the advisor chat records described next, the content of these conversations is not stored on GaadiMate's backend. When the advisor has no manual material for your vehicle's model, that model's make, model, and fuel type (with no question text and no device detail) are added to a list of models to research.
• Advisor chat records (on by default): The question you ask the advisor and the answer it gives are stored on GaadiMate's backend, together with the de-identified vehicle-record summary and the conversation context the advisor read to answer it (including earlier turns in the same chat and any vehicle-manual or guidance extracts it drew on), and any draft answer the advisor wrote and rejected before you ever saw a reply. Your vehicle's make, model, year, fuel type, and state (taken from your registration number's prefix, never the full number) are kept as well. There is no field in this record for your registration number, chassis or engine number, or the registered owner's name. In the text you type, registration numbers (including spaced or hyphenated forms such as DL 3C AB 1234, and Bharat-series numbers), chassis numbers (a 17-character VIN, or a chassis, frame, or engine number written after its label), GSTIN numbers, PAN numbers, Aadhaar numbers, Indian mobile numbers (written as one run or in the common groups, such as 98765 43210, 9876 543 210, or 987-654-3210, with or without +91), and email addresses are masked out where they are recognised as such, and so is the registered owner's name if you type it; numbers written in other ways, and any other details you type (such as an address), may be kept as typed, for the same 90 days. The record is keyed to a hashed device identifier, not to your name. This is used to find where advice falls short and fix it. These records are deleted automatically after 90 days. You can turn this off any time in More → Settings → Help improve advisor answers, which stops it for that phone. You can also delete the records already kept for that phone at any time, without signing in, in More → Settings → Delete my advisor chat records; deleting your account, from a phone that signed in with that number, removes the records kept for that phone too. You can still email privacy@gaadimate.in if you prefer.
• Sign-in (optional): If you choose to sign in, your phone number is sent to GaadiMate's backend and held there in readable form to establish your sign-in identity. We also record the number against your device's hashed identifier (up to two numbers per installation), so that we can support you and apply per-device limits; this means the records keyed to your device's hashed identifier, described in this policy, can be connected to your number. For the sign-in code, we keep a one-way hash of the number, of your device identifier, and of the code; the code is valid for 10 minutes, and its hashes stay until it is used or until expired ones are swept out when the next code is requested. No vehicle, bill, or reminder data is uploaded with any of this.
• Nearby help (where available): If you use the nearby-help feature and allow location, your current position (at full precision), or the area name you typed, is used to look up places near you. An area name you type is turned into coordinates on your phone by its platform geocoder (on Android, a network service run by the phone's location provider), and only the coordinates are sent to GaadiMate's backend, which uses them to find nearby places and does not store or log them. If you rate a place from that list, we store the stars, the three yes/no answers, a one-way hash of your device identifier, and a one-way hash of the bill's on-device identifier (so one bill gives one rating).
• Service center ratings and the score on a bill: After a scanned final bill has been analysed, the app offers to rate its workshop. This does not use your location and works for any workshop. If you rate it, the app sends GaadiMate's backend the workshop's name, city or pincode, and phone number exactly as read from the bill (or the area you typed), your stars, the three yes/no answers, a one-way hash of the bill's on-device identifier, and, only if you write one, a private note. Our backend stores these with a one-way hash of your device identifier, and creates a service center record from the workshop's details if none exists. It keeps no bill image, line item, amount, vehicle, or registration number with the rating. The private note is seen only by GaadiMate staff, with Indian mobile numbers masked where they are recognised as such, and is never shown to other owners. A workshop's score (an average, the number of ratings, and yes/no shares) is shown on a bill only after 3 or more phones have rated it. To show that score, the app sends the workshop's name and city or pincode from the bill to our backend when you open a scanned bill; the workshop details from that lookup are not stored (the call itself is still logged as request metadata).
• Help build GaadiMate (suggestions you send): If you send a suggestion from More → Help build GaadiMate, or from the line under an advisor answer, the app sends GaadiMate's backend the kind you picked, your text, the screen you picked (if any), your phone's platform (Android or iOS), the app version, and, only if you turned on "Credit me as", the first name and city you typed. Before your text leaves your phone, the app masks registration numbers (including spaced or hyphenated forms such as DL 3C AB 1234, and Bharat-series numbers), chassis numbers (a 17-character VIN, or a chassis, frame, or engine number written after its label), GSTIN numbers, PAN numbers, Aadhaar numbers, Indian mobile numbers (written as one run or in the common groups, such as 98765 43210, 9876 543 210, or 987-654-3210, with or without +91), and email addresses, where they are recognised as such, and the registration number and the registered owner's name of each vehicle in your garage; our backend masks the same identifiers again before it stores anything. Numbers written in other ways, and any other details you type (such as another person's name or an address), may be kept as typed, so please leave personal details out. Our backend stores the masked text with the kind, the screen, the platform, the app version, the credit name if you gave one, a one-way hash of your device identifier, and a one-way hash of the network (IP) address the suggestion came from. That network-address hash is used only for a daily limit on how many suggestions one address can send, and is cleared once it is two days old. The backend also keeps the status we give the suggestion, the note we show you with it (a question we ask, or our reason for not planning it), your one answer to such a question (masked the same way), whether we marked it useful, whether it was sent during open testing, and a log of each status change with our reason. The masked text, with the kind and the screen, is then sent to our AI provider to write a short summary for our team, together with the summaries of up to 20 recent suggestions from any owner so that it can spot a repeat; that summary is stored with the suggestion. Our team reviews suggestions with the help of AI tools, which read the summary and, when needed, the masked text. The request is logged as request metadata (described under Bill analysis above), with none of your text. The first name and city you give for credit are used only to credit you in What's new, where other people can see them; they apply to every suggestion sent from that phone, and you can change or remove them at any time in My suggestions. Suggestions are deleted automatically 12 months after you send them. Deleting your account, from a phone that signed in with that number, deletes the suggestions sent from that phone; More → Settings → Delete my advisor chat records does not. You can also email privacy@gaadimate.in to have them deleted.
• Advisor web search (where enabled): To answer some questions, the advisor may run up to three web searches. The search words are written by the AI provider, not copied from your message, and are dropped if they contain a registration number, phone number, email address, chassis number, or similar identifier; they usually name the vehicle's make, model, and year and the topic. They are sent to a web-search provider and are not stored by GaadiMate.
• Diagnostics: We record processing timings and error categories for scans and advisor requests (no bill contents, amounts, or personal details, except in the beta-testing case at the end of this paragraph) so we can find and fix failures. The app also sends the app-usage events, scan diagnostics, and crash records described in Section 2.4; none of these has an off switch. In beta-testing builds only: while a diagnostic setting for testing is switched on in both the app build and our backend (it is off by default), a failed bill scan also sends the text the AI read from the bill, up to 2,000 characters. Registration numbers (including spaced or hyphenated forms such as DL 3C AB 1234, and Bharat-series numbers), chassis numbers (a 17-character VIN, or a chassis, frame, or engine number written after its label), GSTIN numbers, PAN numbers, Aadhaar numbers, Indian mobile numbers (written as one run or in the common groups, such as 98765 43210, 9876 543 210, or 987-654-3210, with or without +91), and email addresses are masked on your device first, where they are recognised as such; numbers written in other ways may be kept as read, and owner names, workshop names, addresses, part names, and amounts are not masked. It is stored with the app version, the kind of failure, the reason shown to you, the page count, whether it was a PDF, two rupee figures when the failure was a totals mismatch (the total of the line items and the printed total), and your hashed device identifier, and is deleted automatically after 90 days.
• Older app versions: Some earlier app versions, if you had switched the setting on (it was off by default in those versions), sent a de-identified copy of each advisor question and answer, with your vehicle's make, model, year, fuel type, and the app version, to a separate record keyed to your hashed device identifier. Our backend still accepts it from those versions. These records are deleted automatically after 90 days.

GaadiMate's backend runs on a third-party hosting and database provider, which processes the data described above on our behalf. That platform also keeps its own logs of requests to our backend (the gateway records the network address and the path called), and our functions write short console lines, including your phone number masked to its last four digits at sign-in and the internal account identifier when an account is deleted. We use no third-party crash-reporting or analytics SDK inside the app. The app does send GaadiMate's own crash records, which carry the error type and the screen it happened on but never the error message or the stack: only a one-way fingerprint of the message, computed on your device, so two reports of the same fault can be grouped without carrying what either of them said.

5. Sharing of personal data

We do not sell your personal data. We do not share it with insurers, dealers, advertisers, or marketers. Personal data is shared only with the third-party processors listed in Section 4, and only to the extent necessary to provide the Service. The one exception is your choice: if you turn on "Credit me as" for your suggestions, the first name and city you typed may be shown in What's new, where other people can see them.

6. Your rights as a Data Principal

Under the DPDP Act, you have the following rights:

• Right to access: Request a summary of the personal data we hold about you and the processors with whom it has been shared.
• Right to correction and completion: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Right to erasure: Request deletion of your data. Since most data is on your device, you can also delete it directly by uninstalling the app or clearing app data from your device settings. If you signed in, you can delete your account yourself in the app under More → Account → Delete account, but only from a phone that signed in with that number; it removes the account, the number's sign-in links, and the advisor chat records kept for that phone. The records kept for any other phone are removed from that phone's Settings, or by email. Anyone, signed in or not, can delete the advisor chat records kept for their phone in More → Settings → Delete my advisor chat records. Neither of these removes the ratings and private notes you gave a service center; to have those removed, email us. Deleting your account also deletes the suggestions sent from that phone through Help build GaadiMate; Delete my advisor chat records does not, so clearing your chats never removes them. You can also email us to have your suggestions deleted.
• Right of grievance redressal: Raise concerns with our Grievance Officer (see Section 11).
• Right to nominate: Nominate another individual to exercise these rights on your behalf in the event of your death or incapacity.

To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@gaadimate.in. We will respond within 30 days.

7. Withdrawal of consent

Where processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw it at any time. Withdrawing consent for vehicle verification will not affect data already fetched, but it will prevent further verification calls. You can turn off More → Settings → Help improve advisor answers at any time, delete the chat records already kept for your phone in More → Settings → Delete my advisor chat records, and sign out to stop using the optional account. You can turn off "Credit me as" in My suggestions at any time, which removes the first name and city from every suggestion sent from that phone.

8. Children's data

The Service is not intended for users under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us at privacy@gaadimate.in and we will delete it.

9. Data retention

On-device data is retained until you delete it or uninstall the app. Data sent to our vehicle-records provider, to our AI providers, and to our web-search provider is governed by their respective retention policies. On GaadiMate's backend, each store described in this policy is kept as follows:

• Advisor chat records, chat records from older app versions, and beta-testing scan-failure text: deleted automatically after 90 days. More → Settings → Delete my advisor chat records removes all three for that phone at once, without signing in, and so does an email to privacy@gaadimate.in.
• Request metadata (including the keyed hash of a looked-up registration number and the challan field names): no automatic deletion at present.
• App-usage events, scan diagnostics, and crash records: no automatic deletion at present.
• Device records (hashed identifiers, usage counters) and lookup-limit records: no automatic deletion at present.
• Your sign-in identity and the record linking your number to your device: kept for as long as you keep the account. Deleting the account in the app works only from a phone that signed in with that number; it removes the account, the number's sign-in links, and the advisor chat records kept for that phone. Records on any other phone are removed from that phone's Settings, or by email.
• Sign-in code check (hashed): valid for 10 minutes; removed when it is used, or swept out with other expired ones when the next code is requested.
• Ratings and private notes you give a service center or other place (with the workshop's name, area, and phone as printed on the bill, and your hashed device identifier), the service center records created from those workshop details, and the lists of models, bill wordings, and vehicle pictures we should add: no automatic deletion at present. Deleting your account, and More → Settings → Delete my advisor chat records, do not remove ratings, notes, or those service center records; email privacy@gaadimate.in and we will remove them.
• Suggestions you send through Help build GaadiMate (with their status, our notes, your answer, the status log, the summary our AI provider wrote, the credit name if you gave one, and your hashed device identifier): deleted automatically 12 months after you send them. The one-way hash of the network (IP) address a suggestion came from is cleared once it is two days old. Deleting your account, from a phone that signed in with that number, deletes the suggestions sent from that phone; More → Settings → Delete my advisor chat records does not. You can also email privacy@gaadimate.in and we will delete them.

Turning off More → Settings → Help improve advisor answers stops new chat records from being kept; records already kept are deleted after 90 days at the latest. You can delete the records kept for your phone sooner, at any time and without signing in, in More → Settings → Delete my advisor chat records, and deleting your account, from a phone that signed in with that number, deletes the records kept for that phone too. You can also email privacy@gaadimate.in.

10. Security

The app holds no vendor API keys at all: the credentials for our vehicle-records and AI providers live on GaadiMate's backend. Your device's secure keystore (iOS Keychain / Android Keystore) holds the app's own per-device token and, if you sign in, your sign-in session. All network communication uses HTTPS. Despite our efforts, no system is completely secure; we will notify affected users and the Data Protection Board of India in the event of a personal data breach as required by law.

11. Grievance Officer

12. Cross-border data transfer

Some processors handle data outside India: GaadiMate's backend runs on our hosting provider's infrastructure in Singapore, and our AI providers and web-search provider may process data outside India. We rely on contractual safeguards with these processors. As of the date of this policy, no country has been notified by the Government of India under Section 16 of the DPDP Act as restricted for transfer.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be notified within the app and by email at least 14 days before they take effect.

14. Contact

For any questions about this Privacy Policy, contact us at privacy@gaadimate.in.