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தனியுரிமை

Privacy Policy

How Payanam collects, uses, shares and protects your personal data, and the rights you have under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.

Last updated:

In short

  • We collect what you give us (your name, email and, if you add it, your phone number) and what you do on Payanam, such as bookings, posts and concierge chats.
  • We use your location only when you allow it, for a passport or trek check-in.
  • Payments in this prototype are simulated. We never ask for or store card numbers or bank details.
  • We do not sell your data, show advertising, or use third-party analytics or tracking tools.
  • You can ask to see, correct or erase your data, withdraw consent or raise a complaint by writing to our Grievance Officer.

1. Who we are and what this policy covers

Payanam is a travel platform for Tamil Nadu, available on the web and as a mobile app. It is operated by AppKrafterrz Software Solutions (OPC) Private Limited ("Payanam", "we", "us"). For the purposes of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (the "DPDP Act"), we are the Data Fiduciary for the personal data described here, and you are the Data Principal.

This policy applies to the Payanam website, the Payanam app and the concierge. We also follow the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the rules made under it, including the rules on reasonable security practices and on intermediaries.

Payanam is currently a working prototype, built for the Tamil Nadu Tourism Innovation Challenge 2026. Some listings, hosts, reviews and community posts are sample content. The public demo account is shared by everyone who tries it, so please do not enter real personal details in it.

2. Personal data we collect

We collect only what we need to run the features you use:

Account: name, email address, password (stored only as a one-way hash), preferred language, and your phone number if you add it
When we collect it: When you sign up or edit your profile
Why: To create and secure your account, sign you in, show Payanam in your language, and let a host reach you about a booking
Bookings: the experience, stay or ticket, dates, guests, rooms, contact phone, special requests, status, amounts, refunds and your check-in code. Ticket QR codes carry your initials
When we collect it: When you book, pay, cancel or check in
Why: To provide the booking, share the details the host needs, handle cancellations and refunds, and check you in
Payments: the amount, status and the method you chose (UPI or card). No card numbers, UPI IDs or bank details are collected from travellers
When we collect it: At checkout
Why: To record the simulated payment and any refund
Host details: display name, bio, languages, your UPI ID for payouts, listings, photos, availability and verification status
When we collect it: When you sign up as a host or use the host portal
Why: To publish your listings, pay out your earnings and verify hosts
Location: your exact coordinates at the moment of a passport or trek check-in
When we collect it: Only when you allow location access and tap check in
Why: To confirm that you are at the site and award your stamp
Concierge chats and voice drafts: the messages you type or dictate and the replies
When we collect it: When you use the concierge or dictate a listing
Why: To answer you, keep the conversation going, and improve the quality and safety of answers
Community content: posts, comments, likes, follows, reports, reviews, ratings, journeys you plan with others, and the date you took the responsible-travel pledge
When we collect it: When you post, review, plan or pledge
Why: To show your content to other users, under your name, and to moderate it
Photos you upload
When we collect it: When you add photos to a listing, review or post
Why: To display them. We re-save every photo, which removes location and camera details
Usage events: pages and listings viewed, searches (including the words you search for), favourites, started checkouts, AR views, bookings, posts and stamps. Linked to your account if you are signed in. No IP address is stored with them
When we collect it: As you use Payanam
Why: To understand which features work, fix problems, improve Payanam and give hosts overall statistics
Technical logs: IP address, page address, time and response
When we collect it: With every request to our servers
Why: To keep the service secure, prevent abuse and fix faults

A few things we deliberately do not do:

  • We do not ask for your date of birth, gender, government ID numbers, Aadhaar or PAN.
  • When you dictate, your voice is turned into text by your phone's or browser's own speech service. Only the text reaches Payanam; we never receive the audio.
  • In the app, "near me" on the map and the nearby-trek filter use your location only on your phone. It is not sent to us.

3. How we use your data, and on what basis

We process your personal data on the basis of your consent, which you give when you create an account, make a booking, allow location access or use a feature such as the concierge, and for the legitimate uses the DPDP Act allows: for example, when you voluntarily give us data for a specific purpose, such as a phone number for a booking, or when the law requires us to keep or disclose it.

We use it to:

  • provide and secure your account and the features you use;
  • make, manage, cancel and refund bookings, and pass the necessary details to your host;
  • answer your questions in the concierge;
  • award passport stamps and keep your travel record;
  • show and moderate community posts and reviews;
  • prevent fraud and abuse, and keep Payanam secure;
  • understand how Payanam is used and improve it;
  • meet our legal obligations.

We do not use your personal data for advertising, and we do not sell it.

4. Who we share it with

  • Your host: for each booking, the host sees your name, email address, phone number, number of guests and any special requests.
  • Other users: your name appears with your community posts, comments, reviews and on journeys you join. Your passport page is public only if you turn sharing on. Photos you upload to listings, reviews or posts can be seen by anyone with the link.
  • An AI model provider: concierge messages, and the text of dictated listings, are sent to an AI model provider to generate replies. If you ask the concierge about your bookings, the relevant booking details are included. Your name and email are not sent. The provider's servers may be outside India.
  • Service providers: our hosting provider stores and runs Payanam for us, under our instructions.
  • Content services your device loads: map tiles come from OpenStreetMap, many photos from Wikimedia Commons, and fonts and some page components from Google (fonts.googleapis.com, gstatic.com, ajax.googleapis.com) and unpkg.com. The app also loads sample images from an image placeholder service. Like any website, these services receive your IP address and browser details when your device fetches files from them.
  • Our team: authorised staff can see the data needed to support users and moderate content.
  • Authorities: when the law, a court or a government agency with lawful authority requires it, or to protect someone's safety.

When you follow a link to another website, such as the official Trek Tamil Nadu booking portal, that website's own privacy policy applies.

Some of our providers may process data outside India. We transfer personal data only as the DPDP Act permits, and not to any country the Central Government has restricted.

5. Cookies and storage on your device

Payanam uses only the cookies it needs to work. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies.

payanam_session
What it does: Keeps you signed in on the website
How long: 7 days
payanam_next
What it does: Remembers which page to return to after you sign in
How long: 10 minutes
payanam_lang
What it does: Remembers your language (English or Tamil)
How long: 1 year
payanam_chat
What it does: Lets you continue a concierge conversation
How long: 30 days

Your browser also stores your light or dark theme choice. The app keeps your sign-in token in your phone's secure storage, and keeps a copy of your profile (including a host's payout UPI ID) and your tickets on your phone so they work offline. Signing out removes them.

6. How long we keep it

  • Account and profile: while your account is open.
  • Bookings and payment records: as long as needed to provide the booking, handle refunds and disputes, and meet our legal obligations.
  • Chats, usage events and check-in locations: until you ask us to erase them or we no longer need them. Payanam is a prototype and has not yet set automatic deletion periods; we will publish fixed periods in this policy before a public launch.
  • Technical logs: overwritten automatically as new logs are written.

When you ask us to erase your data, we delete or anonymise it within 30 days, except for records the law requires us to keep, which we keep only for as long as required.

7. Your rights

Under the DPDP Act you have the right to:

  • Access: get a summary of the personal data we hold about you, how we use it, and who we have shared it with.
  • Correction: correct, complete or update your data. You can change your name, phone and language in your profile at any time.
  • Erasure: ask us to erase your personal data, unless the law requires us to keep it.
  • Withdraw consent: at any time, as easily as you gave it. This does not affect what we did before, but we may no longer be able to provide some features, such as bookings.
  • Grievance redressal: complain to our Grievance Officer. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.
  • Nominate: name a person who can exercise these rights for you if you die or become unable to act.

To use any of these rights, write to our Grievance Officer (see "Grievance Officer and contact" below) from the email address on your account. We may ask you to confirm your identity. We acknowledge requests within 24 hours and aim to resolve them within 15 days. Self-service tools for these requests are on our roadmap; until then our team handles each request.

The DPDP Act also asks you to give accurate information and not to file false or frivolous complaints.

8. Children

Payanam is meant for adults. Under the DPDP Act, anyone under 18 is a child. If you are under 18, you may use Payanam only with the verifiable consent of your parent or lawful guardian, who should create and manage the account. We do not track children's behaviour or target them with advertising. If we learn that we hold a child's data without that consent, we will delete it.

9. How we protect your data

We take reasonable security measures, including:

  • passwords stored only as strong one-way hashes, never in readable form;
  • encrypted connections (HTTPS) to the website and the app;
  • limits on repeated sign-in attempts, and protection against cross-site attacks and injected content;
  • digitally signed ticket QR codes that cannot be forged;
  • re-saving uploaded photos to strip hidden location data;
  • access to admin tools only for authorised staff;
  • "Sign out everywhere", which ends every session of your account at once.

No system is perfectly secure. If a personal data breach happens, we will inform you and the Data Protection Board of India as the law requires.

10. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when Payanam changes, for example when real payments launch. The date at the top shows the latest version. If a change affects how we use data you have already given us, we will tell you on the website or in the app, and ask for your consent again where the law requires it.

11. Languages

This policy is available in English and Tamil. If the two versions differ, the English version applies.

12. Grievance Officer and contact

For questions, requests or complaints about your personal data, write to:

  • Grievance Officer, AppKrafterrz Software Solutions (OPC) Private Limited
  • Email: privacy@payanam.io

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