Privacy Policy

Who we are

Namma Ward™ (nammaward.in) is a hyperlocal civic and community platform for Bengaluru, owned and operated by Paperless Private Limited, which acts as the Data Fiduciary for the personal data described below. You can reach us at contact@nammaward.in.

What we collect

Information you give us

• Account details — your name, username, email address, mobile number and password (stored only as a cryptographic hash, never in readable form).
• Your ward — the ward, Assembly constituency and city corporation you associate yourself with, so we can show you locally relevant information.
• Profile details — optional bio, profile photo, cover image and contact phone number.
• Content you submit— grievances, community posts and comments, event proposals, Lost & Found notices, suggested corrections to ward official records, and any images or documents you attach.
• Messages — anything you send us through the contact form.

Information generated as you use the platform

• Engagement — the wards, leaders and pages you follow, posts you like or save, event RSVPs and grievance upvotes.
• Session information — sign-in sessions and the time of your most recent login, used for security and account management.
• Change history — an audit record of changes made to your account details (for example a name, ward or username change), recording what changed, when, and whether you or an administrator made the change. This exists to protect you against unauthorised changes.
• Usage counts — aggregate view counts on articles and grievances.

Why we use it

• To create and secure your account and keep you signed in.
• To verify that you are a real resident — we verify your mobile number by SMS one-time password at registration, and your email address by a verification link.
• To show you information relevant to your ward, constituency and corporation.
• To publish the content you choose to submit, after moderation where applicable.
• To route civic grievances and suggestions to the people who can act on them.
• To respond to your enquiries and send service-related notices.
• To keep the platform safe — detecting abuse, moderating submissions, and maintaining the change-history record described above.

What is visible to others

Namma Ward™ is a public platform, and some information is public by design. Please consider this carefully before submitting content.

• Public: your name, username, profile photo, cover image, bio, ward and join date, together with posts, comments and approved submissions you make.
• Public when you choose to include it:contact details on a Lost & Found notice are published with the notice, because the purpose of the notice is for people to reach you. The submission form tells you this before you post.
• Never published: your password, your email address and your registered mobile number are not shown on your public profile.
• Private grievances: if you mark a grievance private, it is visible only to you and to authorised administrators.

Sharing

We do not sell your personal data. We share it only with service providers who help us run the platform, and only to the extent needed:

• Our hosting and database providers, who store the platform's data.
• Our email provider, to send verification, password-reset and notification emails.
• Our SMS provider, to send one-time passwords to your mobile number.
• Google Analytics, if analytics is enabled — see the Cookie Policy.
• Public authorities, where we are required to disclose information by law.

Retention

We keep your account data for as long as your account exists. Content you publish remains available while it is live on the platform. If you ask us to delete your account, we remove your personal profile data; records we are required to keep for legal, security or moderation purposes may be retained for as long as necessary, and audit records of account changes are retained in a form that does not depend on your account continuing to exist.

Your rights

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 you have the right to access a summary of your personal data, to have it corrected or completed, to have it erased, to nominate someone to exercise your rights, and to raise a grievance about how we handle your data. You can exercise several of these directly:

• Update your name, ward, bio, photo and contact details from your profile settings.
• Change your username, email address or mobile number from the same page — username and mobile changes are confirmed by SMS one-time password, and email changes by a link sent to your current address.
• Withdraw your consent or request deletion of your account by writing to contact@nammaward.in.

Security

Passwords are stored only as salted hashes. Access to administrative functions is restricted by role, changes to user accounts are recorded in an audit log, and identity-level changes such as changing your username require confirmation by one-time password. No system can be guaranteed completely secure, but we take reasonable measures to protect your data.

Children

Namma Ward™ is intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children without verifiable parental consent. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will remove it.

Changes to this policy

If we make material changes we will update the version stamp at the top of this page and, where appropriate, ask you to confirm your consent again the next time you sign in.

Contact and grievances

For any question about this policy, or to raise a grievance about how your personal data is handled, write to contact@nammaward.in.