Privacy Policy

Who we are

Pushtimarg Satsang is a free devotional app for iOS and Android (package name com.krishna.kalpesh.pushtimargsatsang) and a companion website at pushtimargsatsang.com. Together they offer a library of Pushtimarg Vaishnav kirtans and paaths in Gujarati and English, with audio playback, playlists, favourites, a festival (utsav) calendar, and gentle on-device reminders for Ekadashi and utsav days.

The app and website are built and maintained by a single developer as a service to the Vaishnav community. For the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR), the data controller is Pushtimarg Satsang. This policy explains, in plain language, what little data the service touches, why, and what your rights are.

The short version: there are no accounts, no advertising, no analytics, and no trackers. The only identifier involved is a random number the app makes up for your device; it is never linked to your name, and nothing about you is ever sold or shared.

What we do not collect

It is easier to start with what is absent, because most of the usual list does not apply here:

• No user accounts, sign-up, login, or passwords exist anywhere in the app or the website.
• No advertising, in-app purchases, or subscriptions.
• No analytics or crash-reporting software of any kind, and no Firebase.
• No third-party trackers, social media widgets, or embedded advertising technology.
• No selling or sharing of data for marketing, ever.
• No special category (sensitive) personal data is collected. We never ask for, and have no means of recording, information about your health, beliefs, or any other sensitive matter. Using a devotional app may reflect your faith, but we do not collect or profile anything about you, so no such data ever reaches us.

Information the app handles

A random device identifier. When the app is first opened, it generates a random identifier (a UUID) and registers it with our server. This identifier is not your name, not your email, and not linked to any account, because no accounts exist; it exists so that your favourites and anything you submit can be associated with your copy of the app. It is included with the app's requests to our server: when the app fetches the kirtan library (so your favourites can be shown), when you mark or unmark a favourite, and when you submit or check on content (see "Voluntary submissions" below). It identifies an installation of the app, not a person.

Browsing content. When you read kirtans, lyrics, or the festival calendar, the app fetches that content from our own content server. Apart from the random identifier and your chosen language, nothing about you is sent in order to view content.

Favourites. The kirtans you mark as favourites are saved on your device and also synced to our server against your random identifier, so they are not lost if you reinstall the app. Our server therefore holds a list of favourite kirtans for each identifier; it says nothing about who you are.

Your other preferences. Your playlists, chosen language, theme and accent colour, and reminder settings are stored locally on your device only, using the standard Android or iOS local storage. They never leave your device. If you delete the app, they are deleted with it.

Reminders. Reminders for Ekadashi fasting days and utsavs are scheduled entirely on your device using the operating system's own notification system. Nothing is sent to any server to make reminders work.

Voluntary submissions

The app offers three optional ways to send us something. All three are entirely your choice, and everything you send is reviewed personally by the developer before anything is published:

• Add a Kirtan: you may submit a kirtan's text for possible inclusion in the library.
• Kirtan correction: you may report an error in existing content.
• Feedback: you may send us a message. The feedback form includes an optional email field, which you may fill in only if you would like a personal reply. If you leave it blank, no email address is collected.

When you use any of these, we receive what you typed, together with your device's random identifier. A "My Submissions" screen in the app lets you check the status of content you have submitted; it looks your submissions up by that random identifier, never by name or account.

Information the website handles

The website is read-only. It has no accounts, no sign-up, and no forms.

Cookies. The website sets two first-party cookies, both purely functional:

• site_language remembers whether you last read the site in English or Gujarati.
• site_view remembers whether you last viewed the festival calendar as a list or a grid.

Neither cookie identifies you as a person, and there are no tracking or advertising cookies of any kind.

Browser local storage. The website stores two things in your own browser, which are never sent to any server: your dark or light mode preference, and whether you dismissed the "get the app" banner (so it does not reappear for 30 days). Clearing your browser's site data removes both.

No third-party scripts. The website enforces a strict Content-Security-Policy that blocks third-party scripts entirely. There are no analytics, no advertising networks, no social widgets, and no embedded trackers on the site.

Our legal basis for processing

Under UK GDPR and EU GDPR, the small amount of processing we do rests on the following bases:

• Legitimate interest (Article 6(1)(f)): operating the service itself, which includes serving content when you request it, remembering your functional preferences on your device or in your browser, and reviewing content submissions so the library stays accurate and respectful. Given how little the service touches and how clearly it serves the people using it, we consider this interest well balanced against your rights.
• Consent (Article 6(1)(a)): anything you voluntarily type into a submission, including the optional email address in the Feedback form. You give this consent by choosing to send the submission, and you may withdraw it at any time (see "Your rights" below).

How long we keep things

• Submitted content (kirtans, corrections, feedback, and any optional email you included) is kept only as long as needed to review it and act on it. Once a submission has been dealt with, there is no reason for us to hold personal details from it.
• The registered identifier and its favourites list stay on our server so that favourites survive a reinstall. If you ask us to erase them (through the Feedback option in the app), we will delete the identifier's record and its favourites.
• On-device preferences (playlists, settings, the local copy of your favourites, the random identifier) persist on your device until you delete the app or clear its data. Those local copies never reach us, so deleting the app removes them.
• Website cookies and local storage persist in your browser until they expire or you clear your site data.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR and EU GDPR you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Rectify anything that is inaccurate.
• Erase your data ("the right to be forgotten").
• Restrict or object to our processing of your data.
• Data portability, where applicable, meaning a copy of data you provided in a commonly used format.
• Withdraw consent at any time for anything you submitted voluntarily. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before you withdrew it.

In practice, because we hold so little, exercising these rights is simple: if you have made a submission and would like it corrected or deleted, tell us and we will do so. To exercise any of these rights, you can reach us through the Feedback option inside the Pushtimarg Satsang app.

If you live outside the UK and the European Union, we will honour equivalent rights for you on request, in the same spirit.

Complaints

If you believe we have handled your data improperly, we would be grateful for the chance to put it right first: you can reach us through the Feedback option inside the Pushtimarg Satsang app. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. In the UK, that is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). If you are in the European Union, you may contact the data protection authority in your own country.

Children

The app and website present general-audience devotional content and are not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. Since the service has no accounts and collects nothing during normal use, a child browsing kirtans shares nothing with us. If you believe a child has sent us a submission containing personal details, please tell us through the Feedback option inside the Pushtimarg Satsang app and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time, for example if the app gains a new feature that changes how data is handled. When we do, the updated policy will be published on this page with a new effective date shown at the top. Significant changes will be reflected here before they take effect.

How to contact us

For any question about this policy, or to exercise any of your rights, you can reach us through the Feedback option inside the Pushtimarg Satsang app. We read every message ourselves and will respond with care.

Read the Terms of Use