Privacy Policy

Pulsee ("we", "us", "our") operates the Pulsee mobile application (the "App"). This Privacy Policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, and your rights under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) and applicable global laws.

1. Data we collect

• Profile data: your name and 10-digit Indian mobile number, collected once at signup with your explicit consent.
• Phone-number verification: the same mobile number is verified via a One-Time Password (OTP) delivered by SMS through Google Firebase Authentication. The OTP itself is never stored; only a verification token confirming successful verification is retained.
• Firebase user identifier: an opaque ID issued by Google Firebase Authentication, used to recognise your account if you reinstall the App or switch devices.
• Device identifier: a random locally-generated ID stored on your device to scope bookmarks and personalisation. This is NOT your phone IMEI / Android ID / Advertising ID.
• Language preference: English, Hindi, or Tamil.
• Personalisation answers: the financial topics you tap during the one-time onboarding quiz (e.g., "Loans / Credit", "Markets", "Savings").
• App activity: which news items you view, save, or share; which courses you tap on; your video-playback completion status for the in-app course (driven entirely by YouTube's player events — we never read SMS, contacts, or media on your device).

We do NOT collect: device location, contacts, SMS inbox, call logs, photos, financial account details, Aadhaar, PAN, passwords, or biometrics. The App does not request any of these Android permissions.

2. How we use your data

• To verify you are a real person (OTP) and prevent abuse/spam signups.
• To personalise the news feed and remember your bookmarks, enrollments, and quiz answers.
• To show you relevant course offerings (CIBIL, Personal Loans, Savings) inside the App.
• To improve content quality (aggregate, anonymous analytics).

We do NOT sell, rent, or trade your name or mobile number with third parties. We do NOT send unsolicited SMS or marketing calls. The OTP SMS is the only message you will receive from our authentication provider, and only at signup.

3. Third-party services

• Google Firebase Authentication & App Check (Google LLC) — used solely to deliver the OTP SMS and verify your phone number. Your mobile number is shared with Firebase only for the duration of OTP delivery. Firebase's privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy.
• Anthropic Claude — AI summaries (60-word news reels) and translations (EN/HI/TA) are generated via Anthropic's Claude model through a secured server-to-server API (Emergent Integrations). No user identity is shared; only the public news snippet is processed.
• YouTube (embedded player) — educational course videos are streamed via YouTube's official embedded player. YouTube may set cookies for video analytics. We do not control YouTube's data practices.
• MongoDB Atlas — encrypted cloud database for storing your profile, bookmarks, and enrollments.

4. News content sourcing

News content is aggregated from publicly-available RSS feeds of Indian financial publishers: Moneycontrol, Economic Times (Markets, Wealth, Stocks, Banking, Policy), Livemint (Money, Markets, Companies, Economy), The Hindu BusinessLine, The Hindu Business, Indian Express Business, and curated India-focused Google News queries. All copyrights remain with the original publishers; every news item in the App links back to the original source.

5. Your rights (DPDP Act 2023)

• Right to access: email us to get a copy of the data we hold about you.
• Right to correction: edit your profile from the Settings screen.
• Right to erasure: delete your account + all data any time from Settings → "Delete my account", or email us. Deletion is permanent and immediate, and includes your Firebase Authentication record.
• Right to grievance redressal: contact our Grievance Officer (details below).

6. Children

The App is intended for adults (18+). We do not knowingly collect data from minors. If you believe a minor has provided us data, email the Grievance Officer and we will delete it within 72 hours.

7. Security

Data is stored in encrypted MongoDB Atlas clusters on secured cloud infrastructure. All app-to-server traffic uses HTTPS/TLS 1.2+. Phone-number verification uses Google Firebase Authentication, which applies industry-standard SMS-OTP and Play Integrity attestation to prevent SIM-swap and replay attacks. The OTP code itself is never stored on our servers.

8. Data retention

We retain your profile and activity data for as long as your account is active. Upon account deletion, all personal data is purged within 7 working days. Anonymised aggregate analytics may be retained indefinitely for product improvement.

9. Changes

We may update this policy. The "Last updated" date at the top reflects the most recent change. Material changes will be notified in-app.