Privacy policy
1. Who we are
Kritaare is a farm record-keeping app for growers in India, operated by Kowri Group, based in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. In this policy, "we" and "us" mean that operator, and "you" means the person who holds a Kritaare account.
For the purposes of India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, we are the Data Fiduciary for your account and for the diagnostic data described below.
2. What we collect
We only collect what the app needs to work. There is no advertising SDK in Kritaare and no third-party tracker beyond the Google services listed in section 5.
| What | Details | When |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Email address, and the display name and profile photo from your Google account if you sign in with Google. | At sign-up |
| Profile | Your name, which is the only one of these you have to give. Your phone number, gender and date of birth are optional, and the gender question includes "Prefer not to say". Also your country, state, district, taluk and hobli, and your chosen language. You can change or clear any of these in the app at any time, and section 3 says what each is for. | You enter it |
| Farm records | Everything you record in the app: farms, plots and areas, crops and varieties, work entries, workers and worker types, wage rates, payments and arrears, income and expenses, harvests, sales, stock, equipment, rainfall and soil test readings. | You enter it |
| Approximate location | Device location, only if you grant the permission — used to place a farm on the map and to localise weather and seasonal tips. You can use the app without it. | With your permission |
| Diagnostics | Crash reports, performance traces and basic usage events via Firebase Crashlytics, Performance Monitoring and Analytics: device model, OS version, app version, screen names, and a random installation identifier. Your farm records are never sent to these services. | Automatically |
| Push token | A Firebase Cloud Messaging token, so we can send reminders and announcements to your device. | Automatically |
| Feedback | Whatever you write in Settings → Send feedback, plus your account id and app version so we can reply and reproduce the problem. | When you send it |
| Anonymous benchmarks | The setting "Share anonymous benchmarks" starts on, and it is the only thing that allows your records to be counted alongside other farms'. The app asks you once, in plain words, before any of it applies to your account: nothing of yours is pooled until you have answered. What it pools, once a week, is the crops and activities in your work entries together with your taluk or district — and it is used for two things and nothing else: regional tips (what growers of your crop nearby are doing this week) and, in future, regional benchmarks (cost and yield ranges for your crop). Farms are counted, never entries, and a crop and locality is dropped entirely unless at least five farms are in it, so no single farm can be picked out. The result is a total, never a list of farms: it is never sold, never handed to anyone outside Kritaare, and never shown to another grower as yours. Turn the switch off in Settings → Privacy and your farm stops being counted from the next weekly build. You see the tips either way; reading them does not require taking part. | On by default · off in one tap |
Stored only on your phone
Your app preferences, the biometric or PIN screen lock, and the offline cache of your own records stay on the device. We cannot read them. Uninstalling the app removes them.
3. Why we collect it
- To run the app — your records are the product; without storing them there is nothing to show you.
- To sync across your devices and restore your data if you change phones.
- To fix crashes and slow screens using diagnostic data.
- To answer you when you send feedback or a support request.
- To fit the app to you — if you give your gender or date of birth, we use them to match schemes, tips and support to your situation, and nothing else. Both are optional, gender includes "Prefer not to say", and either can be cleared later. We do not use them for advertising: Kritaare carries no ads and no advertising SDK.
- To show regional tips — the crop activity of nearby farms, pooled weekly from every account that has left "Share anonymous benchmarks" on.
- To produce regional benchmarks — cost and yield ranges for your crop and region, so you can see where your farm sits. None are produced today; when they are, the same switch governs them.
Those two things are the only reason your records are ever combined with another farm's. There is no third use. What comes out of it is a total for a crop and a locality, built from at least five farms and carrying no farm's name. We do not sell personal data. We do not sell, rent, licence or hand over the pooled figures either. Your farm records are never shared with buyers, traders, lenders, insurers, input dealers or other growers, and no one — inside Kritaare or outside it — is shown your records as yours. There is no arrangement under which that changes, and if the law ever forces a disclosure we will tell you (see section 5).
4. Data about your workers
Kritaare lets you record the names of the people who work on your farm, the days they worked and what they were paid. That is personal data about someone other than you.
You decide what to enter about your workers, so for that information you are the one responsible for it under the law. We store and process it on your instructions and for no other purpose. Please only record what you genuinely need for wages and attendance, tell your workers that you keep these records, and do not enter identity numbers, bank details or health information — the app does not ask for them and does not need them.
5. Who else sees it
No other grower ever sees your farm. The regional tips and, later, the benchmarks are totals across at least five farms; another user sees the total, never the farms behind it, and never that you are one of them. Nothing in the app shows one grower's records to another.
We use a small number of service providers. They process data on our behalf under their own terms and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes.
- Google Firebase / Google Cloud — authentication, database, file storage, cloud functions, push messaging, crash reporting, performance and analytics. This is where your account and records live.
- OpenStreetMap Foundation — map tiles and place-name lookup. When you open a map or search for a place, your IP address and the map coordinates reach their servers. No account or farm data is sent.
- Your device's own geocoder — used only as a fallback, when OpenStreetMap cannot name a location. The coordinates then go to whichever service the phone provides for this, which on most Android devices is Google. Again, no account or farm data is sent.
We will also disclose data if the law requires it — a valid court order or a lawful request from an authority — and we will tell you unless we are barred from doing so.
If the app or the business is ever sold or merged, your data may transfer to the new owner. You will be told before that happens and this policy continues to apply until you are given a new one.
6. Where it is stored
Your account and farm records are held in Google Cloud's Mumbai
region (asia-south1), in India. Some diagnostic data —
crash reports, analytics and performance traces — is processed by
Google on servers outside India under Google's own safeguards.
7. How long we keep it
- Your records — for as long as your account is open. Farm history is meant to be kept across seasons, so nothing is auto-deleted with age.
- After you delete your account — removed from the live database straight away, and purged from encrypted backups within 30 days.
- Diagnostics — retained on Google's default schedules, which are between 90 days and 14 months depending on the service.
- Community tips — each weekly pooled figure carries an expiry and is deleted about eight days after it is built, because a tip about last week is no use. It holds a crop, a locality, an activity and a count of farms; it does not hold you.
- Anonymous benchmark figures — none exist yet. If benchmarks are ever produced and you took part, those aggregated figures are kept indefinitely: once aggregated they are no longer linked to you and cannot be pulled back out.
8. Your rights
Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 you can:
- Get a copy of your data — Settings → Export produces a file of your records, or write to us.
- Correct anything wrong or out of date — most of it is editable in the app.
- Delete your account and data — see Delete my data.
- Withdraw consent — turn off location or benchmarks in Settings, or revoke the permission in Android.
- Nominate someone to exercise these rights if you die or become incapacitated. Write to us to set this up.
- Complain to us first (section 13), and to the Data Protection Board of India if we do not resolve it.
We answer requests within 30 days. We may ask you to confirm your identity from the email address on the account before we act.
9. Deleting your data
You can ask us to close your account and erase everything in it. The steps, what is removed, what is kept and for how long are set out on the Delete my data page.
10. Security
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by Google Cloud. Access rules are enforced at the database so one account cannot read another's records. Administrative access is limited to accounts holding an explicit admin credential and is used only for support and abuse handling. The app can be locked with your device biometric or PIN.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal data we will notify you and the Data Protection Board as the law requires.
11. Children
Kritaare is for adults running a farm business. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. The date-of-birth field enforces this rather than merely stating it: the picker will not accept a date less than 18 years ago.
If you believe a child has created an account, tell us and we will remove it.
12. Changes
We will update this page when the app changes. The date at the top always reflects the current version. If a change materially affects how we use your data, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.
13. Contact and grievances
For any privacy question, request or complaint, or to reach the Grievance Officer appointed under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules, 2021:
- Grievance Officer: Kritaare Grievance Officer, Kowri Group
- Email: support@kritaare.com
- Address: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. The full postal address is available on request — write to the email above and we will provide it.
We acknowledge complaints within 48 hours and resolve them within 30 days.