Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Swamarg ("Swamarg", "we", "us") is a product of Shivya Technologies Private Limited ("the Company"). This Privacy Policy explains what data the Swamarg website and mobile app collect, why, and what you can do about it.

2. Browsing without an account

You can use most of Swamarg — browsing destinations, searching, asking questions, saving places, marking places as visited — without creating an account. In this mode we generate a random, anonymous device identifier (stored only in your browser's local storage or your device, never tied to your name, email, or phone number) and use it purely to remember your bookmarks, visited places, and feedback between visits. We cannot identify who you are from this identifier alone.

3. Creating a traveler account

If you sign up, we collect and store:

• Email address and a password — your password is never stored in plain text; we store only a one-way cryptographic hash of it, which cannot be reversed to recover the original password.
• Display name, which you provide at signup.
• Profile photo, only if you choose to upload one.

Signing up attaches these details to your existing anonymous activity (bookmarks, visited places) rather than starting a new, empty account — so your history is preserved, not discarded.

Your display name is private by default. We only show it to other travelers you are matched with (see §5) if you explicitly turn on "Show my name to other travellers" in your dashboard settings. Until you do, matched travelers see you only as "A fellow traveller."

4. Location data

Features like "Near me" and distance-sorted results use location you explicitly share through your browser's or device's location permission. That location is sent with the specific request it's needed for (to calculate distance) and is not stored against your account or device identifier afterward. We do not track your location in the background, and we do not sell location data to anyone.

5. Trip planning and group-travel matching

If you plan a trip (destination and travel dates), we store that plan against your account so you can manage it and so it can be matched against other travelers' public trips to the same destination with overlapping dates. A trip is matched publicly by default — you can mark it private in the app.

When you message a matched traveler, we store the message content so both of you can see the conversation. We never automatically share your email, phone number, or any other contact detail with a matched traveler — if you choose to share your own contact information inside a message, that is your choice, not something we do for you.

6. Voice and camera features

If you use voice search, your recording is sent to our server to be transcribed to text, used to answer your question, and then discarded — we do not keep a copy of the audio or the transcript after the request completes. If you use the camera/"ask about a photo" feature, the photo is processed in the same way — used once to generate a description, then discarded, not stored.

7. Business accounts and listings

Business owners sign in separately (via phone number or a Google account, through Firebase Authentication, a Google service — see §9) to create a free business listing. A published listing's name, category, description, address, phone, hours, and website are public by design, since the point of a listing is to be found by travelers. Your sign-in phone number or email is not shown publicly.

If you submit a Partner & Advertise inquiry, we store the name, organization, email, phone, and message you provide, to follow up with you — this is not published anywhere.

8. AI-drafted content and your data

Some content you see (city descriptions, narrative sections, local markets) is drafted by an AI model, disclosed as such in the app. Your personal data — your account details, trips, messages, bookmarks — is never used to train any AI model, and is not sent to a third-party AI service; content drafting runs on our own infrastructure.

9. Third parties we use

• Firebase Authentication (Google) — handles sign-in for business accounts (phone OTP and Google sign-in). Google processes this data under its own privacy policy as our authentication provider.
• Wikimedia Commons — some place photos are linked directly from Wikimedia Commons; viewing them may involve a request to Wikimedia's servers.

We do not use third-party advertising trackers or sell your data to data brokers.

10. How long we keep your data

Account data, trips, and messages are kept for as long as your account exists. Anonymous bookmarks/visited data persist in your browser or device until you clear it or uninstall the app. Voice recordings and photos, as described above, are not retained at all. We don't yet have a self-serve account deletion feature — to request deletion of your account and associated data, contact us (see §12) and we will act on it manually.

11. Your choices

• Use Swamarg without an account at all.
• Turn "Show my name to other travellers" on or off at any time.
• Mark a trip private so it's never shown in matching.
• Decline location permission — distance-based features simply won't be available.
• Request a copy of, correction to, or deletion of your data by contacting us.

12. Contact

Questions about this policy, or a request about your data, can be sent through the Partner & advertise form, or to Shivya Technologies Private Limited directly.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the app changes. We'll update the "Last updated" date above whenever it does, and aim for this page to always describe what the software actually does, not an aspirational standard.