Privacy Policy
Your trust is our utmost priority. Learn how KhedutBandhu collects, utilizes, safeguards, and respects the personal information of our farmers and agricultural community.
We never sell, rent, or trade your personal data to data brokers or advertisers.
Location is strictly used for nearby Mandi rates & weather, with complete fallback.
Microphone access is strictly real-time speech-to-text; voice is never saved or tracked.
Permanently erase your profile, listings, and farm data anytime upon request.
Welcome to KhedutBandhu ("the Application", "the App", "we", "our", or "us"). KhedutBandhu is an intelligent, farmer-centric mobile application developed and operated by SmartTechDevs.
This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, store, process, transfer, and safeguard your personal data when you download, install, or use the KhedutBandhu Android application (Package Identifier: com.ngac.khedutbandhu) or access our website (https://khedutbandhu.org).
We collect only the minimum necessary information required to deliver accurate agricultural advisory, live market pricing, pest diagnosis, and marketplace connection to our users:
- Mobile Phone Number: Required to authenticate users and generate one-time passwords (OTP) delivered securely via WhatsApp.
- Profile Information: Full name, district/village, and optional profile photograph uploaded by the farmer.
- Farm Profile (Optional): Farm acreage, primary crops cultivated (e.g., Cotton, Groundnut, Wheat), soil type, and irrigation facilities, used solely to customize agricultural recommendations.
- Marketplace Listings: Titles, prices, descriptions, contact phone numbers, and photographs of crops, seeds, or farm machinery you choose to list for sale or rent.
- Community Posts & Comments: Farming discussions, queries, advice, and media shared voluntarily in the Farmer Chaupal module.
- Device Telemetry: Device manufacturer, hardware model, Android OS version, and network connection type to ensure application stability and render appropriate layout scaling.
- Push Notification Tokens: Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) registration tokens to route critical weather alerts and Mandi rate notifications to your device.
In accordance with Google Play Developer Program Policies, KhedutBandhu requests only permissions essential for core app capabilities. We provide a dedicated in-app Permissions Management Screen allowing farmers to review and toggle permissions at any time:
| Permission | Android Manifest Name | Why It Is Needed & How It Is Handled |
|---|---|---|
| 📍 Location | ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION |
Nearest Mandis & Local Weather: Used exclusively in the foreground to detect the nearest APMC Mandi, compute driving distance, and provide district-accurate agro-weather warnings. ✓ Optional: If denied, the app automatically defaults to Ahmedabad, Gujarat. We do not track continuous background GPS location. |
| 📷 Camera | CAMERA |
AI Crop Doctor & Photo Listings: Used only when the user taps to snap a photo of diseased leaves/crops to receive AI diagnostic feedback, or snaps photos of farm equipment to list in Bazaar. We do not access the camera without user initiation. |
| 🖼️ Photos / Media | READ_MEDIA_IMAGES |
Media Uploading: Allows users to select existing photos from their gallery for Crop Doctor diagnostic queries, Chaupal posts, or Bazaar item cards. Only the specific photos picked by the user are transmitted. |
| 🎙️ Microphone | RECORD_AUDIO |
Voice Assist & Speech Search: Enables farmers to speak crop queries or search Mandi rates using voice in Gujarati, Hindi, or English. Audio recordings are streamed for real-time speech-to-text recognition and are never saved or analyzed for advertising. |
| 🔔 Notifications | POST_NOTIFICATIONS |
Agricultural & Price Alerts: Delivers high-priority meteorological warnings (unseasonal rain, frost, cyclone), daily Mandi price updates for starred crops, and responses from support or buyers. |
We process user data strictly for legitimate operational purposes directly tied to agricultural support:
- Live Agricultural Intelligence: Providing daily modal, minimum, and maximum APMC Mandi prices, arrival volumes, and price fluctuations.
- AI Plant Pathology: Processing crop leaf images via machine-learning algorithms to detect fungal, bacterial, or viral afflictions and suggest verified remedies.
- Peer-to-Peer Trading (Kisan Bazaar): Facilitating direct farmer-to-farmer trade of pre-owned tractors, farm implements, seeds, and livestock without middlemen.
- Farming Community Collaboration: Facilitating localized agronomy discussions, queries, and peer knowledge-sharing through Farmer Chaupal.
- Government Subsidy Awareness: Curating relevant state and national agricultural welfare schemes (PM-Kisan, i-Khedut portal updates, crop insurance).
- Fraud & Spam Prevention: Protecting farmers against fraudulent ads, unauthorized logins, and spam through phone verification via WhatsApp OTP.
When you submit an image to Crop Doctor, the image is transmitted securely over HTTPS to our backend AI diagnostic engine. The photo is analyzed for disease symptoms and stored in your personal diagnosis history. We do not use your private images for external commercial purposes.
When you create a listing to sell or rent an item, you expressly consent to display the item price, description, images, approximate location (Taluka/District), and your contact phone number to other registered farmers so interested buyers can directly call or message you. You retain full control to edit, mark as sold, or permanently delete your listings at any time.
We authenticate accounts using WhatsApp OTP instead of passwords to maximize security and convenience for farmers. Your mobile number is communicated securely to the WhatsApp Business API to dispatch the verification code. We do not access your WhatsApp chat logs or contacts.
The App incorporates third-party services that may collect information used to identify you according to their respective privacy terms:
Information is disclosed strictly under the following narrow conditions:
- With Other Farmers: Marketplace listing details and contact numbers you explicitly authorize for public visibility in Kisan Bazaar.
- Legal Compliance: When required by Indian law, judicial summons, or governmental regulatory authority to comply with legal processes.
- Safety & Protection: To protect the rights, property, and safety of farmers, prevent fraud, or investigate violations of our Terms of Service.
We deploy industry-standard administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect farmer data against unauthorized access, loss, or alteration:
In accordance with Google Play's Data Deletion Policy, any user of KhedutBandhu possesses the absolute right to request the permanent deletion of their account and all associated personal data at any time:
How to Request Account & Data Deletion:
Option 1: Inside the Mobile App
Option 2: Dedicated Web Request Form
Option 3: Direct Email Request
KhedutBandhu is designed and intended for adult agriculturalists, farmers, and commercial growers aged 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect, solicit, or maintain personal identifiable information from children under the age of 13 (or under 16 in applicable jurisdictions). If we discover that a child under 13 has provided personal data without verified parental consent, we immediately delete such records from our databases.
We may periodically revise this Privacy Policy to reflect regulatory enhancements, Google Play policy updates, or newly introduced agricultural features. When material updates occur, we will notify you through in-app notifications or by updating the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page. Your continued use of the application following such modifications constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.
If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy, your personal data, or permissions handling, please contact our designated Grievance Officer: