Privacy Policy

Last updated: 9 September 2026

1. Introduction

Mali Circle (“Mali Circle”, “we”, “us” or “our”) operates the malicircle.com website and the Mali Circle mobile application (together, the “Platform”), a community platform for members of the Mali Samaj. We are based at B/206, Sheetal Nagar No. 4, Agashi Road, Virar West, Maharashtra 401303, India.

Mali Circle stores personal information about its members. That is unavoidable for a community directory to work — but it also means we owe you a clear explanation of what we hold, why we hold it, how long we keep it, and how you can get it removed. This Privacy Policy is that explanation.

We verify every member with a one-time password sent on WhatsApp, so your mobile number must be registered on WhatsApp to use Mali Circle. We do not send or read SMS.

For the purposes of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (“DPDP Act”), Mali Circle is the Data Fiduciary and you are the Data Principal. This policy also serves as the privacy notice required under the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011.

By creating an account or using the Platform, you confirm that you have read this policy and consent to the processing described in it. If you do not agree, please do not use the Platform. This policy should be read with our Terms & Conditions.

2. Summary at a glance

3. Information we collect

3.1 Information you give us

• Account details: mobile number (used for WhatsApp OTP login), name, and email address where you provide one.
• Profile details: photograph, date of birth, gender, gotra, native village, current city and state, education, occupation, marital status, family details, blood group and languages known.
• Matrimony information: the biodata fields you choose to publish, including partner preferences, family background and horoscope details if you add them.
• Blood donor information: your blood group, so that you can be matched to an emergency request raised near you.
• Business and professional listings: business name, category, address, working hours, photographs, contact numbers, website and qualifications.
• Communications: in-app chat messages, enquiry forms, emails, WhatsApp messages and support requests, including anything you attach to them.
• Content you post: news submissions, blogs, events, comments, images and reports you file about other members.
• Payment details: the plan purchased, amount, date, transaction reference and status. See section 8 for what we deliberately do not collect.

3.2 Information collected automatically

• Device information such as device model, operating system version and app version.
• Log data including IP address, access times, features used, and crash and error reports.
• Approximate location (city level) where you permit it, used to show nearby members, businesses and blood requests.
• A device push token, so we can send you notifications you have asked for.

3.3 Sensitive personal data

Some of what you choose to share — blood group, health-related details in a biodata, or caste and community identity, which is inherent to a samaj platform — is treated as sensitive under Indian law. We collect it only where you provide it, use it only for the feature you provided it for, and apply the same protections described in section 11.

3.4 Information we do not collect

We do not collect or store your card number, CVV, UPI PIN, net-banking password or any other payment credential. We do not read your SMS messages, contacts, call logs, calendar, photos or files beyond the images you explicitly upload. We do not track you across other apps or websites, and we do not run third-party advertising trackers.

4. Why we collect it

We also use this information to send you service messages (OTPs, verification updates, payment receipts, event reminders and important announcements), to enforce our Terms & Conditions, and to understand in aggregate which features the community actually uses so that we can improve them.

We do not use your personal information to make any automated decision that produces a legal or similarly significant effect on you.

5. Consent and withdrawal of consent

You give consent when you register for Mali Circle, and again when you choose to publish information — a directory profile, a matrimony biodata, a business listing or a blood donor registration. Consent for optional device permissions is asked separately by your phone.

Two things stay in your hands without deleting the account:

• you can edit or remove individual information you have added — see section 9.6;
• you can revoke device permissions such as location, camera or notifications at any time from your phone settings.

Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that already took place lawfully before the withdrawal, and it ends your access to the Platform. Essential account messages such as OTPs and payment receipts cannot be switched off while your account is open.

6. Sharing and disclosure

We do not sell, rent, trade or licence your personal information to any third party, and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers. We share information only in these limited situations:

• With other members: the profile information you have chosen to make visible is shown to other verified members inside the Platform, according to your privacy settings.
• With service providers who process data only on our instructions and are contractually bound to protect it:

• For legal reasons: where required by applicable law, a court order or a lawful request from a government or law-enforcement authority, or where necessary to protect the rights, safety and property of our members, the public or the Platform.
• Business transfer: if the Platform is ever merged with, acquired by or transferred to another entity, member data may be transferred as part of that transaction. You will be notified in the app, this policy will continue to apply to the transferred data, and you may delete your account before the transfer takes effect.

7. What other members can see

Only what you choose to enter and publish is shown to other verified members. You are never required to fill in every field, and you can:

• leave out any detail you would rather not share;
• edit or delete information you have already added, at any time, from your profile;
• report or block a member who behaves badly;
• delete your account to remove everything at once — see section 9.

Please remember that anything published to other members can be seen, screenshotted or noted down by them. Removing information stops us displaying it from that moment on; it cannot recall what another member has already seen.

8. Payments and subscriptions

Our optional plans are recurring subscriptions billed through UPI AutoPay. Payments are processed by Razorpay, a PCI-DSS compliant payment gateway. Your UPI, card or banking credentials are entered, and the AutoPay mandate authorised, directly on the gateway and your own payment provider infrastructure. They are never transmitted to or stored on Mali Circle servers.

We retain only the transaction reference, subscription reference, amount, date, payment status and the plan purchased. We need these to activate and renew your plan, issue receipts, answer support queries, process refunds where they apply, and meet our obligations under Indian tax and accounting law. Your payment history is visible to you in the app under Profile → Payments.

You can stop a subscription at any time by cancelling the AutoPay mandate with your own bank or UPI app. How a subscription is affected if you delete your account is explained in section 9.4. Refunds are governed separately by our Refund & Cancellation Policy.

9. Deleting your account and your data

You can delete your Mali Circle account whenever you want. It is free, it does not require a reason, and we will not make it difficult.

9.1 How to delete your account

• In the app (fastest): Profile → Settings → Delete Account. You will be asked to confirm with a WhatsApp OTP so that nobody else can delete your account.
• By email: write to malicircle.support@gmail.com from your registered email address, or from any address quoting your registered mobile number, with the subject line “Delete My Account”.
• By phone: call +91 92098 04195 and we will verify your identity and process the request for you.

Requests made by email or phone are actioned within 7 working days of us verifying that the request came from the account holder.

9.2 What happens immediately

• Your profile disappears from the member directory, matrimony search and all listings.
• Your business and professional listings are unpublished.
• Your blood donor registration is cancelled and you stop receiving requests.
• You are logged out on every device and can no longer sign in.
• All notifications and communications from us stop.

9.3 What is deleted, and when

Within 30 days of your request, the following is permanently erased from our active systems: your name, mobile number, email address, photographs, date of birth, gotra, native place, address, education and occupation details, family details, blood group, matrimony biodata, business and professional listings, private chat messages, saved shortlists, device tokens and location data. Copies held in encrypted backups are overwritten in the normal backup rotation, within 90 days at the latest.

Content you contributed to the community — such as a published news item, blog post or event listing — is either removed with your account or, where it forms part of a community record that other members rely on, retained with your name and contact details stripped out so that it can no longer be linked to you. Tell us at the time of deletion if you want such content taken down entirely, and we will remove it.

9.4 Effect on subscriptions

Because deletion is permanent and irreversible, we suggest that before you confirm it you:

• check how much time is left in the period you have already paid for, and cancel the AutoPay mandate with your bank or UPI app;
• download or email yourself any payment receipts and invoices you may need later for tax or accounting purposes;
• save any contacts, enquiries or chat messages you want to keep.

If a payment has gone wrong — a failed transaction, a duplicate payment or an incorrect amount — raise it with us before deleting your account, under our Refund & Cancellation Policy. Once the account is gone we can no longer verify your subscription or your identity from within the Platform, which makes a refund far harder to process.

9.5 What we are required to keep

A small set of records survives deletion because the law requires it, not because we want them. These are kept in restricted storage, are not used for any other purpose, and are deleted once the statutory period ends:

9.6 Deleting individual information instead

You do not have to delete everything to remove something. You can edit or delete individual fields, take down a photograph, unpublish a biodata or a listing, or clear a chat, all from within the app, while keeping your account. If a particular piece of information is hard to remove yourself, write to us and we will remove it for you.

10. How long we keep your data

While your account is open, we keep your information for as long as it is needed for the purpose you gave it — a directory profile stays until you change or remove it. If your account remains inactive for 36 months, we will contact you on your registered WhatsApp number and, if we hear nothing, delete the account and its data.

Log and device data is kept for 12 months. Support emails and chat transcripts with our team are kept for 24 months. Everything else follows the deletion timelines in section 9.

11. Data security

We follow reasonable security practices as required under Section 43A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the rules made under it, including:

• encrypted connections (HTTPS/TLS) for all data in transit;
• WhatsApp OTP authentication, with no passwords for us to lose;
• access to member data restricted to the few authorised people who need it, under confidentiality obligations;
• encrypted, access-controlled backups;
• periodic review of our systems, and prompt patching of known issues.

No method of transmission or storage over the internet is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. Please keep your OTP confidential. Nobody from Mali Circle will ever ask you for your OTP, PIN or banking password — treat any such request as fraud and report it to us.

If a personal data breach occurs, we will notify the Data Protection Board of India and every affected member without undue delay, as required by the DPDP Act and CERT-In directions, and tell you plainly what happened and what you should do.

12. Your rights

As a Data Principal under the DPDP Act, subject to applicable law, you have the right to:

• Access — obtain a summary of the personal data we hold about you and how it is processed.
• Correction and updating — correct anything inaccurate, complete anything incomplete, directly in the app or by writing to us.
• Erasure — have your personal data deleted, as described in section 9.
• Withdraw consent — at any time, as described in section 5.
• Nominate — appoint another person to exercise these rights on your behalf if you die or become incapacitated.
• Grievance redressal — complain to us first, and to the Data Protection Board of India if you are not satisfied with our response.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the details in section 18. We will verify that the request comes from you, and respond within 30 days at the latest. There is no charge. If we cannot act on a request, we will tell you why.

You also have duties under the DPDP Act: please do not register under a false identity, do not impersonate anyone, and do not file false or frivolous grievances.

13. Cookies and similar technologies

The malicircle.com website uses only what is necessary to serve the pages you request. We do not set advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. Your browser may store small amounts of data locally to remember your preferences, and you can clear this at any time from your browser settings. Pages that embed a Google Map load content from Google, which may set its own cookies under Google's privacy policy.

Inside the app, we use local storage on your device to keep you signed in and to cache content so the app works on a slow connection. Clearing the app's data removes it.

14. Children

The Platform is intended for users aged 18 and above, and matrimony features are strictly limited to adults of legal marriageable age under Indian law. We do not knowingly collect personal data of children. Where a parent or guardian adds a family member's details to their own profile, they are responsible for having that person's consent. If you believe a minor has registered, write to us and we will remove the account and its data promptly.

15. App permissions

You can grant or revoke any optional permission from your device settings at any time without losing access to your account. We do not request access to your contacts, SMS or call logs.

16. Where your data is stored

Member data is stored on servers located in India. A small number of our service providers — for example push notification, email delivery or crash reporting services — may process limited data outside India. Where that happens, we use providers that offer comparable protection, share only the minimum necessary, and remain responsible to you for how that data is handled.

17. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as the Platform or the law changes. The current version is always on this page with its “Last updated” date. If a change materially affects your rights or how we use your data, we will notify you inside the app, or on WhatsApp or email, before it takes effect, and where the law requires it we will ask for your consent again. Continued use of the Platform after an update means you accept the revised policy.

18. Grievance Officer and contact

If you have a question, a request about your data, or a complaint about how we have handled it, contact our Grievance Officer, appointed in accordance with the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the rules made under it:

• Grievance Officer, Mali Circle
• B/206, Sheetal Nagar No. 4, Agashi Road, Virar West, Maharashtra 401303, India
• Email: malicircle.support@gmail.com (subject line: “Grievance”)
• Phone / WhatsApp: +91 92098 04195, Monday to Saturday, 10:00 am – 7:00 pm IST
• Website: malicircle.com

We acknowledge every grievance within 24 hours and aim to resolve it within 15 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may escalate the matter to the Data Protection Board of India.