Privacy Policy

1. Scope

This policy covers the Habitat website (habitat.org.in), the Habitat resident and guard apps and the Habitat admin (together, “Habitat”), run by Habitat Org (“we”, “us”). It applies to residents, owners, tenants and their families, committee members and society staff, guards, service partners, and visitors whose details are entered at a society’s gate.

2. Who decides what happens to your data

Your housing society or residents’ welfare association (the “society”) decides why its data is collected: who lives where, who may enter, what maintenance is charged. For that data the society is the data fiduciary and Habitat processes it on the society’s behalf and on its instructions. For your Habitat account itself (sign-in, app settings), for demo and contact requests, and for service partners, we are the data fiduciary.

3. What we collect

• Account: mobile number (used to sign in with a one-time code), name, optional gender and profile photo, app preferences.
• Home: the flats and societies you belong to, your relation (owner, tenant, family), family members and tenants you add, vehicles, parking, and daily help (name, phone, photo, attendance and payments you record).
• Gate: visitor name, phone, photo, vehicle number, purpose, flat visited and entry and exit times; guest codes you create; emergency (SOS) alerts.
• Money: invoices, payments, receipts, credits and refunds for your flat, and amenity bookings. Card, UPI and bank details are entered on our payment partner’s secure page and are not stored by Habitat; we keep only the payment reference and status.
• Community: notices you read, poll votes (one per flat), posts, buy & sell listings, private chat messages, helpdesk tickets and photos, directory settings and interests you choose.
• Society staff: details and ID proofs of staff and agency workers, entered by the society, and their attendance.
• Documents: files the society shares (bylaws, minutes, circulars), visible only to the audience it chooses.
• Devices and use: push-notification tokens, device type, app version, IP address and technical logs needed to run and secure the service.
• Enquiries: name, email, phone, society and city you send through our demo or contact forms.

4. Why we use it

• To run the features your society uses: gate approvals, billing and payments, accounting, notices, bookings, helpdesk, directory and chats.
• To sign you in and keep your account secure, including one-time codes by SMS and limits against misuse.
• To send notifications you need, such as a visitor at the gate, a new notice or a payment receipt.
• To keep the society’s books and records as the law requires.
• To answer your enquiries and support requests.
• To show advertising in the resident app in labelled spaces. You can turn off personalised ads in Profile → Privacy; you will then see non-personalised ads only. Ads never use your society’s records, payments or chats.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not use it for any purpose unrelated to the above.

5. Who can see it

• Within your society: each person sees only what their role allows (for example, the accountant sees billing, a guard sees today’s gate entries). Your phone number stays hidden in the residents directory unless you choose to show it; neighbours can chat with you without seeing it.
• Service providers who help us run Habitat, only as needed and under confidentiality: secure cloud hosting and storage in India, a payment gateway, an SMS provider for sign-in codes, push-notification services for app alerts, and an advertising partner for the ads described above.
• Authorities, when the law requires it or to protect someone’s safety.

6. Where it is kept and how it is protected

Your data is stored on highly secure servers in India. Connections are encrypted (HTTPS), access is limited by role, every admin and money action is recorded in an audit trail, private documents are only readable through the app, and backups are encrypted.

7. How long we keep it

• Account and household data: while you belong to a society on Habitat, and removed or anonymised after you leave or ask us to delete it, unless the society must keep it.
• Financial records (invoices, payments, receipts, journals): as long as accounting and tax laws require, usually 8 years.
• Gate logs and technical logs: only as long as the society and security need them.
• Enquiries: until we have answered and for a reasonable time after.

8. Your rights

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 you can:

• ask what personal data we hold about you and how it is used;
• have it corrected, completed or updated (much of it you can edit yourself in the app);
• ask for it to be erased, subject to records the society or the law requires us to keep;
• withdraw consent you have given, for example to personalised ads;
• nominate someone to exercise these rights if you die or become unable to;
• raise a grievance with us, and then with the Data Protection Board of India.

Write to [email protected] with the mobile number on your account, or to the grievance officer below. Where the request concerns society records, we will involve your society. We reply within 30 days.

9. Children

Habitat accounts are for adults. Owners and tenants may add children as household members; they are responsible for doing so with a parent’s or guardian’s consent.

10. Cookies

The website and admin use only what they need to work: for example, keeping you signed in and remembering your theme. We do not use advertising cookies on the website.

11. Changes

We will update this page when our practices change and show the new date at the top. For important changes we will also tell you in the app.

12. Grievance officer

Sasank Panda, [email protected],Financial District, ISB Road, Hyderabad, Telangana 500032. We acknowledge grievances within 48 hours and resolve them within 30 days.