Privacy Policy

Effective 8 October 2026

Saathi ("Saathi", "we", "us") is a social travel app that helps you find travel companions, join and plan trips, split costs and travel more safely. This policy explains what information we collect, why, who we share it with, and the choices you have. It applies to the Saathi mobile apps and the services at saathitravel.com.

1. Who we are and how to contact us

Saathi is operated from Hyderabad, India. For any privacy question or request, email support@saathitravel.com. We aim to reply within 7 days.

2. Information we collect

Information you give us

• Account: email address, password (stored only as a one-way hash), and optionally a phone number.
• Profile: display name, date of birth (we show only your age), gender, city and country, bio, profile photo, languages, interests, travel preferences (for example budget, pace, food and accommodation style) and places you've visited.
• Trips and community: trips you create or join, join requests, itineraries, lists, polls, trip photos, meet-ups, events you attend, stay-share posts (an area, never an address), food trails, yatra progress and workation plans.
• Messages: chats in trip, meet-up, stay and direct conversations, including photos you send.
• Money: expenses, splits, budgets and settlements you record with your trip group. We don't process payments or store card or bank details.
• Reviews and reports: ratings and reviews you write about fellow travelers, reports you file and people you block.
• Safety: emergency contacts (name, phone number, relationship), check-ins (time, an optional note and optional location) and SOS alerts.
• Support: anything you send us when you contact us.

Information collected when you use Saathi

• Location — only while the app is in use and only when you choose to: sharing your live location with your trip group (for a time you pick, 60 minutes by default), attaching your location to a check-in, sending an SOS, or picking a place on a map. Saathi does not collect location in the background.
• Device and push: a push notification token and your device platform, so we can send notifications.
• Security and usage: sign-in sessions with the device's user agent, and a salted hash of your IP address (we don't store raw IP addresses in our database); a security log of important account actions; and limited in-app usage events (for example which features are used) that we keep in our own database. We don't use third-party analytics or advertising SDKs.
• Photos: when you upload an image we remove embedded metadata such as GPS coordinates.

3. How we use your information

• To run Saathi: create your account, show your profile, match you with compatible trips and travelers, let you plan, chat and split costs.
• To keep people safe: alert your trip group and our safety staff when you send an SOS or miss a check-in, and (when text messaging is active) text your emergency contacts with your name, trip and an approximate location (rounded to about 100 m).
• To protect the community: verify email and phone numbers, review reports, enforce our Terms, and prevent fraud, abuse and spam.
• To send you service emails and notifications (verification, password reset, trip updates, safety alerts). We don't send marketing without your consent.
• To provide the optional Saathi AI trip assistant when you use it.
• To understand and improve the app using aggregated usage information.

Where laws such as India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 or the GDPR apply, we rely on your consent, on performing our agreement with you, on our legitimate interest in keeping Saathi safe and working, and on legal obligations.

4. What other travelers can see

Other users can see your display name, photo, age, city and country, rating, number of completed trips, badges and top interests. If you make your profile private, your age, city, country and interests are hidden. Messages, trip content and reviews are visible to the people in that trip or conversation. Your email address, phone number, exact date of birth and emergency contacts are never shown to other travelers. Live location is visible only to active members of that trip, never to people you've blocked or who have blocked you.

5. Who we share information with

We share information only with service providers that help us run Saathi, under contracts that limit their use of it, or when required by law:

We may disclose information if required by law or a valid legal request, or to protect someone's safety, including cooperating with law enforcement in an emergency. If Saathi is involved in a merger or acquisition, information may transfer to the new owner under this policy. We do not sell or rent your personal information, and we don't share it for advertising.

6. International transfers

Our servers are in India. Some providers listed above process data in other countries (for example the United States or Japan). Where we transfer data, we rely on the provider's contractual and security commitments.

7. How long we keep information

• We keep your information while your account is active.
• Live location shares are deleted shortly after they expire (within about 10 minutes). Expired sign-in and verification tokens are deleted within 7 days of expiry.
• When you delete your account, we delete or anonymize your personal information — see below.
• Database backups are kept for 7 days, so deleted data disappears from backups within that time.

8. Deleting your account

You can delete your account in the app: Profile tab → Delete account. You can also request deletion here. When you delete your account we immediately:

• Delete your email, phone number, password, profile details and photo, interests, travel preferences, travel history, emergency contacts, workation plans, notifications, push tokens, live location and two-step-verification data.
• Remove you from upcoming trips and cancel any active check-in.
• Show anything you contributed to shared spaces — group chat messages, reviews, and shared expenses — as from "Deleted traveler", so other members' conversations and balances stay correct.

We keep limited records where needed for safety, fraud prevention or legal reasons: reports, blocks, safety events and check-in times (without location or notes), and our security log. These are not linked to your name or contact details after deletion.

9. Your rights and choices

• Access and correction: view and edit your profile in the app, or ask us for a copy of your information.
• Deletion: delete your account at any time (see above).
• Privacy controls: make your profile or travel history private, and choose who can message you or request to join your trips.
• Permissions: location, camera, photos, calendar and notifications are optional and can be turned off in your device settings.
• Withdraw consent or complain: email us. You may also complain to your data protection authority (in India, the Data Protection Board of India).

10. Security

We use encryption in transit (HTTPS) and at rest for our database and backups, hash passwords, encrypt two-step-verification secrets, restrict staff access (with mandatory two-step verification for staff) and log staff actions. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you, we will notify you and the authorities as the law requires.

11. Children

Saathi is only for people aged 18 and over. We check age at sign-up and remove accounts we learn belong to anyone younger. See our child safety standards.

12. Changes

We'll post any changes here and update the date above. For significant changes we'll tell you in the app or by email.