Privacy Policy
Advocate Sathi ("the app") is provided by [firm name - set in admin Settings -> Legal pages] ("we", "us"). This policy explains what personal data the app collects, why, how it is used and kept, and your rights under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 ("DPDP Act"). By creating an account you consent to the processing described here. You can withdraw consent at any time by deleting your account (see section 8).
1. Data we collect
- Account: your mobile number (to sign in with a one-time code), your name and, if you give it, your e-mail address.
- Practice details you enter: your name as printed in cause lists, the courts and benches you follow, and the cases you keep in your diary (case numbers, parties, dates, your remarks, to-dos, and client names / phone numbers if you choose to enter them).
- Alerts: the matters you ask us to watch on court display boards, and the alerts sent to you.
- Device: a push-notification token for your phone (Firebase Cloud Messaging) and the phone model, so alerts reach your phone. If you connect Telegram, the Telegram chat id and your Telegram display name.
- Usage and abuse prevention: which parts of the app you use on which days (counts only, not what you search), an identifier of this app on your phone (Android's per-app device id) and the internet address your requests come from, kept as a one-way coded value plus its first three parts. We use these to understand how the service is used and to prevent misuse, such as one person taking many free trials. They are deleted with your account.
- App integrity: when the app connects for court requests it tells our server whether a debugger or an app-modifying tool is attached, whether the phone looks rooted or is an emulator, and Google Play Integrity's verdict on this copy of the app and the phone. We also count court searches per hour. These are used only to keep the service from being misused and are deleted with your account.
- Consent records: when you accepted these terms, and whether you opted in to marketing messages (with date and wording version).
- Technical logs: the server keeps short technical logs (time, the court searched, errors) to keep the service running. It does not log what you type into court searches or the codes you enter.
We do not collect your contacts, location, photos, files or call logs, and the app has no advertising or third-party analytics.
2. Court information
Advocate Sathi is not affiliated with, and does not speak for, any court, tribunal or government body.
Case status, cause lists, orders and display boards come from the official websites of the courts and tribunals (and eCourts, the official portal of the district courts). This is public court information; the app fetches it when you ask for it or, for cases in your diary at courts that need no code, automatically to keep your diary up to date. These requests go from your phone to the court's website over your own internet connection, as when you open the court's site in a browser, so the court sees your phone's internet address; diary updates run in the background on your phone a few times a day. Our server tells your phone which court page to fetch and reads the court's reply; that reply passes between your phone and our server encrypted, and only what your diary needs (dates, status, orders list) is kept. Codes a court shows ("captchas") are always checked and submitted by you; the app may fill in a suggestion on your phone, but nothing is sent without your tap.
3. How we use your data
- to sign you in and keep your account and diary;
- to find your matters in cause lists and on display boards and send you alerts (push notifications, and Telegram if you connect it);
- to update your diary from the courts (next date, previous date, what happened, orders);
- to understand which features are used, and to prevent misuse of free trials and the service (one free trial per phone; accounts that misuse the service may be blocked after review by us);
- to send you service messages about your account (for example a sign-in code, or a change in your plan);
- to send you news about our products only if you opted in (you can switch this off in Profile at any time).
We do not sell your data and do not use it for advertising.
Teams. If you create or join a team, every case in the team's diary - with its client, client's phone, remarks and to-dos from orders - is visible to, and can be edited by, every member of that team, and each case shows the name of the member who added it. The team's owner sees each member's name and mobile number, and members see each other's names. Cases you add while in a team belong to the team: if you leave, they stay with the team; if the owner closes the team, each case goes back to the member who added it. Your call-out alerts, names in cause lists and courts you follow stay your own.
4. Service providers
- Google Gemini (Google LLC): to write "what happened" and to-dos from a court order, the order (public court record) and the case number are sent to Google's Gemini API. Your name, mobile number and your remarks are not sent.
- Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google LLC): to deliver push notifications; it receives the alert text and your device token.
- Google Play Integrity (Google LLC): checks that the app is the genuine, unmodified copy and runs on a genuine phone; Google receives information about the app and your phone as its terms describe.
- Telegram: only if you connect it, alerts are sent to your Telegram chat through Telegram's Bot API.
- Cloudflare: carries the connection between the app and our server (encrypted, HTTPS).
- WhatsApp (Meta) / e-mail provider: when available, to send you sign-in codes.
These providers process data only to provide their service to us. Some of them may process it outside India.
5. Where data is kept and for how long
Your account and diary are kept on our server in India for as long as your account exists. Alerts older than 12 months, technical logs older than 90 days, and downloaded court files (cached for a short time only) are deleted regularly. When you delete your account, all your data is erased at once, except a one-way coded form of your mobile number (so a free trial is not given twice) and records we must keep by law.
6. Security
Connections are encrypted (HTTPS); court requests between the app and our server are encrypted once more with a key only the genuine app and our server can use. Sign-in uses one-time codes; sessions use random tokens stored only as one-way hashes. Access to the server is limited to us. No method is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable safeguards as the DPDP Act requires, and we will inform you and the Data Protection Board as required if a breach affects you.
7. Children
The app is meant for advocates and their staff and is not directed at anyone under 18.
8. Your rights
You can see and correct your data in the app (Profile, Diary). You can delete your account and all your data at any time: in the app (Profile → Delete my account) or on the web at https://advocatesathi.app/delete-account. You may also ask us for a summary of your data, nominate a person to exercise your rights, or raise a grievance by writing to the grievance officer below; we reply within 30 days. If you are not satisfied, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.
9. Contact and grievance officer
[firm name - set in admin Settings -> Legal pages]
E-mail: [e-mail - set in admin Settings]
10. Changes
If we change this policy we will update the date above and tell you in the app before the change applies to you.