1. Overview
- We ask for a phone number, a date of birth, a few profile details, at least two photos and your location. That is what a dating app needs to work.
- Your phone number is never shown to another user. Your exact coordinates are never shown either — other people only ever see an approximate distance.
- We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers.
- You can edit or delete your photos and profile details at any time, and you can have your whole account erased by writing to us.
- Paheli is for adults only. If you are under 18 you may not use it.
This summary is here to help you read faster. The sections below are the part that counts.
This Privacy Policy explains how Paheli Dating (“Paheli”, “we”, “us”) handles personal data when you use the Paheli mobile app or this website. It applies to everyone who uses Paheli, and it sits alongside our Terms of Service, Terms of Use and Community Guidelines.
By creating a Paheli account you confirm you have read this policy and you consent to the processing it describes. If you do not agree with it, please do not create an account — and if you already have one, delete it.
2. Who we are
Paheli Dating operates Paheli, a dating app that shows you a small, curated set of introductions each day, unlocked by solving a short puzzle. We are the data fiduciary (data controller) for the personal data described in this policy.
- Registered location: Mumbai, India
- Privacy contact: support.paheli@gmail.com
- Grievance Officer: The Grievance Officer, support.paheli@gmail.com
3. Information we collect
3.1 Information you give us
- Sign-in: your mobile phone number, and the one-time passcode you enter to verify it. Sign-in is by OTP — Paheli never asks you for a password.
- Profile basics: first name, date of birth (we store your date of birth and display only your age), gender, who you would like to be shown, and what you are looking for.
- Profile detail: your bio, your green flag and red flag prompts, height, drinking and smoking habits, religion, languages, job title, company, school or college, and the interests you pick.
- Photos: the images you upload (at least two are required to finish onboarding), including whatever the photo itself shows. Photos are checked for policy violations before or after they go live.
- Discovery preferences: your age range, maximum distance and which genders you want to be shown.
- Messages and content: the messages you send in a chat and the conversation openers you use.
- Reports and support: anything you tell us when you report someone, block someone, or email support — including the reason you select and any detail you write.
3.2 Information collected as you use Paheli
- Location. See section 4 — this one gets its own section.
- Activity on the app: the puzzles you are given and the paths you submit to solve them, hints you request, the introductions you are shown, likes, passes, matches, whose profile you have opened, and which conversations you are part of.
- Message metadata: when a message was sent, when it was read, when you are typing, and whether you are currently online.
- Device and technical data: device model and operating system, app version, language, approximate IP-based region, crash and error logs, and the security tokens that keep you signed in.
- Purchase records: what you bought, when, how much, and whether it was delivered. We do not receive or store your card, UPI or bank details — see section 6.
3.3 Information from other people
If another user reports or blocks you, we record that report and the reason given. We may also receive information about you from our service providers — for example a payment platform confirming a transaction, or an SMS provider confirming an OTP was delivered.
Paheli will never ask you for your bank account number, UPI PIN, card CVV, OTP for a payment, Aadhaar number, or any password. Nobody from Paheli will ever ask for these — over chat, email or a phone call. If someone does, they are not us. Report it and read our Safety Centre.
4. Location data
Paheli is a proximity-based app, so location is not optional — without it we cannot show you anyone nearby, and nobody nearby can be shown you.
- What we collect: your device’s latitude and longitude, the accuracy of that reading, and a coarse address — city, region and country — resolved from it.
- When: when you set your location during onboarding, and when you open or return to the app, so distances stay current. If you move a material distance, we rebuild your introductions for the new area.
- What other users see: an approximate distance (“4 km away”) only. Your coordinates, your address and your live position are never shown to another user.
- Turning it off: you can withdraw the location permission at any time in your phone’s system settings. Most of Paheli — new introductions in particular — will stop working if you do.
5. How we use your information
| What we do | Why we need to |
|---|---|
| Create and run your account | To verify your number, keep you signed in, and let you build a profile. |
| Build your daily introductions | To pick people who fit your preferences on interests, intent, age, distance and activity — and to keep you out of the lineups of people you have passed on or blocked. |
| Serve and validate the puzzle | To generate your daily puzzle and check the path you submit on our servers before an introduction is revealed. |
| Deliver matches and chat | To open a conversation when two people like each other, deliver messages in real time, and show read receipts and online status. |
| Keep Paheli safe | To review reports, action blocks, detect fake or duplicate accounts, moderate photos and text, and enforce our Terms and Guidelines. |
| Process purchases | To unlock what you paid for, keep transaction records, and handle refunds and disputes. |
| Support you | To answer your emails, investigate bugs and act on deletion requests. |
| Improve the app | To understand which features are used and where the app crashes, in aggregate. |
| Send you notifications | To tell you about a new match, a new message or your daily puzzle. You control these in your device and in-app settings. |
| Meet legal obligations | To keep records the law requires and to respond to lawful requests from authorities. |
Where the law requires your consent — for location and for notifications in particular — we ask for it, and you can withdraw it. Everything else we do because it is necessary to provide the service you signed up for, to keep users safe, or to comply with law.
We do not use your photos, messages or profile to train advertising profiles, and we do not run third-party ad networks inside Paheli.
6. Payments
Paid features — such as a Day Pass, a Profile Boost, credit packs or a subscription — are billed through Google Play or another payment platform we work with. Those platforms handle your card, UPI, wallet or netbanking details directly.
Paheli does not receive, see or store your full card number, UPI PIN, CVV or bank credentials. What we receive back is a record that a purchase succeeded: the product, the amount, the time, and a transaction reference. We keep that so we can unlock what you bought, support you and satisfy tax and accounting law. See our Refunds & Cancellations policy.
7. What other users can see
Paheli is a social product, so some of your data is meant to be seen. Here is the exact line.
| Data | Visible to others? |
|---|---|
| Phone number | Never. |
| Exact location / address | Never. |
| Date of birth | No — only the age calculated from it. |
| Email address, if you add one | Never. |
| Name, age, photos, bio, prompts, interests, job, school, languages, habits | Yes — to people your profile is shown to. |
| Distance from you | Yes, approximate only (for example, “4 km away”). |
| Online status, typing indicator, read receipts | Yes — to people you are matched and chatting with. |
| Who you liked, passed on, blocked or reported | Never shown to that person. |
Before your introduction is revealed, the other person sees only a teaser: a display name, an approximate distance, a few tags and how many interests you share. The full profile appears only once they have solved their puzzle.
Once you send a message or a photo to a match, that person can screenshot it, save it or share it. Deleting your account does not pull it back off their phone. Please treat anything you send as permanent, and share only what you would be comfortable with someone keeping.
9. How long we keep it
- While your account is active: we keep your profile, photos, matches and chats so the app works.
- After you delete your account: your profile and photos come out of circulation immediately, and your personal data is erased from our live systems within 30 days, then from routine backups on their normal rotation.
- Messages you sent: a copy remains in your former match’s conversation, shown as a deleted user, because it is their conversation too.
- Records we must keep: transaction and tax records for the period Indian law requires; and a minimal record of bans, reports and safety actions so that someone removed for harassment or underage use cannot simply sign up again. This is kept separate from your profile and used for nothing else.
Full detail, including how to ask, is on the Delete Your Account & Data page.
10. Your rights and choices
Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and other applicable law, you have the right to:
- Access — ask for a summary of the personal data we hold about you and who we have shared it with.
- Correct — fix anything inaccurate or incomplete. Most of this you can do yourself in the app, under Edit profile.
- Erase — have your account and data deleted, subject to the records described in section 9.
- Withdraw consent — turn off location or notification permissions at any time in your device settings, and pause discovery in the app so no new introductions are built.
- Nominate — nominate someone to exercise these rights on your behalf in the event of your death or incapacity.
- Complain — raise a grievance with us, and escalate to the Data Protection Board of India if you are not satisfied.
To exercise any of these, email support.paheli@gmail.com from the address linked to your account, or include the phone number you signed up with so we can verify it is you. We will not action a request we cannot verify — that protects you.
In the app: Settings → Privacy lets you pause discovery and review your blocked contacts; Settings → Notifications controls what we send you.
11. How we protect your data
- Traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted in transit.
- Your session tokens are stored in your device’s secure keychain, not in ordinary app storage.
- Sign-in is one-time-passcode based, so there is no password of yours for anyone to steal or reuse.
- Access to production data is limited to the people who need it to run the service.
- Photo uploads go through moderation, and reports are reviewed by people.
No app, website or company can promise perfect security. We work hard at it, but we cannot guarantee that our systems, or the internet between you and them, will never be compromised. Please use a device lock, keep your OS and the app updated, and never share the OTP we send you with anyone — including anyone claiming to be from Paheli.
12. Nobody under 18
Paheli is strictly for adults aged 18 and over. We ask for a date of birth at sign-up and block anyone who enters one under 18. We do not knowingly collect data from children.
If you believe someone under 18 is using Paheli, report the profile in the app (choose Underage as the reason) or email support.paheli@gmail.com. We remove those accounts and delete the associated data as a priority.
13. This website
This marketing site is deliberately light. It does not require an account, does not set advertising or tracking cookies, and does not build a profile of you. Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs, which may include your IP address and browser type, for security and to keep the site up.
Links out to the Google Play Store or other third-party sites are governed by those companies’ own privacy policies, not this one.
14. Changes to this policy
We will update this policy as Paheli changes. The date at the top of this page always reflects the current version. If a change materially affects your rights or how we use your data, we will give you notice in the app or by message before it takes effect.
Continuing to use Paheli after a change takes effect means you accept the updated policy. If you do not, delete your account.
15. Contact and grievance redressal
For any question, request or complaint about your privacy, write to support.paheli@gmail.com. Please include the phone number on your Paheli account so we can verify you.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may escalate to our Grievance Officer, The Grievance Officer, at support.paheli@gmail.com, and after that to the Data Protection Board of India.
Questions about this page? Email support.paheli@gmail.com — or see every other policy on the legal index.