Privacy Policy

Personal information you disclose to us

We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide when you register on the Services, participate in polling activities, or contact us. This may include:

• Email address and/or Google account identity (used for authentication)
• Phone numbers (optional on your profile)
• Usernames / handle names
• Job titles, occupations, and income bands
• Demographic data (age bands, gender, state, district, and urban/rural status)
• Educational background and language preferences
• Top civic concerns and topics of interest
• Voting stances, reasoning tags, and confidence scores

Sensitive information

Because SPADE surfaces civic and political sentiment, some information you provide may be considered sensitive under applicable law (for example, information revealing political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or financial data you choose to share). We process this information only with your consent and as needed to deliver the Services.

Information automatically collected

We automatically collect certain information when you visit or use the Services. This does not reveal your specific identity but may include IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, session metrics, and usage data needed to maintain security and platform performance.

We use strictly necessary cookies and similar technologies to maintain authenticated session state. We do not use third-party advertising, retargeting, or marketing cookies.

We process your personal information depending on how you interact with SPADE:

• To deliver and facilitate the Services: authenticate your login, personalize your feed, and operate your account.
• To send administrative information: account details, sign-in emails (magic links), and changes to our terms and policies.
• To calculate gamified community metrics: generate engagement scores, regional leaderboards, and shareable identity profiles.
• To protect our Services: anomaly detection, fraud monitoring, and abuse prevention.
• To aggregate demographic intelligence: compile voting patterns into anonymized statistical sentiment analytics.
• To respond to inquiries: support requests and feedback about your use of the Services.

We do not sell your personal information. We process data only when we have a valid legal reason under applicable law, including consent, contractual necessity, legitimate business interests, and legal obligations.

We share information only with third-party vendors, service providers, and contractors who perform services for us under contractual safeguards. Categories include:

• Cloud computing and website hosting (e.g., Vercel)
• Communication tools (e.g., email delivery for magic links via providers such as Resend)
• Data storage providers (e.g., Supabase)
• User authentication and registration services
• Data analytics and performance monitoring tools

We may also share information in connection with a business transfer, or when required by law, court order, or to protect rights and safety.

We use strictly necessary cookies and similar technologies solely to securely maintain your authenticated session and track basic platform performance. We do not use third-party advertising, retargeting, or marketing cookies.

Most browsers accept cookies by default. You can remove or reject cookies in browser settings, though some features may not work correctly without them.

Yes. We use artificial intelligence, including Google Cloud AI, to aggregate, summarize, and categorize publicly available third-party news into brief content cards for the platform feed.

Important privacy distinction: We do not process, share, or transmit your personally identifiable information or login identity to these AI models. AI is used for content generation and news summarization, not for analyzing individual user profiles.

Our use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including Limited Use requirements.

We keep personal information only as long as necessary for the purposes in this Notice, generally for as long as you have an active account, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.

When we no longer need your information, we delete or anonymize it. Information in backup archives may be isolated until deletion is possible.

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures—including secure cloud infrastructure and row-level security—designed to protect personal information. No electronic transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed 100% secure; use the Services in a secure environment.

No. We do not knowingly solicit data from or market to anyone under 18. By using the Services, you represent that you are at least 18. If we learn that data from a user under 18 was collected, we will deactivate the account and take reasonable steps to delete it. Contact admin@thespade.in if you believe we have collected such data.

Depending on your region and applicable law (including India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act), you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or restrict processing of your personal information, and to withdraw consent where processing is consent-based.

You can update account information in Profile settings. To review, update, or delete your data, email admin@thespade.in. Upon account deletion, we remove your identity layer and associated personal records per our retention policy. Anonymized vote aggregates may remain for research integrity.

Most browsers include a Do-Not-Track ("DNT") setting. No uniform industry standard for DNT exists yet. We recognize and honor Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals from privacy-focused browsers as a valid opt-out of sale or sharing for targeted advertising where applicable law requires it.

SPADE reserves the right to aggregate, anonymize, and compile user voting records, polling selections, and demographic engagement metrics into statistical datasets. Once data is fully anonymized and stripped of personal identifiers (such as login emails or unique user IDs), SPADE may analyze, publish, license, or commercialize these aggregated intelligence reports for research, corporate, public policy, and commercial market intelligence purposes.

Yes. We update this Notice as needed to stay compliant with relevant laws. The revised date at the top indicates the latest version. Material changes may be communicated by notice on the Services or direct notification.

Email admin@thespade.in or write to us at: