We only collect personal information we genuinely need, we never sell it, and you can ask us at any time to show it to you, correct it or delete it. Everything below is the detail behind those three sentences.
The short version
We are Civil Ashram, based in Kota, Rajasthan, India. This policy covers everything we run — every website and subdomain, Arth Messenger, our tools, any app we publish, and our courses. Section 1 lists it all, and it is written to cover anything we add later too.
We collect your name, contact details, what you bought and how you use our sites — so that we can serve you and answer you. We do not sell your personal data to anyone, ever.
You can ask us to show you what we hold, correct it, or delete it. Write to info@civilashram.co.in and we will do it.
1Who we are
Civil Ashram is a sole proprietorship registered in Kota, Rajasthan, India, with GSTIN 08CRXPP9491C1ZV, at 1063, Mahaveer Nagar Second, Kota, Rajasthan – 324005, India. Our proprietor and Grievance Officer is Deepika Patni. In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Civil Ashram, and “you” means the person or business using our Services.
What this policy covers
In this policy, “our Services” means all of the following, whether they exist today or we add them afterwards:
- civilashram.co.in and every subdomain of it — including tech.civilashram.co.in (technology and consultancy), ias.civilashram.co.in (civil services guidance) and arthmessenger.civilashram.co.in (Arth Messenger) — and any other subdomain we add in future;
- any other domain or website we operate that links to this policy, including any domain we move to or trade under later;
- Arth Messenger in every form — the marketing pages, the sign-in and account pages, the dashboard, the WhatsApp automation itself, its add-on modules and its programming interfaces;
- our tools, including the QR Generator and Find My Photos, and any tool we publish later, whether free or paid;
- any mobile, desktop or browser application we publish, on an app store or directly;
- our courses, guidance programmes, mentorship, study material and community spaces, whether delivered online, by WhatsApp, or in person;
- our application programming interfaces, integrations, plug-ins and embedded widgets, and any dashboard we give you to manage them;
- the ways we communicate with you about all of the above — email, WhatsApp, telephone, video call, our forms and chat widgets, and the social media accounts we run; and
- anything that replaces or succeeds any of the above, including under a different name, brand or web address.
If we launch something this list does not obviously cover, this policy still applies to it — unless we publish a separate policy for it and tell you so before you use it.
“Business day” means Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays in Rajasthan, India. Saturday is counted only when we measure our support response targets, never when we measure a refund, a despatch or a delivery.
2What this policy covers
This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with and who we never share it with, how long we keep it, how we keep it safe, how we use cookies, how we handle young people’s data, and what rights you have.
It applies to every one of our Services as defined in section 1 — each website and subdomain we run, Arth Messenger in all its forms, our tools and applications, our courses and community spaces, and the conversations we have with you about any of them by email, WhatsApp, telephone or in person. It applies equally to anything we launch after this page was last updated.
We have written it to meet India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the Information Technology Act, 2000 together with the SPDI Rules, 2011; the General Data Protection Regulation as it applies in the European Union and the United Kingdom; and the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the CPRA. Where any of those laws gives you a stronger right than this policy describes, the law wins.
This policy sits alongside our Terms of Service, Refund & Cancellation Policy, Service Delivery Policy and Data Deletion Instructions.
3What information we collect
3.1 Information you give us directly
- Who you are — your full name, and your date of birth or gender only where it is relevant and you choose to give it.
- How to reach you — email address, mobile number, WhatsApp number and postal address.
- Your account — the username and password you set on our sites or in Arth Messenger.
- Study details — for civil services guidance: your educational background, previous attempts, optional subject and what you are aiming for.
- Business details — for technology clients: your business name, GSTIN, website address and the services you need.
- Payment details — handled by our payment partners. We never see or store your full card number.
- What you send us — contact form entries, emails, WhatsApp messages and support conversations.
3.2 Information we collect automatically
When you visit our websites we record technical information about the visit:
- your IP address, which tells us roughly which country and city you are in;
- your device type, operating system and browser;
- which pages you looked at, in what order, and for how long;
- how you arrived — a search engine, a social network, an advertisement or a direct link;
- crash reports and error logs.
We use this to fix faults and to understand which pages are useful. We do not use it to build a personal profile of you.
3.3 Information from other people
- Payment partners tell us that a payment succeeded, and give us the last four digits of the instrument for your invoice.
- Analytics providers give us anonymised reports about how our sites are used.
- Social networks — if you connect an account, we receive the public profile information you have permitted, from Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.
- Referrals — if someone refers you to us, we may receive your name and contact details. Where the law requires their consent to pass those on, we ask for confirmation that it was given.
3.4 Sensitive information
We try hard not to collect sensitive information at all. We do not ask for your religion, your political views, your health details or your biometric data.
There is one exception. Where a guidance programme is priced differently by category, or where a reservation category is relevant to an examination, we may ask you for it. When we do, it is always optional, it is always clearly marked as optional, we ask for your explicit consent at the point of collection, we store it encrypted, and we use it only for the single purpose we told you about. You can withdraw that consent at any time and we will delete it.
4Why we collect it, and how we use it
We use your information for these purposes and no others:
- To provide what you asked for — enrol you on a guidance programme, give you access to lectures, notes and mentorship, deliver the technology services you engaged us for, set up WhatsApp automation, build and maintain your website or software.
- To run your account — create and maintain it, take payment, issue invoices and receipts, and keep your billing history.
- To talk to you — answer your questions, send class reminders and schedule changes, and notify you of service or policy changes.
- To send you marketing — newsletters and offers, but only if you have agreed, and you can stop it at any time in one click.
- To improve what we do — see which pages are popular and which are confusing, fix bugs, speed the site up, and decide which new courses or services to build.
- To keep everyone safe — prevent fraud, abuse, spam and unauthorised access.
- To meet the law — keep tax invoices and financial records for the period the law requires, and respond to lawful requests from courts and government authorities.
4.1 Our lawful basis for using it
If you are in the European Union, the United Kingdom or India, the law asks us to name the basis on which we process your data. Ours are:
| Basis | When we rely on it |
|---|---|
| Your consent | Newsletters, marketing messages, optional cookies, and the sensitive information described in 3.4. You can withdraw consent at any time, and withdrawing it is as easy as giving it. |
| Performing a contract | Everything necessary to deliver a course, a subscription or a service you have bought, including billing and support. |
| A legal obligation | Tax records, GST filings, and anything else Indian law requires us to keep or to disclose. |
| Legitimate interests | Preventing fraud, keeping our systems secure, and basic website analytics. Under India’s DPDP Act these fall within the “certain legitimate uses” in section 7. We only rely on this where your rights do not override it, and you may object at any time. |
5Who we share your information with
5.1 The companies that help us operate
These organisations process data on our behalf, under contract, only on our instructions, and only for the purpose named:
| Who | What they do for us |
|---|---|
| Hostinger | Hosts our websites and databases |
| Google Workspace and Zoho Mail | Send and receive our email and service notifications |
| Razorpay, Stripe and PayPal | Take payments and issue refunds |
| Google Analytics | Anonymised reports on how our websites are used |
| Meta, through the WhatsApp Business Platform | Delivers the WhatsApp messages you have opted in to receive |
| Our customer support tools | Let us track and answer your queries |
Each of them is bound to keep your data confidential and to use it for nothing else.
5.2 When the law requires it
We share information when we are legally obliged to — a court order, a lawful demand from a tax authority, the police, or another competent government body. When that happens we disclose only the specific data that has been demanded, and we tell you it has happened unless the law forbids us from telling you.
5.3 If the business changes hands
If Civil Ashram merges with, is acquired by, or is sold to another business, your data may transfer with it. The new owner is bound by this policy until you are given notice of any change and an opportunity to object or to delete your data.
5.4 When you ask us to
Anything else — a testimonial, a reference, an introduction to a partner — only ever happens with your clear permission, given for that specific purpose.
5.5 What we never do
- We never sell your personal data or your contact list to anyone.
- We never share your information with advertisers in a way that identifies you.
- We never let a third party use your data for their own marketing.
- We never use one customer’s contacts or messages for another customer.
6Cookies and tracking
A cookie is a small file a website stores in your browser so it can remember something. We keep our use of them deliberately small.
6.1 The cookies we use
| Type | What it does | Can you switch it off? |
|---|---|---|
| Essential | Keeps you logged in, remembers your basket, keeps the site secure. | No — the site cannot work without these, and they store no marketing data. |
| Analytics | Tells us anonymously which pages are used and where people get stuck. | Yes. |
| Marketing | Measures whether an advertisement worked, on networks such as Google, Facebook and LinkedIn. | Yes, and we only ever set these if you have agreed first. |
6.2 How to control them
Where we ask you to choose, the choice is offered the first time you visit and you can change it whenever you like from the same prompt. You can also clear or block cookies entirely in your browser’s own settings — in most browsers this sits under Settings, then Privacy. Blocking essential cookies will stop parts of the site working.
If you would rather not deal with settings at all, email info@civilashram.co.in and ask us to stop analytics and marketing tracking for you. We will action it and confirm.
6.3 Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control
Some browsers send an automatic “Do Not Track” signal. There is still no industry agreement on what a website should do with it, so we cannot promise a particular response. We do honour Global Privacy Control signals where your browser sends them, and we always honour a choice you have made directly with us.
7How long we keep your information
We keep data only as long as we need it, then delete or anonymise it.
| What | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Your account | For as long as your account is open. Deleted within 30 days of a deletion request, apart from records the law requires us to keep. |
| Course and service records | The length of the course or service, plus up to 3 years, so we can confirm what you completed. |
| Payment and tax records | Up to 8 years, because Indian tax law requires it. This period cannot be shortened by a deletion request. |
| Marketing data | Until you unsubscribe, then deleted or anonymised within 90 days. |
| Website analytics | Up to 26 months, then anonymised. |
| Support conversations | Up to 3 years, so we can look back at what was asked and answered. |
| WhatsApp contacts and message history in Arth Messenger | For as long as your subscription is active, and 30 days afterwards so you can export it. Then deleted or anonymised. |
Where we say “legitimate business purposes” anywhere in this policy, we mean one of the periods in this table and nothing beyond it.
8Your rights over your data
8.1 What you can ask for
- To know what data we hold about you and what we do with it.
- To have a copy of it.
- To correct anything that is wrong or out of date.
- To have it deleted — sometimes called the right to be forgotten.
- To restrict what we use it for.
- To object to a particular use, and always to marketing.
- To take it with you — we will give it to you in a structured, machine-readable file.
- To withdraw consent you previously gave, at any time, as easily as you gave it.
- To nominate someone — if you are in India, the DPDP Act lets you nominate another person to exercise these rights for you if you die or become unable to act.
- To complain to us, and then to a data protection authority.
8.2 How to exercise them
Email info@civilashram.co.in from the address on your account, say which right you want to use and which website or service it relates to. If you want your data deleted, our Data Deletion Instructions page sets out exactly what to write.
| Where you are | When we will answer |
|---|---|
| European Union or United Kingdom | Within 30 days |
| California | Within 45 days |
| India | Within 30 days |
| Anywhere else | Within 30 days |
We may need to confirm who you are before we act, so that we never hand your data to somebody pretending to be you. There is no charge for any of this. In the rare case where a request is clearly excessive or repeated, we will tell you why before doing anything.
8.3 If you live in California
You also have the right to know the categories of personal information we collect and why; the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information — noting that we do not sell or share your data in the sense the CCPA means; and the right not to be treated differently for exercising any of these rights. Email info@civilashram.co.in with “CCPA Request” in the subject line.
9How we keep your data safe
No system is perfectly secure, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Here is what we actually do:
- every one of our websites is served over HTTPS, so data is encrypted in transit;
- sensitive data is encrypted where it is stored;
- access is restricted to the people who need it to do their work;
- our internal systems use strong passwords and two-factor authentication;
- software and servers are kept patched and up to date;
- we take regular backups so data can be restored;
- we work only with established providers who meet recognised security standards.
If something does go wrong
We will notify the relevant data protection authority within 72 hours of becoming aware of a breach that requires it, and we will tell affected users directly, as soon as we reasonably can. We will say what happened, what data was involved, what we are doing about it, and what you should do.
10Sending data outside your country
We are based in India. Some of the services we use store data on servers in India, the European Union, the United States or Singapore.
- For transfers out of the European Union or the United Kingdom we rely on the Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission, or on an adequacy decision where one exists.
- For India, we follow the restrictions the Government of India issues under the DPDP Act on which countries data may be transferred to.
- We choose providers that meet recognised international security and privacy standards.
11Children and young people
Under India’s DPDP Act, 2023 anyone under the age of 18 is a child.
- You must be 18 or over to buy anything from us or to hold a paid account.
- Anyone under 18 may use our freely available study material with the verifiable consent of a parent or legal guardian, who must be the one to provide any personal details.
- We never use a child’s data for profiling, behavioural tracking or targeted advertising.
- We never show a child advertising based on their data.
Our Terms of Service says the same thing, so the two documents agree.
If you are a parent or guardian and you believe a child has given us information without your permission, write to info@civilashram.co.in. We will delete it promptly and confirm that we have.
12Links to other websites
Our pages link out to other websites — YouTube, government examination portals, our payment partners and others. Once you leave our site this policy stops applying, and we are not responsible for how those sites handle your data. It is worth reading their privacy policy before you give them anything.
13How to complain
Please come to us first. Write to our Grievance Officer using the details at the foot of this page — Deepika Patni acknowledges every complaint within 24 hours and resolves it within 15 days. Most things are sorted out in a day or two.
If we cannot put it right, you are entitled to go to a regulator, and we will not hold that against you:
- India — the Data Protection Board of India, once it is operating under the DPDP Act, 2023.
- European Union — the supervisory authority in your country. The list is at edpb.europa.eu.
- United Kingdom — the Information Commissioner’s Office, at ico.org.uk.
- California — the California Privacy Protection Agency at cppa.ca.gov, or the California Attorney General at oag.ca.gov.
14Changes to this policy
When we change this policy we update the “Last updated” date at the top of the page. Where a change materially affects how we use your data, we will email you and put a notice on the website at least 30 days before it takes effect, so you have time to object or to leave.
Continuing to use our services after a change takes effect means you accept the updated policy. Earlier versions are available on request from info@civilashram.co.in.
Grievance redressal and contact
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, or with a decision we have made under this policy, escalate it here. We would far rather fix a problem than argue about one.
Grievance Officer: Deepika Patni, Proprietor. Every complaint receives a written acknowledgement and a reference number within 24 hours, and we resolve it within 15 days. If a complaint will take longer than that, we tell you why, and when to expect an answer.
Write to
Civil Ashram
1063, Mahaveer Nagar Second
Kota, Rajasthan – 324005
India
Telephone and WhatsApp
+91 88240 49989
+91 70146 93404 — Arth Messenger sales and support, on WhatsApp
Office hours
Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM (IST)
Saturday, 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM (IST)
If something is urgent, ring any day at any hour — it will be answered.