Privacy Policy

How we collect, use, and protect your information

Last Updated: April 19, 2026

Your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy explains how VahanBazaar.in ("we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects your personal information when you use our platform.

This document is published in accordance with the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the rules made thereunder, including the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA), that require publishing the privacy policy on the website of the company. Where applicable, this policy aligns with the requirements of the DPDPA, including provisions related to consent of data principals, rights of data principals, and obligations of data fiduciaries.

By using our Services and the Website or by otherwise providing us your information, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy. You also expressly consent to our collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information in the manner described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please do not use our platform or provide us any of your information. This policy should be read in conjunction with our Terms & Conditions.

Information We Collect

We collect the following types of information to provide and improve our services:

Personal Information

  • Name, email address, and phone number (provided during registration)
  • Vehicle details when you create a listing (make, model, year, price, etc.)
  • Registration Certificate (RC) details for vehicle verification
  • Payment information processed through our payment gateway (we do not store card or bank details)

Automatically Collected Information

  • Device information (browser type, operating system)
  • IP address and approximate location
  • Pages visited, time spent, and interaction patterns on our platform
  • Cookies and similar tracking technologies

How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

  • Account Management: To create and manage your account, authenticate your identity, and enable you to use our platform.
  • Vehicle Verification: To verify vehicle registration details using your RC document and registration number, ensuring listing authenticity.
  • Connecting Buyers & Sellers: To share seller contact details with buyers who have recharged their wallet for this purpose.
  • Payment Processing: To process transactions including verification fees and contact credit purchases through our third-party payment gateway. We do not store your card or bank details — all payment data is handled directly by the gateway.
  • Communication: To send you important updates about your listings, transactions, and platform changes.
  • Fraud Prevention: To detect and prevent fraudulent listings using document hashing and verification systems.
  • Platform Improvement: To analyse usage patterns and improve our services.

Information Sharing

We do not sell your personal information. We may share your information only in the following circumstances:

  • Buyer-Seller Connection: When a buyer uses a credit to view a seller's contact number, we share the seller's phone number with that buyer. This is the core service of our platform.
  • Service Providers (Consulting): We use trusted third-party service providers to operate our platform. These providers are bound by contractual arrangements that restrict them from using or disclosing your information except as necessary to perform their services on our behalf. These providers only access your data as necessary to perform their services:
    • Supabase — Database management and authentication
    • Cloudinary — Vehicle image storage and delivery
    • Meta (WhatsApp Business API) — OTP delivery and notifications
    • Google (Gemini AI) — RC document OCR and vehicle verification
    • Cloudflare — Website hosting and security
    • Payment Gateway — Payment processing (card/bank details are handled directly by the gateway and never stored on our servers)
  • Targeted Advertising: With your explicit consent, we may share certain information (such as browsing behaviour, device information, and platform interactions) with advertising partners including Google Analytics and social media platforms to deliver relevant advertisements, measure ad performance, and improve our marketing efforts. This information is shared in a manner that does not directly identify you personally. You may withdraw your consent for personalised advertising at any time by contacting us at support@vahanbazaar.in or by adjusting your browser or device settings.
  • Regulatory Disclosures: We may disclose your personal information, without prior notice to you, if such disclosure is required to:
    • (i) comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request;
    • (ii) enforce our Terms & Conditions, including investigation of potential violations;
    • (iii) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, or technical issues;
    • (iv) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of VahanBazaar, its users, or the public; or
    • (v) respond to claims that any content on the platform violates the rights of third parties.
  • Business Transfers: We may share or transfer your information to any affiliate, subsidiary, or entity to whom we transfer our rights and obligations, including in the event of a merger, acquisition, restructuring, or sale of assets. In such an event, we will require the receiving entity to honour this Privacy Policy.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes.

Vehicle Verification & RC Data

When you upload your Registration Certificate (RC) for vehicle verification:

  • We extract only the owner name, vehicle make/model, and registration number from the document.
  • A SHA-256 hash of the document is stored to prevent the same RC from being used for multiple active listings (fraud prevention).
  • RC verification data is automatically scheduled for deletion after 30 days from the date of submission, in compliance with our data minimisation practices.
  • We do not store the original RC document image after extraction is complete.

Vahan Check Tools (Vahan Verify, AI Vahan Inspection)

Our Vahan Check suite comprises two standalone tools available under /buyer-tools/. These tools operate on an ephemeral-report architecture designed to minimise data retention:

What We Collect

  • Vehicle registration number you enter (required to query the government VAHAN database and traffic records)
  • Your WhatsApp phone number (from your login session) — used for payment receipts and fraud prevention
  • Payment metadata — Razorpay payment ID, order ID, amount paid, timestamp
  • Vehicle metadata derived from the VAHAN API response (make, model, variant, year, fuel type, registration state/city/RTO, owner serial, vehicle class) — stored for product analytics and customer support
  • For AI Vahan Inspection only — the count of photos uploaded (not the photos themselves)

What We Explicitly Do NOT Store

  • The generated report content itself — once you close the page, it is gone from our servers forever. We retain no copy.
  • Challan details (offence descriptions, fine amounts, locations, dates) — these are queried and displayed in real time but never persisted
  • AI-generated observations about your uploaded photos (paint condition, odometer reading, wear notes, etc.)
  • Model-specific research output from internet sources (although the cache of such research — keyed only by make/model/year-bucket, with no buyer identifier — is shared across all users to avoid duplicate fetches)
  • Uploaded photos — images uploaded for AI Vahan Inspection are sent to Cloudinary only for processing by Google Gemini Vision, then deleted. They are not retained or reused.
  • PDF copies of your reports — generated client-side in your browser, never uploaded to our servers
  • Owner address details from the VAHAN response (although the VAHAN API returns them, we do not store them)

Third-Party Services Involved

Vahan Check tools rely on the following third parties, who receive only the data necessary to perform their specific function:

  • SurePASS — receives your registration number to query the VAHAN database and traffic challan records.
  • Google (Gemini AI) — receives photo URLs (AI Vahan Inspection only) and make/model/year data to perform visual analysis and internet research. No phone number or personal identifiers are shared.
  • Cloudinary — temporarily holds uploaded inspection photos during processing. Photos are deleted after analysis.
  • Razorpay — handles the ₹49 and ₹249 report payments. Card and bank details never touch our servers.

Disclaimer-Agreement Audit Trail

Before we generate any Vahan Check report or accept payment, you must tick a checkbox confirming that you have read and agreed to our Terms & Conditions, Refund Policy, and Privacy Policy. We record the following against your buyer_reports row for audit purposes:

  • Timestamp of your consent (disclaimer_agreed_at)
  • Version of the policies in force at that moment (disclaimer_version, e.g. v1.2026-04-22)

This audit trail is retained for as long as the corresponding buyer_reports row is retained (see our Data Retention section). It helps us demonstrate that consent was obtained if ever disputed and does not contain any personal data beyond your existing user ID.

Our Vahan Check reports are informational summaries based on third-party data sources. They are not a guarantee of vehicle condition, title, or fitness for purpose, and are not a substitute for a physical mechanical inspection. See our Terms & Conditions for full details.

Security of Information

VahanBazaar has put in place appropriate technical methods and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure your personal information. We only process personal information in a way that is compatible with and relevant for the purpose for which it was collected or authorised by you. Our platform allows you to access your personal information and allows you to correct, amend, or delete inaccurate information.

We use commercially reasonable precautions to preserve the integrity and security of your information against loss, theft, unauthorised access, disclosure, reproduction, use, or amendment:

  • All data transmissions are encrypted using SSL/TLS protocols.
  • User authentication is handled through secure systems (Supabase Auth).
  • Payment information is processed securely by our payment gateway and is never stored on our servers.
  • Access to personal data is restricted to authorised employees, agents, partners, and third parties who reasonably need that information to enable us to provide our services to you.

The information that is collected from you may be transferred to, stored, and processed at any destination within and/or outside India. By submitting information on our platform, you agree to this transfer, storing, and/or processing. We will take such steps as we consider reasonably necessary to ensure that your information is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

In using our platform, you accept the inherent security implications of data transmission over the internet. Therefore, the use of our platform will be at your own risk and VahanBazaar assumes no liability for any disclosure of information due to errors in transmission, unauthorised third-party access, or other acts of third parties, or acts or omissions beyond its reasonable control, and you agree not to hold VahanBazaar responsible for any breach of security.

In the event we become aware of any breach of the security of your personal information, we will promptly notify you and take appropriate action to the best of our ability to remedy such a breach.

Data Retention

We retain your personal information only for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected and as permitted by applicable law:

  • Account data (name, phone number, email) is retained for as long as your account is active.
  • Vehicle listing data is retained for as long as the listing is active, plus a reasonable period thereafter for record-keeping.
  • RC verification data is automatically scheduled for deletion after 30 days from the date of submission.
  • Transaction records (payment history, contact reveals) are retained as required for legal and accounting purposes.
  • Refund & dispute data — In the event of a refund request, chargeback, or payment dispute, relevant transaction data (including payment details, user identity, and service usage records) is retained until the dispute is fully resolved, and for such additional period as may be required by applicable law or payment gateway policies. For more details, see our Refund Policy.
  • OTP verification data is deleted shortly after verification is complete.

If you wish to cancel your account or request that we no longer use your information to provide you services, please contact us at support@vahanbazaar.in or use the Contact Us form. Even after your account is terminated, we may retain your personal information as needed to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, resolve disputes, conclude any activities related to cancellation of an account, investigate or prevent fraud and other inappropriate activity, to enforce our agreements, and for other business reasons.

Data Storage & Transfer

Your information may be stored and processed on servers located outside India. Our database provider (Supabase) operates servers in Tokyo, Japan; our image hosting provider (Cloudinary) operates servers globally; and our website is served via Cloudflare's global network. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, transfer of personal data outside India is permitted unless the Central Government restricts transfer to a specific country. By using our platform, you consent to the transfer of your information to these servers. We ensure that adequate safeguards are in place to protect your data regardless of where it is stored.

Third-Party Links

Our platform may contain links to third-party websites or services that are not operated by us. We have no control over, and assume no responsibility for, the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party websites. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of every website you visit. A link to a third-party website does not constitute our endorsement of that website.

Cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies to:

  • Keep you signed in to your account.
  • Remember your preferences and settings.
  • Understand how you use our platform.
  • Improve your browsing experience.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. However, disabling cookies may affect certain features of our platform.

Your Rights

You have the following rights regarding your personal information:

  • Access: You can request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
  • Correction: You are responsible for maintaining the accuracy of the information you provide to us. You can request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information at any time.
  • Deletion: You can request deletion of your account and associated personal data, subject to legal retention requirements.
  • Withdraw Consent: The consent you provide for the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information will remain valid until withdrawn by you in writing. You can withdraw your consent at any time by emailing us. If you withdraw consent, we will stop processing the relevant personal information, except to the extent required by applicable law. Please note that withdrawal of consent may affect your ability to use our services.

To exercise any of these rights, please email us at support@vahanbazaar.in or use the Contact Us form. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe, and in any case within 30 days.

Children's Privacy

VahanBazaar is not intended for use by individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If we become aware that we have collected data from a minor, we will take steps to delete it promptly.

Access Outside India

VahanBazaar makes no representation that the platform is appropriate to be used or accessed outside India. This document is published in accordance with the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and VahanBazaar is compliant with the laws of India. If any users use or access the platform from outside India, they do so at their own risk and are responsible for compliance with the laws of such jurisdiction, and VahanBazaar shall not have any responsibility for, or liability arising from, such compliance with local laws. This Privacy Policy does not constitute, nor may it be used for or in connection with, any promotional activities or solicitation by anyone in any jurisdiction in which such promotional activities or solicitation is not authorised, or to any person to whom it is unlawful to promote or solicit.

Opt In and Opt Out

Upon registration, you may receive certain communications from VahanBazaar, including transactional messages (such as OTP codes, listing updates, and contact reveal notifications) and promotional messages (such as new feature announcements and marketing campaigns). You may at any time choose to opt out of receiving promotional communications from VahanBazaar. To be removed from our marketing communications list, please contact us at support@vahanbazaar.in or use the Contact Us form. Please note that transactional messages related to your account and active listings cannot be opted out of while your account is active.

Exclusion

This Privacy Policy does not apply to any information other than information collected by VahanBazaar through the platform, including such information collected in accordance with the "Information We Collect" section above. This Privacy Policy will not apply to any unsolicited information provided by you through this platform or through any other means. This includes, but is not limited to, information posted on any public areas of the platform. All such unsolicited information shall be deemed to be non-confidential and VahanBazaar will be free to use and disclose such unsolicited information without limitation.

VahanBazaar also protects your personal information off-line other than as specifically mentioned in this Privacy Policy. However, VahanBazaar is not responsible for the confidentiality, security, or distribution of your personal information by our partners and third parties outside the scope of our agreement with such partners and third parties.

Changes to This Policy

From time to time, we may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to our information practices. Any changes will be effective immediately upon the posting of the revised Privacy Policy on this page with an updated "Last Updated" date. If we make any material changes, we will notify you by email (sent to the email address provided in your account, if available) or by means of a notice on our platform prior to the change becoming effective. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices. Your continued use of our platform after any changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.

Privacy Concerns?

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your data, please contact us:

Email: support@vahanbazaar.in

Use our Contact Form

Grievance Officer
In accordance with the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the rules made thereunder, the name and contact details of the Grievance Officer are provided below:

PremKumar K
Email: support@vahanbazaar.in
Phone: +91 95009 94796
We endeavour to acknowledge all grievances within 48 hours and resolve them within 30 days of the date of receipt.

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