Karana is an app for daily Hindu practice, owned and operated by GridBits LLC. GridBits LLC is the company responsible for the information described here, and "we" and "us" throughout this policy mean GridBits LLC. This policy explains what we store, what never leaves your phone, and who we share things with.
We do not sell your data, we do not run advertising, and we do not use analytics or tracking of any kind. There is no third-party tracker in Karana. The app is only permitted to talk to our own servers and to our database provider, and nowhere else.
What we store
When you create an account we hold the following, so that your practice follows you between devices:
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your email address | To sign you in and to recover your account |
| Your name and username | To address you, and for friend streaks if you use them |
| Your chosen profile picture | Chosen from a fixed set we provide. You cannot upload a photo |
| Your language and your practice goal | To show the app in your language and suggest a routine |
| Your streak, and how far through each journey and lesson you are | So neither is lost with your phone, and both follow you to a new one |
| What you write in the journal | So your reflections survive a lost phone and appear on a new one. Deleted with your account |
| Whether you have a paid subscription | To unlock what you have paid for |
If you joined the waitlist before launch, we hold the email address you gave us and nothing else.
What never leaves your device
Some of what Karana holds is private in the strongest sense available to us: it is written to your own browser or phone and is never transmitted to us at all. We could not read it if we were asked to.
- Your birth date, time and place. If you use the reading that needs them, they are stored only on your device and are used only to do the astronomy on your device.
- Your calendar. If you set up the personal calendar, the place you observe from, the days you keep, and the names and dates of the family members you are remembering are written to your device and nowhere else. The dates themselves are worked out on your phone from the position of the sun and moon, so we never learn who you are remembering or when.
- Your theme, reminder time and session length preferences.
- Your puzzle results and your daily-puzzle streaks.
Three things used to be listed here and are not, because they were not true. Your language is stored on our servers, so that the app opens in the right one on a new phone; it is in the table above. So is how far through a journey or a lesson you are, for the same reason. And so, now, is your journal: it was written to your device alone when this page was first published, but the app gained a journal shelf that keeps your reflections across devices, and that means our servers hold what you write. It is stored against your account, it is not read by us for any purpose beyond showing it back to you, it is never sold or shared, and it is deleted along with everything else when you delete your account. We would rather correct this than leave it flattering and wrong.
Clearing your browser data, or deleting the app, erases all of this permanently. We cannot restore it, because we never had it.
Signing in with Google or Apple
If you choose to sign in with Google or with Apple, we receive your name and email address from them and nothing else. We do not receive your contacts, your calendar, your files, your photos, or anything about how you use any other app or service.
If you use Sign in with Apple and choose Hide My Email, we only ever see the relay address Apple gives us. That is fine, and everything in Karana will work normally.
Who we share it with
Nobody, other than the companies that run the infrastructure Karana is built on:
- Supabase hosts our database, our sign-in and our audio files.
- Vercel serves the app and this website.
- Google Fonts serves the typefaces. Your browser requests them directly.
Each of these can necessarily see the data required to do its job. None of them is given your information for any purpose of their own, and we have never sold or rented anyone's data.
Children
Karana includes stories written for children, and we expect parents to use it alongside them. Accounts are intended for adults. If you believe a child has created an account and given us their information, write to us and we will delete it.
Your rights over your data
You can ask us at any time to:
- send you a copy of everything we hold about you;
- correct anything that is wrong;
- delete your account and everything attached to it.
Deletion is real deletion, not deactivation. Write to the address below and we will act within 30 days.
Security
Traffic is encrypted in transit. Passwords are handled by our sign-in provider and are never stored by us in a form anyone can read. No system is perfect, and we will tell you promptly and plainly if something happens that affects your data.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what we collect or who sees it, we will say so in the app rather than quietly editing this page.
Deleting your account
You can delete your account and everything we hold yourself, from inside the app or from any browser, without asking us and without installing anything. It is immediate and permanent. How to delete your account sets out exactly what goes, what was never ours to delete, and what to do about a subscription first.
Contact
Karana is owned and operated by GridBits LLC. Questions or corrections, including any request about your data under the rights set out above: ashmith@getkarana.org.