Privacy Policy

2. Who we are

For all personal data described here, CertiSetu is the Data Fiduciary (the controller) under India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. We decide what to collect and why, and we are answerable to you for it. We are not acting as anyone else’s processor.

3. The data we collect

3.1 What you give us

• Identity and contact: your name, your father’s or guardian’s name, date of birth, gender, mobile number, email address and residential address.
• Certificate-specific details: annual family income and its source, caste and sub-caste with the proof you rely on, family composition, and land or property details where the certificate requires them.
• Documents you upload: Aadhaar card images, residence proof (electricity bill, voter ID or ration card), Parshad or ward councillor approval, caste proof, an existing income certificate, PAN card and land records, as applicable to the certificate you have chosen.
• Photograph and signature used on the government application form.
• Declarations and e-signature: the self-declaration you make on the form and the electronic signature you apply to it.
• Support messages you send us by call, chat, WhatsApp or email.

3.2 What we collect automatically

• Usage data: pages viewed, steps completed, actions taken and timestamps.
• Device and technical data: IP address, browser, operating system, device identifiers and language preference.
• Cookies and similar technologies, as set out in the Cookie Policy.

3.3 What we receive from others

• DigiLocker: where you choose to link DigiLocker, the documents and profile details you consent to share, fetched directly from the issuing authority.
• Government portals: the application number, status, remarks and the issued certificate returned by the department handling your application.
• Payment gateway: confirmation that a payment succeeded or failed, the transaction reference and limited billing metadata. We never receive or store your full card number, CVV, UPI PIN or net-banking credentials.

3.4 Aadhaar and DigiLocker: handled separately

Aadhaar data carries statutory restrictions that go beyond the DPDP Act. We store your Aadhaar number only in masked form, never store biometrics, and delete DigiLocker artefacts once the application is filed. The full position is in the Aadhaar & DigiLocker Policy, which forms part of this one.

4. Why we use your data

• to verify who you are and that you are eligible for the certificate you have chosen;
• to prepare, fill and file the government application on your behalf, and to apply your e-signature to it as you have authorised;
• to follow up with the department, respond to queries or objections raised on your application, and obtain the certificate;
• to deliver the certificate to you digitally and by courier;
• to take payment, issue a GST invoice and process any refund;
• to keep you informed by SMS, WhatsApp, email and in-app notifications about your order status;
• to answer your questions and handle grievances;
• to detect and prevent fraud, forged documents, impersonation and misuse of the service;
• to meet our legal, tax and accounting obligations, and to defend our legal rights; and
• to improve the service, for which we use aggregated or de-identified data wherever it will do the job.

5. Our legal basis

Under the DPDP Act we process your personal data on the basis of the consent you give when you start an application, which is recorded in the Consent Notice. We also rely on the Act’s certain legitimate uses where they apply: for example, complying with a legal obligation, or responding to a lawful request from a government authority.

You may withdraw your consent at any time, as easily as you gave it, by writing to [email protected] or using the controls described in the Data Deletion page. Withdrawal does not affect processing already carried out, and if you withdraw before your application is filed we will stop work on it: see the Refund & Cancellation Policy.

6. Applicants under 18, and guardians

Where the applicant is under 18, the application must be started and submitted by a parent or lawful guardian, who provides verifiable consent on the child’s behalf as required by section 9 of the DPDP Act. We verify the guardian’s identity and their relationship to the applicant before filing.

For an applicant we know or reasonably believe to be a child, we do not carry out tracking, behavioural monitoring or targeted advertising, and we do not use their data to build a profile for any purpose other than the certificate applied for.

7. Who we share it with

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it for anyone else’s advertising.

7.1 Government departments: the core purpose

The whole point of the service is to place your application before the competent authority. We therefore submit your details, declarations and documents to the relevant Uttar Pradesh department or portal: the Tehsil or SDM office, the e-District platform and any office they refer it to. Once submitted, that data sits in a government record which is governed by the department’s own rules, not ours.

7.2 Service providers

We use a small number of vendors to run the service. They act on our instructions, are bound by confidentiality and data-protection terms, and may not use your data for their own purposes. The current list, with purpose and location, is on the Security & Sub-processors page.

7.3 Legal and protective disclosures

We may disclose personal data where required by law, court order or a lawful request from a public authority, or where it is necessary to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim, prevent fraud, or protect the safety of any person.

7.4 Business transfers

If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, financing or sale of assets, personal data may transfer as part of that transaction. The recipient remains bound by this policy or a materially equivalent one, and we will notify you of any change of Data Fiduciary.

8. Where your data is stored

Your data is hosted in India, in the AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) region. Some of our vendors may process limited data (such as support messages or diagnostic logs) outside India. Under the DPDP Act, personal data may be transferred outside India except to a country that the Central Government restricts by notification; we monitor those notifications and stop the affected transfer if one is issued.

9. How long we keep it

At the end of these periods we delete the data or irreversibly anonymise it. Where a period is cut short by a deletion request, the carve-outs in the Data Deletion page apply.

10. Your rights

As a Data Principal under the DPDP Act you have the right to:

• Access a summary of the personal data we hold about you and how we have processed it, including the identities of those we have shared it with;
• Correct, complete, update or erase your personal data;
• Withdraw consent at any time;
• Nominate another person to exercise your rights if you die or become incapacitated;
• Grievance redressal: a first, easily accessible route to complain to us, described on the Grievance Redressal page.

Write to [email protected] to exercise any of these. We may need to verify your identity first. We respond within 30 days, and sooner where the law requires it.

11. Security

We encrypt data in transit and at rest, restrict access to the staff who need it, log access to documents, and review our controls periodically. The measures are itemised on the Security & Sub-processors page. No system is completely secure, so we cannot promise absolute security, but if a breach affecting your data occurs, we will notify you and the Data Protection Board of India as the DPDP Rules require.

12. Complaints and the Board

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, start with our Grievance Officer. The details and timelines are on the Grievance Redressal page. If we do not resolve it, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

13. Changes

We may update this policy. When a change is material we will update the “Last updated” date and tell you by email, SMS or in the app before it takes effect. Where a change requires fresh consent, we will ask for it rather than assume it.

14. Contact

Privacy questions: [email protected] · General support: [email protected] · +91 63877 17312

15. Cookie Policy

What this covers

This section explains how CertiSetu uses cookies and similar technologies on certisetu.com and in the application journey. It forms part of this Privacy Policy.

What cookies are

Cookies are small text files a site places on your device. They keep you logged in, remember what you have filled, and tell us which parts of the service people struggle with. We also use local storage, session storage, pixels and tags; we call all of them “cookies” here.

What we use

Strictly necessary cookies are set when you arrive. Nothing in the other three categories is set until you accept it.

Third-party cookies

Some cookies are set by providers we use rather than by us: our analytics provider, our payment gateway Razorpay during checkout, and DigiLocker when you link your account. They handle that data under their own privacy policies. The vendors and their purposes are listed on the Security & Sub-processors page.

Children

Where the applicant is under 18, or the account is operated by a guardian on a child’s behalf, we do not set analytics or marketing cookies and we do not carry out behavioural tracking or targeted advertising.

Your choices

• Consent banner: on your first visit you can accept all, reject all but the essentials, or choose category by category.
• Change it later: the “Cookie settings” link in the site footer reopens those choices at any time.
• Withdraw consent: you can withdraw at any time, as easily as you gave it. That stops future use; it does not undo processing already done.
• Browser controls: your browser can block or clear cookies. Blocking strictly necessary cookies will break sign-in and may lose a part-filled application.

Changes and contact

We will update this page when our cookie use changes; the “Last updated” date shows the current version. Questions: [email protected].

16. Consent Notice

Who is asking

CertiSetu, operating certisetu.com, is the Data Fiduciary. Contact: [email protected].

What we are asking for

Your name, your father’s or guardian’s name, date of birth, gender, mobile number, email, residential address; the income, caste, family or land details the certificate requires; your Aadhaar (stored masked), photograph and signature; and the documents you upload or share from DigiLocker.

What we will do with it

Use it to check your eligibility, prepare and file your certificate application with the competent Uttar Pradesh authority, apply your e-signature as you approve, follow up on the application, take payment and issue an invoice, keep you updated on status, and deliver the certificate to you.

Who we will share it with

The relevant Uttar Pradesh government department or portal. This is unavoidable: it is the purpose of the service. Also our payment gateway, e-signature provider, communication and courier partners and hosting provider, each listed under Security & Sub-processors. We do not sell your data or share it for advertising.

How long we will keep it

Uploaded documents for 90 days after delivery; DigiLocker artefacts deleted on filing; the application record for 3 years; invoices for 8 years. The full table is in section 9 above.

Your rights

To access a summary of your data, correct or erase it, withdraw this consent, nominate someone to act for you, and complain to us and then to the Data Protection Board of India.

Withdrawing consent

You may withdraw at any time, as easily as you gave it, from your account or by writing to [email protected]. If you withdraw before we file, we stop and refund you in full. After filing, we stop processing except where the law requires us to keep records, and the application already lodged remains with the department.

If the applicant is under 18

A parent or lawful guardian must give this consent on the applicant’s behalf, and we will verify their identity and relationship. We do not track, profile or advertise to children.

Complaints

Our Grievance Officer is named on the Grievance Redressal page. You may also complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

17. Aadhaar & DigiLocker Policy

Why we need it at all

Every certificate we handle is issued against a verified identity. The Uttar Pradesh application form itself asks for Aadhaar, and the supporting documents the department expects (residence proof, photograph, existing certificates) are the ones DigiLocker can supply straight from the issuing authority. Using DigiLocker means the department receives an authentic, digitally signed document rather than a photograph of a photocopy, which is both faster and harder to dispute.

The rules we work under

This policy gives effect to the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 and the Aadhaar (Authentication and Offline Verification) Regulations, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and the DigiLocker terms we accept as a requesting application. Where they are stricter than the rest of this Privacy Policy, they prevail.

What we do with your Aadhaar

• We mask it. Your Aadhaar number is masked on capture and only the last four digits are retained in our systems. The full number is written into the government application form at the moment of filing and is not stored by us afterwards.
• We display it masked. Anywhere your Aadhaar appears in our interface or in a support view, it shows as the last four digits only.
• Your Aadhaar images, the front and back you upload, are encrypted at rest, visible only to the personnel processing your order, and deleted 90 days after your certificate is delivered.
• We do not use Aadhaar to authenticate you. Your CertiSetu account is verified by mobile OTP, not by Aadhaar authentication. We are not an authentication user agency, and we do not run Aadhaar authentication or e-KYC transactions in our own right.

What we never do

• We never collect, store or process your biometrics: no fingerprint, no iris scan, no face authentication.
• We never ask for your Aadhaar password, mAadhaar PIN, DigiLocker PIN or any OTP sent to you by UIDAI or DigiLocker. Our staff will never ask for an OTP over a call.
• We never publish or display your Aadhaar number, in full, anywhere. Doing so is an offence under section 29 of the Aadhaar Act.
• We never share your Aadhaar with anyone other than the government department your application is filed with.
• We never use your Aadhaar or DigiLocker data for marketing, profiling, credit scoring or any purpose other than the certificate you asked us to apply for.
• We never keep a copy of your DigiLocker credentials: we hold only a revocable access token.

How DigiLocker works here

• Linking DigiLocker is your choice, made at the documents step. You sign in on DigiLocker’s own screen, not ours.
• You consent to each document type we may fetch, and you see the list before you approve it. We request nothing beyond what your chosen certificate needs.
• We fetch only for the order in front of you. We do not go back later and pull more documents, and a new order needs fresh consent.
• Documents fetched are used to populate and evidence the application, then deleted once the application is filed. Any offline-verification XML or issued-document artefact goes at the same time.
• You can revoke our access at any moment: from your CertiSetu account or from the consent list inside DigiLocker. Revoking after filing does not withdraw the filed application.

It is voluntary, and there is an alternative

Sharing Aadhaar with us and linking DigiLocker are both voluntary. You may instead upload the documents yourself, and we will file with those. Where the department’s own form makes Aadhaar mandatory, we cannot file without it, but that requirement is the department’s, not ours, and you always have the option of applying directly through the official e-District portal instead. See the Government Affiliation Disclaimer.

If something goes wrong

If you believe your Aadhaar or DigiLocker data has been misused, write to [email protected] immediately, marked urgent. We will investigate on priority, tell you what we find, and notify you and the Data Protection Board of India where a breach is confirmed. You may also raise the matter with UIDAI directly.

Contact

[email protected] · Grievance Officer details on the Grievance Redressal page.

18. Data Deletion

Overview

You should be able to get your identity documents off our systems when you no longer need us to hold them. This section explains what you can delete yourself, what to ask us for, how long it takes, and what we are obliged to keep. The normal retention periods are in section 9 above.

The one limit: read this first

What you can delete

• Uploaded documents: Aadhaar images, residence proof, caste proof, income certificate, PAN, land records, photograph and signature.
• DigiLocker link: the connection to your DigiLocker account and anything fetched through it that we still hold.
• Draft applications: any order not yet filed, along with everything attached to it.
• Application records: our copy of the filed application, its status history and the issued certificate.
• Account details: your name, mobile number, email, addresses and preferences.
• Support history: your messages and call notes.

Do it yourself

Delete documents from an order

Open the order and remove any document from its row. For a draft, this is immediate. For a filed application, this removes our stored copy; the department keeps what was submitted.

Unlink DigiLocker

Unlinking revokes our access and deletes anything fetched but not yet filed. You can also revoke CertiSetu from the consent list inside your DigiLocker account.

Cancel a draft order

Cancelling an unfiled order deletes the draft form and every document attached to it, and refunds you in full under the Refund & Cancellation Policy.

Delete your account

Account deletion removes your profile, unlinks DigiLocker, and deletes your orders and documents apart from what section 6 requires us to keep. It is permanent. Download the certificates you need first. We cannot restore them, and a reissue means a fresh application and a fresh fee.

Ask us instead

If you would rather we did it, or you can no longer sign in, write to [email protected] from the email on your account, or call +91 63877 17312. Tell us:

• the mobile number or email the account is registered against;
• whether you want the whole account deleted, or only specific orders or documents; and
• if it relates to a filed application, the order number.

We will verify that you are entitled to make the request before acting. These are identity documents, and we are not going to delete them on a stranger’s word. If you are a guardian asking on behalf of a child, we will also verify the guardianship.

What we keep, and why

A deletion request does not override a legal obligation. We may retain, in the minimum form needed:

• Invoices and payment records: 8 years, for income-tax and GST purposes.
• Consent records: to evidence the lawful basis on which we processed your data, as the DPDP Act requires.
• Fraud and abuse records: where we have identified a forged document or an attempted impersonation, so that it is not simply repeated.
• Grievance and dispute records: while a complaint, chargeback or legal claim is live, and for 3 years after it closes.
• Aggregated or anonymised data that can no longer be linked back to you.

Everything retained under this section is kept for that purpose alone, is not used to contact you or to market to you, and is deleted once the purpose ends.

What happens after

Deleted data is removed from our live systems straight away. Copies in encrypted backups are overwritten on the normal backup rotation, within 30 days, after which they cannot be restored. Where a vendor holds a copy, we instruct them to delete it too and confirm they have.

How long it takes

• Self-service: immediate.
• By request: without undue delay, and within 30 days at the outside. We confirm in writing when it is done.
• If a request is complex or an order is mid-flight, we will tell you what is holding it up and when it will complete.

Contact

[email protected]. We reply within one working day. If you are unhappy with how a request was handled, escalate through the Grievance Redressal page.

19. Security & Sub-processors

Our approach

You are handing us Aadhaar images, income declarations and caste records: data that does real harm if it leaks. We hold less of it than we could, for less time than we could, and we tell you plainly what protects it.

Measures in place

• Encryption. TLS for everything in transit; documents and sensitive fields encrypted at rest. Aadhaar numbers are masked on capture and stored only as the last four digits.
• Least-privilege access. Only the personnel processing your order can open your documents. Access is role-based, individually authenticated, and reviewed periodically.
• Access logging. Every view of an uploaded document is logged against a named user and a specific order, so a misuse can be traced rather than guessed at.
• Segregation. Credentials and access tokens are held separately from application data, and production data is not copied into development or test environments.
• Network and application security. Firewalling, hardened configuration, dependency patching, and protection against common web vulnerabilities.
• Secure deletion. Documents are deleted on the schedule in the retention table in section 9, and backups are overwritten within 30 days.
• Backups and resilience. Encrypted backups with tested restores, so an outage does not become a loss.
• People. Confidentiality obligations in every contract, background checks for staff handling documents, and access revoked on the day someone leaves.
• Vendor management. Data-protection terms with every sub-processor, and no vendor added without a review.
• Incident response. A defined process for detecting, containing, investigating and notifying a breach.

No system is perfectly secure, and we will not claim otherwise. What we commit to is proportionate care, honest disclosure and fast containment.

Sub-processors

These are the third parties who process personal data on our instructions. Each is bound by confidentiality and data-protection terms and may not use your data for its own purposes.

DigiLocker and the Uttar Pradesh e-District platform are not sub-processors. They are, respectively, a source you authorise and the government recipient of your application, and their handling of your data is governed by their own terms.

We will update this table before a new sub-processor starts processing your data. If you object to one on reasonable data-protection grounds, write to [email protected].

If there is a breach

If personal data we hold is breached, we will contain it, investigate it, and notify the Data Protection Board of India and every affected person as the DPDP Rules require, telling you what happened, what data was involved, what we have done and what you should do. We will not delay a notification to protect our own reputation.

Your part

• Never share an OTP with anyone, including someone claiming to be from CertiSetu. We will never ask for one.
• Pay only through the CertiSetu checkout. The Government Affiliation Disclaimer in our Terms of Use explains why.
• Download and store your certificate somewhere safe. We delete our copy on the schedule above.
• Tell us at once if you think your account has been accessed by someone else.

Reporting a vulnerability

If you have found a security flaw in CertiSetu, please tell us at [email protected] before telling anyone else. Give us enough detail to reproduce it. We will acknowledge within 3 working days, keep you updated, and will not pursue anyone who reports a genuine issue in good faith without accessing or altering other people’s data.

Changes

This section changes when our measures or our vendors change. The “Last updated” date at the top of this policy reflects the current version.