Privacy Policy & Data Protection
Alignment with India's Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 and civic transparency standards.
1. Civic Data Minimization
PowerNow is engineered around strict data minimization principles. Unlike commercial apps or utility portals:
- Never require user accounts: You can calculate bills and read all guides without logging in or creating a password.
- Never collect 13-digit Consumer Numbers: PowerNow does not prompt for, store, or scrape official KSEB consumer accounts.
- Never store payment details: PowerNow does not process payments or handle credit/debit card, UPI, or banking information.
- No commercial tracking SDKs: We do not deploy third-party advertising cookies or cross-site tracking scripts.
2. Civic Polls, Feedback & Diagnostic Signals
To understand community priorities while respecting user privacy:
- No raw IP storage: Raw IP addresses are never saved to our database. When collection is active, rate-limiting uses a one-way daily salted hash (
SHA-256(Client_IP + Daily_Salt)) and browser user-agent string solely for abuse prevention and duplicate suppression. - Current Retention Status (Governance Gate PN-051): We do not claim automated deletion schedules that are not yet implemented. Formal data retention windows and automated purge routines are currently pending ratification in our Privacy Processing Register (Decision PN-051). To uphold strict compliance, remote database collection across civic voting, questions, and feedback is temporarily paused. When active, collected data is retained strictly for research analysis and abuse prevention, without automated purge schedules until formally approved.
3. Voluntary Consumer Inquiries
If you choose to submit an unanswered question to our research desk and voluntarily provide an optional email address, that email is used strictly if a researcher answers your query. It is never sold, shared, or used for commercial marketing. You may request verification or immediate erasure of submitted inquiry data at any time by contacting firstbridgestudios.app@gmail.com.
4. Local Browser Storage (Device-Only)
PowerNow uses client-side browser storage (localStorage) exclusively to store user interface preferences on your device (such as language selection and local ballot acknowledgement). This data remains on your browser, is not transmitted to third parties, and can be cleared at any time via your browser settings.