Privacy Policy

Barkat ("Barkat", "we", "us") is a personal expense-tracking app. This page explains what information the app collects, why, and how it's handled. If anything here is unclear, email hello@barkat.app.

1. Information you give us

2. Gmail access (optional)

If you choose to connect Gmail, Barkat requests read-only access (Google's gmail.readonly scope) to find transaction-related emails — bank/UPI/wallet debit and credit alerts, order receipts — and turn them into draft expense or income entries for you to review.

How that email data is handled:

Emails are scanned by rule-based logic that runs on our own servers. We do not store the full text of your emails — only the transaction fields we extract (amount, merchant, date, category, payment method).
Emails our rules can't parse may be processed by a self-hosted AI model that runs on infrastructure we own and operate. Your email content is never sent to a third-party AI vendor.
Your Gmail refresh token is encrypted (AES-256) before it's stored, and is only used to read mail on your behalf — never to send mail or access anything beyond your inbox.
You can disconnect Gmail access at any time from the app's Account screen, or revoke it directly from your Google Account permissions page. Disconnecting stops all future access; previously extracted entries stay in your account until you delete them.

Barkat's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

3. AI-generated spending insights

Barkat's forecast screens show plain-language summaries of your spending trends. Those summaries are written by Google's Gemini API — but Gemini only ever receives pre-computed, anonymized numbers (e.g. "spent ₹X of ₹Y budget, category breakdown"). It never receives your raw transaction text, merchant names, email content, or anything that identifies you. All the underlying math is done by our own code, not by any AI model.

4. What we don't collect

5. Where data is stored

Your data is stored in a Postgres database hosted on Amazon Web Services (Mumbai, India region). Account-related emails (password reset, verification) are sent via Amazon SES. Access to production data is restricted to the developer.

6. Data retention and deletion

We keep your data as long as your account is active. You can delete individual entries at any time in the app. To delete your entire account and all associated data, email hello@barkat.app from your registered email address — we'll process it within a reasonable time.

7. Children's privacy

8. Changes to this policy

If this policy changes materially, we'll update the "last updated" date above. Continued use of the app after a change means you accept the update.