Privacy Policy
Effective Date: February 14, 2026
Last Updated: February 14, 2026
Introduction
At Rishta, your privacy is a top priority. We are committed to being a good steward of your personal information, handling it in a responsible manner, and securing it with administrative, technical, and physical safeguards.
We believe in being honest, direct, and transparent when it comes to your data. In that regard, Rishta follows three guiding principles:
Transparency. We work hard to be transparent about the personal information we collect and process.
Simplicity. We use clear, easy-to-understand language to describe our privacy practices to help you make informed choices.
Control. We give you control over the personal information you provide to us and how it is used, shared, and retained.
This Privacy Statement covers the Rishta website, services, and mobile applications that link to this Privacy Statement (collectively, the "Services"). Within this Privacy Statement, we refer to information that can identify you, directly or indirectly, as "Personal Information."
By using the Services, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
What Personal Information Does Rishta Collect From You?
The types of Personal Information we receive and collect from you depend on how you use the Services. We require certain Account Information to deliver the Services in accordance with our Terms and Conditions, and without this information, we will not be able to provide our Services to you.
Account Information
When you create an account on Rishta, we collect your name (required), an email address (required), and a password that you create (required). You may optionally provide a profile picture to personalize your account experience. Our authentication services are powered by Clerk, and we maintain a secure authentication identifier for your account.
Family Tree Data
When you create and manage family trees on Rishta, we collect information necessary to help you preserve and share your family's history. This includes tree metadata such as the tree name, description you provide, visibility settings (public or private), and information about when the tree was created and last modified.
For each person you add to your family tree, we collect the information you choose to provide. This may include their first name, middle name, and last name, birth and death dates, gender, profile picture, occupation, and biographical information. You may also indicate relationship status preferences such as whether someone is looking to get married.
We also collect relationship information that you establish between people in your trees, including parent-child relationships (with optional adoption status) and spouse relationships (with optional marriage dates, divorce dates, and relationship status).
Automatically Collected Information
Rishta collects information about how you access our Services. We collect the IP address where your computer, mobile device, or proxy server accesses the Internet, along with technical information such as your computer operating system, web browser type, mobile device identifier, mobile operating system, and the name of your internet service provider or mobile carrier.
We also collect information about your use of the Services, such as which pages you view, links you click, and features you interact with. This information helps us understand how our Services are used and allows us to improve the experience we provide to you.
How Does Rishta Use Your Personal Information?
We use your Personal Information to provide, personalize, improve, update, and expand our Services.
Account Management and Authentication
We use your Account Information to create and maintain your user account, authenticate your access to the Services, and improve Rishta information security. We also process your payment information when you make purchases or sign up for subscriptions, and we use your contact information to provide customer support when you reach out to us with questions or concerns.
Service Delivery and Enhancement
We use the information you provide to enable you to create, view, and manage family trees. This includes organizing the content you upload, helping you discover connections between people in your trees, and providing insights to help you build and expand your family history. When you choose to make a tree public, we display it in the community section where other users can explore and discover family connections.
We combine the content you contribute with data in Rishta's systems to provide meaningful insights and suggestions. We also use your information to develop new features, improve existing functionality, and conduct research to better understand how families are connected across generations.
Communications
We use your Personal Information to communicate with you about the Services. This includes responding to your inquiries, providing important service updates and notifications about your account, and informing you of changes to Services or new features that may be of interest to you.
Platform Security and Integrity
We process your information to detect and protect against errors, fraud, or other criminal or malicious activity, and to enforce our Terms and Conditions. This helps us maintain a safe and trustworthy platform for all users.
Data Storage and Security
Rishta is committed to protecting your Personal Information with administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to maintain data security and privacy.
Your data is stored securely in our PostgreSQL database, which is encrypted both at rest and in transit. We utilize secure cloud infrastructure that employs industry-standard security measures and maintain regular backups to prevent data loss.
We implement multiple layers of security to protect your information. All data transmission occurs over encrypted connections using HTTPS and TLS protocols. Our authentication system is powered by Clerk, a secure authentication provider that specializes in identity management. We maintain strict access controls to ensure that only authorized personnel and systems can access your data, and we conduct ongoing monitoring and security assessments to identify and address potential vulnerabilities.
While we employ robust security measures and work diligently to protect your Personal Information, it is important to understand that no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security, but we are committed to protecting your information using industry-standard practices and continuously improving our security posture.
What Information Do We Share and When Do We Share It?
Rishta does not share your Personal Information with third parties except as described in this Privacy Statement or with your additional consent.
Sharing With Your Consent
As part of your use of the Services, you have the option to share information with other users or make it publicly available. When you set a tree's visibility to "public," the tree and all its contents become viewable by all Rishta users. Information in your public user profile will be visible to other users as well, so consider carefully what information you include in your profile and consider using a username that is different from your real name to protect your privacy.
You may share your activity depending on how you interact with other users' content. For example, if you contribute to another user's family tree or comment on their content, that activity may be visible to them and others who can view that content.
Service Providers
We work with other companies when providing and marketing the Services. As a result, these companies will have access to or otherwise process your data, including some of your Personal Information, in their systems. These companies are subject to contractual obligations governing privacy, data security, and confidentiality consistent with applicable laws.
Our service providers include our authentication partner Clerk (which handles user account management and authentication), cloud services infrastructure providers (Rishta's web and mobile services are cloud-based, and all your data resides with our cloud service vendors), payment processors (who handle billing information when you make purchases), and vendors that assist us with analytics, fraud prevention, security, and customer support.
Legal Requirements and Process
We may share your Personal Information if we believe it is reasonably necessary to comply with valid legal processes (such as subpoenas or court orders), to enforce or apply our Terms and Conditions, to protect the security or integrity of the Services, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Rishta, our employees, or our users.
Business Transfers
If Rishta or its businesses are acquired or transferred (including in connection with bankruptcy or similar proceedings), we may share your Personal Information with the acquiring or receiving entity. The promises in this Privacy Statement will continue to apply to your Personal Information transferred to any new entity.
Your Rights and Choices Regarding Your Personal Information
All users may use our online tools to request a report of what Personal Information they have provided to us, download a copy of their family trees, and delete their family trees or account.
Additionally, depending on your location, applicable data privacy laws may provide you with specific rights regarding your Personal Information.
Right of Access
You may have a right to request access to your Personal Information and to be provided with a copy of certain information, including the categories of Personal Information we collect and process. You can access and update the Personal Information (such as your email address, username, and profile information) you provide to Rishta at any time through your account settings.
Right of Correction
You may have the right to request that we correct inaccurate Personal Information about you. You can update your account information, edit person profiles in your trees, and modify relationship data at any time through the Services.
Right of Deletion
You have the right, in certain cases, to request that we delete your Personal Information, provided there are valid grounds for doing so and subject to applicable law. You may delete individual family trees, person profiles, or your entire account through your account settings. Please note that deleting your account will permanently remove all your trees and associated data.
Right to Restriction
You may have the right to request a restriction on our processing of your Personal Information. You can control the visibility of your family trees by adjusting their privacy settings between public and private, and you can manage sharing permissions for your trees.
Right to Object and Withdraw Consent
You may have the right to object to processing activities where such activities impact your rights and freedoms. You may also opt out of non-essential communications and object to processing of your data for specific purposes. When you consent to processing of your Personal Information for a specified purpose, you may withdraw your consent at any time.
Right to Data Portability
You may have the right to receive certain of your Personal Information in a format that can be transmitted to another service provider. Rishta allows you to download your family tree information for your records or to use with other services.
To exercise these rights, please contact us through the information provided in the Contact Us section of this Privacy Statement.
Children's Privacy
Rishta is not intended for use by children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under 13. If you believe we have inadvertently collected information from a child under 13, please contact us immediately so that we can take steps to delete such information.
While family trees created on Rishta may include information about minors (such as birth dates or biographical information about children), this information should only be added by parents, legal guardians, or authorized family members who have the right to share such information.
What Are Our Retention Practices?
The Services are fundamentally premised on the notion that the personal journey of discovering and preserving family history is not a one-time event but continues over extended periods of time. Our retention practices reflect this ongoing value by retaining user accounts and associated data on our systems until our users inform us of their desire to delete their data or close their accounts.
We retain your Account Information for as long as your account remains active or as needed to provide you with the Services. Your family tree data is retained until you choose to delete a specific tree or close your account entirely. We retain usage and log data for up to 90 days for security monitoring, fraud prevention, and troubleshooting purposes.
When you delete your account, we will permanently delete your Personal Information within 30 days. However, we may retain certain information for longer periods where we are required to do so for legal, regulatory, or legitimate business purposes, such as complying with legal obligations, resolving disputes, or enforcing our agreements. Backup copies of your data may persist in our systems for up to 30 days after deletion as part of our standard backup retention practices.
Cookies and Tracking Technologies
Rishta uses cookies and similar tracking technologies to enhance your experience with our Services. These technologies help us maintain your login session so you don't have to sign in repeatedly, remember your preferences and settings, and analyze usage patterns to understand how our Services are used and where we can make improvements.
You can control how cookies are used through your browser preferences. Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default, but you can usually modify your browser settings to decline cookies if you prefer. However, please note that disabling cookies may limit certain functionality of our platform and prevent you from taking full advantage of all features we offer.
Third-Party Links
Our platform may contain links to third-party websites or services. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these external sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party sites you visit.
International Data Transfers
Your information may be transferred to and processed in countries other than your country of residence. We ensure appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable data protection laws.
Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal requirements, or new features we introduce. When we make changes, we will revise the "Last Updated" date at the top of this Privacy Statement and post the updated policy on this page.
For material changes that significantly affect your rights or how we handle your Personal Information, we will provide you with additional notice by sending a notification to your registered email address or by prominently posting a notice on our Services before the changes take effect.
We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we are protecting your information. Your continued use of Rishta after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of the updated Privacy Policy.
Contact Us
If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at:
Email: support@rishta.life
Address: Syed Ajmal, 319, Aimanzai Jalal Nagar, Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India - 242001
Additional Information for Specific Regions
For European Union and United Kingdom Users
If you are located in the European Union or United Kingdom, you have additional rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and UK GDPR. These include the right to data portability in a machine-readable format, the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority, and the right to withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on your consent (without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal).
Our legal basis for processing your Personal Information includes your consent (where you have provided it), performance of our contract with you (to provide the Services), and our legitimate interests in operating and improving our Services, provided such interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms.
For California and Other U.S. State Residents
If you are a resident of California or certain other U.S. states, you may have rights under applicable state privacy laws, including the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and similar legislation. These rights may include the right to know what personal information is collected about you, the right to know if personal information is sold or disclosed and to whom, and the right to request deletion of your personal information.
We do not sell your Personal Information to third parties. You have the right to non-discrimination for exercising your privacy rights under applicable law.
For Other Jurisdictions
We comply with applicable data protection laws in all jurisdictions where we operate. If you have specific questions about your regional privacy rights or how local laws apply to your use of Rishta, please contact us using the information provided in this Privacy Statement.
Thank you for trusting Rishta with your family's stories and memories.