Bandhan ("the app") helps you keep in touch with the people who matter to you. This policy explains what the app reads, what it stores, and where data goes. Bandhan is made by Sumit, in India. Contact: khanejas@gmail.com.
The short version
- Your contact list stays on your phone. We never upload it.
- Bandhan opens WhatsApp, SMS or email with a message ready, and you tap send there. It sends only three things itself, each your choice: an email you tap "Send from Gmail" on, a Gmail wish you scheduled, which goes from your Gmail at 8 am on the day, and a LinkedIn post you tap Post or Schedule on and confirm.
- If you turn on backup, the things you create in Bandhan (groups, notes, follow-ups, history) are stored in your account so you can restore them on a new phone. Only you can read them.
- The Ideas tab reads news on your phone, from the publishers' own feeds and from Google News searches. X, LinkedIn and WhatsApp open with your post ready, and you post there. Bandhan posts to LinkedIn for you only if you allow it, and only when you tap Post or Schedule and confirm the words.
- We do not sell data, show ads, or share data with advertisers.
What the app reads on your phone
Contacts (with your permission)
Show birthdays and anniversaries, remind you to keep in touch, open messages to the right person.
Leaves your phone? No.
Google Contacts (if you sign in with Google)
Birthdays, anniversaries and workplaces saved in your Google account.
Leaves your phone? Read directly from Google to your phone; not sent to us.
Gmail — email headers, and a name and link from LinkedIn's emails (only if you connect Gmail)
Sender, subject and date of notification emails from LinkedIn, Facebook, X and Instagram, to spot job changes and birthdays; which contacts you exchange email with; and, from LinkedIn's own notification emails only, the person's full name (to find them in your contacts) and the link to their LinkedIn profile, saved with that contact; and, for a Gmail wish you scheduled, whether it is in your Sent folder.
Leaves your phone? No. Read on your phone; only the name and that link are kept. No other email's body is ever requested.
Calendar (with your permission)
See who you have met recently.
Leaves your phone? No.
Google Tasks (only if you allow it)
Your follow-ups also as tasks in a list called "Bandhan" in your Google Tasks; ticking either ticks both.
Leaves your phone? Written to and read from your own Google Tasks, from your phone; not sent to us.
People you email (Google's "Other contacts", only if you allow it)
Show people you have emailed but never saved, so you can add them.
Leaves your phone? Read from Google to your phone; not sent to us.
Calendar from Google (only if you allow it)
Meetings and their guests from your main Google calendar, alongside the phone's.
Leaves your phone? Read from Google to your phone; not sent to us.
Facebook share links (when you message someone on Messenger)
Which Facebook profile a saved share link (facebook.com/share/…) points to — asked of Facebook once per link.
Leaves your phone? The link goes to Facebook; the name it points to is kept on your phone; nothing is sent to us.
Home city (only if you allow it)
The city of the home address on your Google profile — so Today shows who you know only when you are away from home.
Leaves your phone? Read from Google to your phone; only the city is kept, on your phone; not sent to us.
Calendly (only if you connect Calendly)
Meetings people booked with you: title, time, and who booked (name and email) — for meeting prep and as a connect.
Leaves your phone? Read from Calendly to your phone; not sent to us. Calendly's sign-in allows more than reading, but Bandhan only reads: it never books or cancels.
Notion (only if you connect Notion)
When you tap "Send to Notion" on someone's page: their name, company, role, first email and number, last connect and open follow-ups go to a "Bandhan people" database in your Notion. What you write in those pages is shown on their page in Bandhan.
Leaves your phone? Sent from your phone to your Notion, and read back from it. Nothing else in your Notion is read.
Fireflies meetings (only if you connect Fireflies)
After a meeting Fireflies took notes of: its summary, who was there (matched to your contacts by their email) and what was promised, on that person's page; the meeting's guest emails are kept with it.
Leaves your phone? Read from Fireflies to your phone. The transcript is never read. Only if you said yes: the summary and action items go through our server to Anthropic (see below) to list what was promised. Fireflies' sign-in returns to Bandhan through a small page on our server that keeps nothing.
Plaud recordings (only if you connect Plaud)
After a recorded meeting or call: Plaud's summary, who was there and what was promised, on that person's page.
Leaves your phone? Read from Plaud to your phone. The transcript is never read. Only if you said yes: the summary goes through our server to Anthropic (see below) to list who took part and what was promised.
Location (optional)
Suggest regional festivals.
Leaves your phone? No.
News feeds (the Ideas tab, once you set it up)
Stories on the areas you choose, from the publishers' own feeds (RSS or Atom) and Google News searches, and an article's page when you tap "AI summary", "Draft my LinkedIn post" or "Write with AI", and the top stories' pages once a day for today’s brief.
Leaves your phone? Read straight to your phone, not through us: from each publisher, or — for the Google News searches among your sources (nine to start with, and up to ten for each area you add: two on its words, the rest each searching one publisher’s site) — from Google News, which then sees those search words. When you use Write about a topic, the subject you type is sent from your phone to Google News as a search, to find recent articles. Bandhan uses no AI to find them. When you tap Draft my LinkedIn post, the subject goes to the AI with the articles you ticked, as what the post is about. They see an ordinary request from your phone, as when you open their site. Your areas, sources, saved stories, posts, today’s brief and the posts of yours you added in Your voice stay on your phone (not in the backup) and are removed when you log out.
What we store on our servers
- Account: your name and email address, to sign you in (provider: Supabase).
- Backup (only if you turn it on): groups, festival tags, nicknames, notes, follow-ups, keep-in-touch schedules, people you added in the app, your log of messages, calls and meetings, gift log, social events and app preferences. Your contact list is not included. Backups are protected so that only your signed-in account can read or change them.
Services that process data for us
- Supabase — account sign-in and backup storage.
- Google — sign-in; Google Contacts and Gmail data are read directly by your phone. Only if you allow "Send email from Gmail": an email you write in Bandhan and tap Send on goes from your phone straight to Gmail, which sends it from your account (it appears in your Sent folder). This permission cannot read your mailbox. Bandhan sends nothing else from Gmail, except a wish you scheduled yourself, which goes at 8 am on the day.
- Anthropic (Claude) — when a message is drafted (when you tap "Write with AI" or pick a length or language only the AI can write, and ahead of time for today's and tomorrow's birthdays and anniversaries on Today, shown only when you tap): the person's name, the occasion, the tone and length and (if set) what they call you are sent, through our server, to write one message, with anything you typed for it to say. Only if you agree to "Let the AI know who you're writing to" (asked once, off in You → AI drafts): also your notes and open follow-ups about them (including meeting summaries from Plaud, Fireflies or Notion), their work, city and recent LinkedIn news, and your last few messages to them. Drafts written ahead are kept on your phone only, for up to three days. Only if you agree to "Write in your style" (asked once, off in You → AI drafts): up to six messages you wrote or edited in Bandhan, and up to four of your rewrites of earlier AI drafts, go with that request so the draft sounds like you. Our server keeps none of it; Anthropic processes it under its API terms, which retain requests only for a limited time and do not use them to train models.
And only if you tap "Ask AI" on a festival list and agree: the names (as saved, without numbers or email addresses) of contacts Bandhan could not place itself are sent, through our server, to suggest which community and festivals each name is associated with. The answers are kept only on your phone — not in the backup — and are shown as guesses.
And only if you connect Plaud and say yes to "Let Bandhan's AI read Plaud's summaries" (asked once): each new recording's summary (Plaud's own; the transcript is never read) is sent, through our server, to list a short summary, who took part and what was promised. Our server keeps none of it; what comes back is kept on your phone (and in your backup, if it is on). The same, only if you connect Fireflies and say yes to "Let Bandhan's AI read Fireflies' summaries": each new meeting's summary and action items (Fireflies' own; never the transcript).
And only when you tap "AI summary" on a story or "Write with AI" on a post in the Ideas tab: the story's headline, publisher, date and summary and the article's text (read on your phone) — and, for a post, your take, your points and the shape and tone you chose — are sent, through our server, to write the summary or the post and to check the post against your stories and points. If your phone can't read the article (a Google News link, or a site that turns phones away), the AI looks for it on the web by its headline and publisher and reads the page there, using Anthropic's web search and web fetch; the article's text comes back to your phone, is used only for your summaries and posts in Ideas, and is not kept. Our server keeps none of it; the post comes back to your phone. And when you add an area of your own, or tap "Find sources with AI" on one, its name is sent the same way, for the AI to suggest news feeds and words for it; your phone then reads each suggested feed itself and adds only those that work. When you tap "Draft my LinkedIn post" (or a quick change, "Update this draft", "Write a fresh version", or "Draft one post" for stories you combined): the stories' headlines, publishers, dates and summaries and the articles' text (read on your phone, or found on the web as above), your angle and what you asked it to add, if you wrote any, the length you chose, for "Update this draft" and a quick change the draft on your screen with your own edits in it, and the posts of yours you added in Your voice — so the draft sounds like you; they are used only for how you write, never as facts — are sent the same way, to write the draft and to check it against the stories. With "Research on the web" on for a draft (it is on until you turn it off there), the stories, your angle and, from "Write about a topic", the subject you typed are first sent the same way for the AI to search the web for facts that bear on them, using Anthropic's web search with search words the AI chooses from them; what it finds comes back to your phone with the address of each page, is kept with that draft on your phone (and shown there, under "Found on the web"), and is sent with the draft so the AI can write from it and check the draft against it. When you tap Draft (or Update, a quick change or a fresh version) on a post written from your points, the points and subject you typed are sent through our server to the AI to write and check the draft, and, when Research on the web is on, to search the web. And once a day, without a tap, for today’s brief: the headlines, publishers, dates, summaries and article text of the top ten stories on your areas (an article your phone can't read is found on the web as above, at most six a day) are sent the same way, to write a short summary of each; the summaries are kept on your phone until the next day's brief replaces them.
LinkedIn post numbers (the Ideas tab, only if you tap Connect LinkedIn): LinkedIn asks you to allow Zernio (zernio.com), the service Bandhan reads your posts' numbers through. Zernio keeps that LinkedIn connection, with permission only to read your posts' analytics — and to post only if you later tap Allow posting to LinkedIn on a draft. Bandhan posts to LinkedIn for you only if you allow it, and only when you tap Post or Schedule and confirm the words. When you tap Post to LinkedIn or Schedule on a draft and confirm, the post's text is sent through our server to Zernio, which publishes it on your LinkedIn profile at once or at the time you chose; a scheduled post waits at Zernio until then, and you can change or cancel it. Our server keeps when it is due and whether it went out, never its text. Deleting your account or disconnecting LinkedIn cancels posts that are still waiting; if one can’t be cancelled, Bandhan tells you before going on. When a post of yours has its LinkedIn link in Bandhan (you add it, or share the post to Bandhan), our server asks Zernio for that post's official numbers — impressions, reach, reactions, comments, reposts, saves, sends, video views and the engagement rate worked out from them — as soon as you add the post's link, then every 6 hours for the first 3 days, daily until day 7 and at day 30 after you posted, when you open Bandhan, and whenever you tap Get the numbers now. Bandhan gives Zernio only a random id, never your name or email; Zernio sees your LinkedIn name and profile through the LinkedIn connection you allow. Our server keeps only which Zernio profile and LinkedIn account are yours and, for a post sent from Bandhan, when it is due, whether it went out and its link — never its text; the numbers come back to your phone and stay there (not in the backup), and are removed when you log out. Disconnect removes the connection at Zernio; deleting your account removes it too. Each time new numbers arrive, without a tap, your posted posts' text, when you posted them, their numbers, how many people and organisations you told Bandhan you tagged (never their names) and the patterns Bandhan counted from those numbers on your phone are sent through our server to Anthropic's AI, which says what worked and suggests how to write your next post; when you tap Compare two posts, the same goes for those two posts, with the patterns across all your posts. What it says is kept on your phone and given to the AI with your next drafts and Write with AI, as guidance on form only, with which hashtag counts, openings, lengths and links did best and least well (no LinkedIn numbers). Whom you say you tagged is kept only on your phone (not in the backup) and removed when you log out.
Bandhan does not post to X or WhatsApp for you, and posts to LinkedIn only as described above. "Open in X" opens X with your post filled in; "Open in WhatsApp" and "Share as PDF" open WhatsApp or Android's share menu, where you pick your broadcast list (Bandhan cannot see or send to it); "Copy and open LinkedIn" copies your post and opens LinkedIn for you to paste it.
- Calendarific — festival dates. Only the year is sent.
Your choices and rights
- Turn backup off, or delete the backup, in You › Backup and You › Privacy & Data.
- Export everything the app holds in You › Privacy & Data › Share as JSON.
- Delete all data about people on your phone, or your whole account (which also deletes its backup), in You › Privacy & Data. Account deletion is immediate.
- Disconnect Google, Gmail, calendar or location at any time in You › Integrations or your phone's settings.
- Without the app, request deletion at bandhanapp.in/delete.html.
Retention
Account and backup data are kept until you delete them or your account. When you delete your account, both are deleted immediately.
Children
Bandhan is not intended for anyone under 18.
Google API data
Bandhan's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
Changes
We will update this page and the "Last updated" date when this policy changes.