Privacy Policy

1. Overview

livepowercut.com (“we”, “us”, “our”) is an independent citizen platform that provides a live power-outage tracking map for India. We are committed to protecting your privacy and being transparent about how we handle your data. This Privacy Policy describes what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have.

By using livepowercut.com, you consent to the data practices described in this policy. If you do not agree with these practices, please do not use the website.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information you provide voluntarily

• PIN codes: When you search for a PIN code or save a PIN to your watchlist, we store that PIN code in your browser's local storage. This data never leaves your device unless you subscribe to email alerts.
• Email address: If you subscribe to power-back alerts, we collect your email address to send you notifications. We do not sell, rent, or share your email with third parties.
• Outage reports: When you tap “Light Gone” or “Power is Back”, we record the PIN code, timestamp, and your approximate IP address (for rate-limiting and spam prevention). We do not collect your name, phone number, or any personally identifiable information.

2.2 Information collected automatically

• Cookies: We use essential cookies to remember your saved PIN codes, language preference (English/Hindi), and theme preference (dark/light). We also use optional cookies for analytics and advertising, which you can control via our cookie consent banner.
• Analytics: We use Microsoft Clarity and Google Analytics to understand how visitors use our website. These tools collect anonymous usage data such as page views, session duration, and approximate geographic location (city-level). No personally identifiable information is collected by these tools.
• Advertising: We use Google AdSense to display advertisements. AdSense may use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites. You can opt out of personalized advertising via Google's Ads Settings.
• IP address: We temporarily log your IP address for rate-limiting (to prevent spam reports) and security purposes. IP addresses are not stored permanently and are not linked to your identity.

3. How We Use Your Information

• To display power outage status for your searched or saved PIN codes
• To send you email alerts when power is restored in your saved areas (if you have subscribed)
• To display crowd-sourced outage reports on the live map
• To prevent spam and abuse through rate-limiting
• To analyze website usage and improve our services
• To display relevant advertisements that support our free service
• To comply with legal obligations

4. Legal Basis for Processing (DPDP Act, 2023)

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, we process your personal data on the following grounds:

• Consent: You have voluntarily provided your email address for alerts and accepted cookies via our consent banner.
• Legitimate use: Processing your outage reports and PIN code searches is necessary for the functioning of the service you have requested.
• Legal obligation: We may process data to comply with applicable laws, regulations, or government requests.

5. Data Sharing and Disclosure

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data. We share data only in the following circumstances:

• Service providers: We use third-party tools (Google AdSense, Microsoft Clarity, Google Analytics) that may collect usage data. These providers have their own privacy policies.
• Aggregate data: We may share aggregated, non-personal statistics (e.g., total number of outage reports in a city) with the public or media.
• Legal compliance: We may disclose data if required by law, court order, or government authority.

6. Data Retention

• Saved PIN codes: Stored in your browser's local storage until you remove them or clear browser data.
• Email subscriptions: Retained until you unsubscribe.
• Outage reports: Retained for up to 500 reports in our active database. Older reports are automatically purged.
• IP addresses: Retained temporarily for rate-limiting (up to 30 seconds), then discarded.
• Analytics data: Retained by our analytics providers according to their respective retention policies.

7. Your Rights

Under the DPDP Act, 2023, you have the following rights:

• Right to access: You can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to correction: You can request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Right to erasure: You can request deletion of your personal data (e.g., unsubscribe from alerts, clear saved PINs).
• Right to grievance redressal: You can file a grievance with our Data Protection Officer (see contact below).
• Right to withdraw consent: You can withdraw consent for data processing at any time by clearing cookies, removing saved PINs, or unsubscribing from alerts.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at privacy@livepowercut.com.

8. Data Security

We implement reasonable security measures to protect your data, including HTTPS encryption (TLS 1.3), HSTS, Content-Security-Policy headers, and rate-limiting. However, no method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security but strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal data.

9. Children's Privacy

livepowercut.com does not knowingly collect personal data from children under 18. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will promptly delete it.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes by posting the new policy on this page with an updated “Last updated” date. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

11. Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or grievances regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal data, please contact our Data Protection Officer: