Legal
Last updated: July 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how Katha ("Katha", "we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects your personal information when you use our website and matchmaking services (the "Service"). Katha is operated from Ontario, Canada. By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to the practices described here. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.
Because Katha is a matrimonial platform, we collect information that is more sensitive than most websites, including government identification, exact birth details, and heritage information. We describe below exactly what we collect and why, and we ask for your consent to collect and use sensitive information for matchmaking.
Account and identity information: your name, email address, phone number, date of birth, gender, height, weight, marital status, and number of children (if applicable).
Profile and matchmaking information: profile photos and an optional video introduction, a short bio, your city and location details, citizenship and residency status, education, occupation, employer and industry, income range (if you choose to provide it), lifestyle details (diet, exercise, drinking, and smoking), your match preferences, and family details such as parents’ names and occupations and sibling information.
Sensitive information (collected with your consent): your religion, community details (caste, subcaste, and gotra, all optional), and your exact date, time, and place of birth, which we use to generate your Vedic birth chart (Kundli) and compatibility scores. This information is treated as sensitive, and you may leave optional fields blank.
Identity verification information: if you choose to get verified, we collect a selfie photograph and images of a government-issued identity document (such as an Aadhaar card, PAN card, passport, or driver’s license). See Section 6 for how we handle these.
Communications: the messages, reactions, and connection activity you exchange with other members, and any correspondence you send us.
Payment information: if you subscribe, your payment is processed by Stripe. We do not collect or store your full card number; Stripe handles card data directly. We receive limited billing details such as your subscription status and a payment reference.
Technical and usage information: your IP address, device and browser type, pages viewed, actions taken, approximate location derived from IP, and information collected through cookies and analytics and error-monitoring tools.
We use your information to create and display your profile, compute Kundli and Guna Milan compatibility, suggest and rank matches, enable messaging between connected members, verify identities and keep the community safe, process payments and manage subscriptions, prevent fraud and abuse, provide support, comply with legal obligations, and improve the Service.
Under Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and applicable provincial law, we rely on your consent to collect, use, and disclose your personal information for the purposes above. For sensitive information (such as religion, community, and birth details), we rely on your express consent, which you give by choosing to provide that information for matchmaking. You may withdraw consent at any time by editing or deleting your profile or your account, subject to legal and contractual limits.
With other members: your profile (photos and details) is visible to other authenticated members, subject to the privacy controls and paywalls in the Service. Sensitive details are progressively disclosed, and government IDs are never shown to other members.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
With service providers who process data on our behalf to operate the Service:
For legal and safety reasons: we may disclose information if required by law, to respond to legal process, to enforce our Terms, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of Katha, our members, or the public. We may also disclose information in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
We use essential cookies for authentication and session management. We also use Google Analytics, which sets cookies and shares website usage data (such as pages viewed and device information) with Google to help us understand and improve the Service. Google Analytics may set its own cookies and process data on our behalf. You can opt out of Google Analytics using the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, and you can control cookies through your browser settings. We do not use cookies to serve third-party advertising.
Verification is optional and helps keep the community trustworthy. If you get verified, you upload a selfie and a government-issued ID. These documents are:
We currently review documents manually and do not perform automated facial recognition or biometric matching. If we introduce any biometric processing in the future, we will update this policy and obtain any additional consent required by law.
Katha is operated from Canada, and our hosting and service providers (including Supabase, Stripe, Google, Sentry, and others listed above) are located in or process data in the United States. This means your personal information may be stored and processed in the United States and other countries, where it may be subject to laws different from those in your country. By using the Service, you consent to these transfers. Where required by law, we put appropriate safeguards in place for international transfers.
We keep your personal information while your account is active. When you delete your account, we delete your profile, photos, video, messages, and personal data within 30 days, except where we must retain limited records to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, prevent fraud or ban evasion, or complete transactions (for example, a record that an email was deleted, and payment records required for tax and accounting). Government ID documents are deleted promptly after the verification decision, as described in Section 6.
We use technical and organizational measures to protect your information, including encryption in transit, access controls, row-level security on our database, private storage for documents, and automated content screening. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a data breach affecting your personal information occurs, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as required by law.
You may access, correct, download, or delete your personal information from the Settings page, or by contacting us. Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights:
To exercise any of these rights, use the Settings page or email us at team.covru@gmail.com. We will respond within the timeframes required by applicable law.
Katha is only for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have collected information from a person under 18, we will delete it.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date above and, where appropriate, notify you. Your continued use of the Service after an update means you accept the revised policy.
If you have questions about this policy or how we handle your information, or if you wish to exercise your privacy rights, contact our privacy contact at team.covru@gmail.com.