Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains what personal data CrowdHero collects, how we use it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and how you can see, change or delete it. It covers the website at crowdhero.net, the CrowdHero web application, and the storefronts, chat widgets, forms and messaging automations that our customers run with it (together, the "Service"). Please read it together with our Terms of Service.

Last updated: 10 November 2026

The short version

• We do not sell personal data, and we do not use it for advertising.
• We use the data we receive from Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Google, YouTube, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, Pinterest and the other platforms you connect only to provide the CrowdHero features you use.
• We do not use your data, or data from any platform you connect, to train artificial-intelligence models.
• You can download a copy of your data, or delete your account, yourself from your profile at any time. Section 11 explains how.
• For questions or requests, email [email protected].

1. Who we are

CrowdHero is operated by Joy Sarkar, a sole proprietor based in India, trading as CrowdHero ("CrowdHero", "we", "us", "our"). We are responsible for the personal data of our own account holders: their data controller under the GDPR, and their data fiduciary under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (the "DPDP Act").

You can contact us about anything in this policy at [email protected]. Our Grievance Officer is named in section 17.

2. Our two roles

We handle personal data in two different roles. Which one applies changes who you should ask about your data.

• We are the controller of data about our own customers: the people and businesses who hold a CrowdHero account. That covers your account details, your sign-in history, your billing records and how you use the Service.
• We are a processor of the data our customers bring to the Service, or collect through it, about their own audiences: the Messenger and Instagram subscribers of their pages, the contact lists they upload, their CRM contacts, their shoppers, and the people they exchange messages with. We hold that data on their instructions. They decide what it is used for, and they are responsible for having a lawful basis to hold it. If you are one of those people, ask the business first. We will help them answer you, and we will answer you ourselves where the law requires us to.

If you are not sure which group you are in: if you signed up for a CrowdHero account, you are in the first. If a business that uses CrowdHero has your email address, phone number or Messenger profile, you are in the second, and that business holds your data.

3. The personal data we collect

This list follows how the data is actually stored. Not every category applies to every account: an account that never connects a Facebook Page has no Page tokens, and an account that never sends an SMS has no SMS delivery records.

3.1 Account and identity

Your name, email address, a one-way hash of your password (never the password itself), your profile picture if you upload one, your language and timezone, your account type, whether your email address is verified, and, if you turn on two-factor authentication, your two-factor secret and recovery codes.

3.2 Sign-in, session and security records

Your sign-in history, including the time, IP address and browser of each sign-in; your active sessions; and a tamper-evident security audit log of sensitive actions such as data-export requests, erasures, account-deletion requests and staff access to an account for support, with who did it, to whom, from which IP address and when. We keep these records to detect and investigate account compromise and abuse.

3.3 Billing

Your AI credit balance and its history (top-ups, what AI work and automated messages cost, refunds), your billing country and tax number, and a record of each transaction, including the amount, the currency, the payment provider used and that provider's reference. For a card saved for automatic top-up we keep only the provider's reference for it and a label such as its brand and last four digits. We never receive or store your card number, expiry date or security code. You enter card details on the payment provider's own pages.

3.4 Connected platform accounts

When you connect a platform, we store the identifiers and access tokens it issues to us on your behalf, together with the account's name and picture. Section 4 lists each platform, what we access and why. Access tokens are stored encrypted, and disconnecting an account deletes them.

3.5 Audience and contact data that belongs to our customers

We hold this on behalf of the customer whose account it is in, as their processor (see section 2):

• Messenger and Instagram subscribers: the person's platform-scoped identifier, their profile name and picture as the platform supplies them, their locale, timezone and gender where the platform supplies them, any labels the customer applies, any answers they gave to a bot's questions, and where they are in a bot flow.
• Email and SMS contacts: name, email address, phone number, the groups they belong to, custom fields the customer defined, and where their opt-in came from.
• CRM records: customers, notes, follow-ups, deals, the events that moved a deal between stages, and any custom fields the account defined.
• Uploaded contact lists: a CSV file a customer imports is kept as a file, together with any rows that failed to import, which can include the names, phone numbers and addresses in them.
• Bookings: the name, contact details and appointment details of people who book with a customer.

3.6 Messages and delivery records

The content of inbox conversations and any files attached to them (receipts, screenshots, photos, whatever our customers' own customers send), stored on a private disk that the web server never serves directly. Also the delivery record of each broadcast, sequence, campaign or automated reply: the recipient, the time, whether the provider accepted it, and any bounce, complaint or failure reason it reported back.

3.7 Consent and opt-out records

For each subscriber and each email or SMS contact we keep a consent record: what they agreed to, on which channel, from which source, when, from which IP address and browser, and a one-way hash of the exact wording they were shown. Separately we keep a suppression list of addresses and numbers that must never be contacted again on a channel, with the reason: an unsubscribe, an SMS STOP reply, a hard bounce, a spam complaint or a manual suppression. We keep suppression records for as long as the account exists, because deleting the record of an opt-out is how an opt-out gets ignored.

3.8 Shopping and orders

Where a customer runs a store through the Service: carts, orders, and the delivery name, address, phone number and email address a shopper gives at checkout. Shoppers who create an account with a store also have their sign-in details held for that store.

3.9 AI features

Where AI features are used: the prompts sent, the responses generated, and daily usage counters. Prompts go to the AI provider the customer has set up, or to ours when the customer pays for AI from their AI credit. We strip obvious credentials from a prompt before it leaves the Service, but anything typed into a prompt is sent to that provider.

3.10 Operational logs

Records of the calls we make to platform APIs, the webhook notifications we receive from platforms and providers, a short de-duplication window that stops the same platform event being processed twice, and the usage counters behind usage reports and charges. These can contain identifiers and sometimes message content, which is why they are kept for the shortest periods we use (see section 9).

4. Data we receive from platforms you connect

CrowdHero works by connecting to the social, messaging and commerce platforms you choose. You connect each one yourself, on that platform's own consent screen, and you can disconnect it at any time in CrowdHero under Settings → Connections, or in the platform's own settings. We ask only for the permissions a feature needs, and we use what we receive only to provide that feature to you.

4.1 What we never do with platform data

• We do not sell it or rent it, and we do not give it to advertising platforms, data brokers or other information resellers.
• We do not use it for advertising, including retargeting and personalised or interest-based advertising, and we do not use it to build profiles of people for any purpose other than providing the Service to you.
• We do not use it to decide anyone's creditworthiness or for lending.
• We do not use it to develop, improve or train generalised artificial-intelligence or machine-learning models.
• We do not transfer it to anyone else, except to provide or improve the features you use (through the service providers in section 7), to comply with the law, to protect against security threats or abuse, or as part of a merger, acquisition or sale of the business with your prior consent.
• Nobody at CrowdHero reads it unless you ask us to (for example in a support request), it is needed for security purposes such as investigating abuse, the law requires it, or it has been aggregated and anonymised for internal operations.

4.2 Google user data

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

We access Google user data only through the permissions in the table above, only for the features listed beside them, and only after you grant them on Google's consent screen. Google access tokens are stored encrypted. You can remove CrowdHero's access at any time on your Google Account's third-party connections page, or by disconnecting the account in CrowdHero. Disconnecting deletes the access tokens; section 11 explains how to have everything else deleted.

4.3 YouTube

CrowdHero uses YouTube API Services to upload videos to your YouTube channel when you ask it to. By connecting a YouTube channel you agree to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service. Google's handling of your data is described in the Google Privacy Policy.

From YouTube we store your channel's identifier, name and picture, the access tokens Google issues to us, and the identifiers of the videos you uploaded through CrowdHero. We use them only to upload the videos you choose and to show you the connected channel and the status of those uploads. We do not let third parties serve advertisements in the Service.

You can revoke CrowdHero's access to your YouTube data at any time on the Google security settings page. When access is revoked, or you disconnect the channel in CrowdHero, we stop using it and delete the YouTube data we stored within 7 days.

4.4 Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp

We use data received from Meta only as the Meta Platform Terms and Developer Policies allow. When a person messages or comments on a business that uses CrowdHero, Meta passes that message or comment to us so the business can answer it; the business decides how that conversation is used. Anyone who signed in with Facebook, or connected a Facebook Page, can have the data Facebook gave us deleted as described in section 11.2.

4.5 TikTok, X, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Threads

On these platforms we only publish content you create in CrowdHero and choose to publish. We store the account's identifier, name and picture and the access tokens the platform issues, so that we can publish for you and show you which account is connected. What each platform does with the content you publish is governed by its own terms and privacy policy.

5. How we use personal data, and our legal bases

Under India's DPDP Act we process personal data with your consent, which you give when you create an account or connect a platform and can withdraw at any time, and for the other legitimate uses the Act allows, such as meeting a legal obligation. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that took place before you withdrew it.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, as those terms are used in the California Consumer Privacy Act.

6. Cookies and similar technologies

The Service uses few cookies, and none for advertising or cross-site tracking.

• Session cookie. Strictly necessary. It identifies your browser session so you stay signed in. It is HTTP-only, limited to same-site requests, sent only over HTTPS, and expires after a period of inactivity.
• CSRF token cookie. Strictly necessary. It protects forms against cross-site request forgery.
• "Remember me" cookie. Set only if you tick that box when signing in.
• Blog view cookie. A small signed cookie records which articles this browser has already been counted for, so refreshing a page does not inflate its view count. It holds article identifiers only, nothing about you.
• Browser notifications. If you allow notifications, your browser gives us a push subscription address. We use it only to send you the notifications you turned on, and you can switch them off in your browser at any time.

Our web font is served from our own website, not from a font service, so loading a page does not disclose your IP address to a font provider. We do not use third-party analytics or advertising scripts, and no third party serves advertisements or sets tracking cookies through the Service.

Pages our customers build may embed content from other services, such as a video. Those embeds set their own cookies under their own policies.

7. Who we share personal data with

We do not sell personal data. We share it only with the service providers below, each of which processes it under contract and only to provide its part of the Service. Which of them receive your data depends on the features you use.

7.1 Social, messaging and commerce platforms

Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads, and WhatsApp through the WhatsApp Business Platform), Google (Sign in with Google, Google Business Profile and YouTube), X, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, Telegram, and the online store platforms you connect (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Wix and Squarespace). We send them the content you publish and the messages you send, and we receive from them the data described in section 4. Their own privacy policies govern how they handle it.

7.2 Email delivery

The email service the account uses: a direct SMTP relay, Mailgun, SendGrid or Mailchimp Transactional (Mandrill). Our own service emails may also go through Amazon SES, Postmark or Resend. These providers receive the recipient's address and the message.

7.3 SMS delivery

Twilio, or a custom SMS gateway a customer connects to their own provider. These providers receive the recipient's phone number and the message.

7.4 Marketing list sync

Where a customer turns it on: Mailchimp, Brevo (Sendinblue), ActiveCampaign, Mautic or Acelle. The contacts the customer chooses are sent to the list they name.

7.5 Payments

Depending on where you pay: Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay, Paystack, Mollie, Mercado Pago, Instamojo, MyFatoorah, Maya, senangPay, SSLCommerz, bKash, Nagad, toyyibPay or Xendit. They receive what they need to take the payment and they hold the card or wallet details; we receive a confirmation and a reference.

7.6 Artificial-intelligence providers

Only when AI features are used, and only the provider chosen: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google (Gemini), OpenRouter, or an OpenAI-compatible provider a customer connects with their own key. They receive the prompt and return the generated text. We do not opt in to any programme that lets a provider use prompts to train its models.

7.7 Hosting and operations

CloudCone, which hosts our servers and databases in the United States; Cloudflare, which delivers and protects the website; and Slack, which receives internal operational alerts that may include account identifiers.

7.8 Places you send data yourself

The Service can send data to webhook addresses you register, and can be read through an API using tokens you create. Anything you send to your own endpoints, or let an integration read, is your responsibility from that point on.

7.9 Legal requirements and business transfers

We may disclose personal data where the law requires it, where it is needed to establish, exercise or defend legal claims, or to protect the rights, safety or property of our users, the public or CrowdHero. If CrowdHero is sold or merged, personal data may pass to the new owner; we will tell you before that happens and before your data becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

8. International transfers

Our servers are in the United States, and some of the providers in section 7 process data in other countries. Your personal data may therefore be stored and processed outside the country you live in, including outside India. We do not transfer personal data to any country the Government of India has restricted under the DPDP Act. Where the GDPR or UK GDPR applies, we rely on the standard contractual clauses, or the other safeguards our providers offer. Email [email protected] for details.

9. How long we keep data

Account data is kept for as long as the account exists, and is then removed as described in section 11. The high-volume operational records below leave the live database on a schedule: records with lasting value are archived first, and short-lived ones simply expire.

History with lasting value is moved into verified, encrypted private archive files before it leaves the live database. Ordinary history archives are retained for 365 days after creation. Active sessions and unfinished deliveries stay online. AI usage detail stays online for the current billing month and a short reconciliation period, after which only summary totals remain. Financial and audit history is not deleted automatically. Data exports and erasures include archived records.

A few things are kept longer, on purpose:

• Suppression and consent records, for as long as the account they belong to exists. An opt-out we forget is an opt-out we break.
• Billing and transaction records, for eight years, the period Indian tax and accounting law requires.

Access tokens for a connected platform are deleted as soon as you disconnect it. Content you published to a platform stays there until you delete it on that platform.

10. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you have some or all of these rights: to access your data and receive a copy, to correct it, to have it erased, to restrict or object to its use, to withdraw consent, to have a grievance answered, and, in India, to nominate someone to exercise your rights if you die or become unable to. The Service lets you do the main ones yourself, without emailing anyone.

10.1 If you hold a CrowdHero account

• Get a copy of your data. Sign in and open Profile → Your data, then request an export. We put every record your account owns into one machine-readable archive that you download from the same page. Passwords, API keys, access tokens and other secrets are replaced with a placeholder: they are keys to your account, not information about you, and exports end up in inboxes and backups. The archive is deleted 30 days after it is created, so download it when it is ready.
• Correct your data. Most of it can be edited in Profile. For anything that cannot, email us.
• Delete your data. See section 11.
• Object, restrict, withdraw consent or nominate someone. Email [email protected].

10.2 If a business used CrowdHero to contact you

That business holds your data and decides what happens to it, so ask them first; they can export or delete your record themselves. If you cannot reach them, or they do not answer, email [email protected]. We can export everything held about a single subscriber or contact, and erase it, and we will tell the business we have done so. We may ask for enough information to be sure the record is yours.

10.3 Complaints

Contact our Grievance Officer (section 17). If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India, or, if you live in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, to your local data protection authority.

11. How to delete your data

11.1 Delete your CrowdHero account

Sign in and open Profile → Danger Zone → Request account deletion. You can cancel the request from the same screen for 14 days. After that we erase the account: records are deleted outright where nothing else depends on them, and irreversibly anonymised where a row has to remain so that totals and references stay intact. Files you uploaded, such as imported contact lists and chat attachments, are deleted from storage. You can ask for an export to be created as part of the deletion so that you keep a copy. Deletion cannot be undone once it has run. Billing records are kept for the period in section 9.

11.2 Delete the data Facebook gave us

If you signed in with Facebook or connected a Facebook Page or Instagram account:

1. In Facebook, open Settings & privacy → Settings → Apps and websites.
2. Find CrowdHero and choose Remove, and ask for your data to be deleted.
3. Facebook tells us automatically. We delete the data Facebook gave us about you: your Facebook name, email address, Facebook identifiers, access tokens and the link between your Facebook account and CrowdHero.
4. Facebook shows you a confirmation code and a link where you can check the progress of the deletion.

This deletes the data that came from Facebook, not your whole CrowdHero account. To delete your account as well, follow section 11.1.

11.3 Google, YouTube and other platforms

Disconnect the account in CrowdHero under Settings → Connections, which deletes its access tokens straight away, or revoke CrowdHero's access in the platform's own settings (for Google and YouTube, on the Google Account connections page). We delete the other data we stored from that platform within 7 days of losing access. To delete everything else, follow section 11.1 or email us.

11.4 Ask us by email

Email [email protected] from the address on your account, with the subject "Data deletion request". If you no longer have access to your account, tell us which account it was, and we may ask you to confirm it is yours. We confirm by email when the deletion is complete, within 30 days of your request.

11.5 If a business contacted you through CrowdHero

Ask that business to delete your record, or email us as described in section 10.2.

12. Stopping messages

• Email: use the unsubscribe link in the message, or your email app's own unsubscribe button. Either one adds you to a suppression list that every send is checked against.
• SMS: reply STOP. The reply is processed automatically and suppresses your number.
• Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp: block or report the business, or tell it to stop. Meta's messaging rules also limit when a business may message you at all.

An unsubscribe applies to all future sends from that business's account, not just the campaign you unsubscribed from. A spam complaint is permanent and is not reversed by a later opt-in.

13. How we protect data

• All traffic to the Service is encrypted with HTTPS.
• Passwords are stored as one-way hashes and can never be recovered.
• Access tokens, gateway keys and AI provider keys are stored encrypted, and are left out of every data export.
• Uploaded files are kept on a private disk and are only served to someone allowed to see them, never from a guessable public address.
• Webhook notifications from Meta, payment providers and messaging gateways are rejected unless their signature checks out.
• Sensitive administrative actions, including staff access to an account for support, are written to a hash-chained audit log that cannot be altered without the change showing.
• Sessions end the moment an account is suspended or deleted.

No system is perfectly secure. If a personal data breach affects you, we will tell you without undue delay, and report it as the law requires, including to the Data Protection Board of India and CERT-In within the time Indian law sets, and to the relevant supervisory authority within 72 hours where the GDPR applies.

14. Children

The Service is a business tool for adults. You must be at least 18 to create an account, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child's data has reached us, for example through a customer's contact list, email us and we will delete it.

15. Automated decisions

We do not make decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you by automated means alone. The Service does use automation that affects what people receive: bot flows reply to messages, workflows move contacts between stages, and AI features can draft or send replies. AI output can be wrong, and our Terms of Service require customers to review what it produces.

16. Changes to this policy

We will post any change on this page and update the date at the top. If a change materially affects you, we will tell you by email or in the app at least 15 days before it takes effect.

17. Contact and Grievance Officer

CrowdHero, operated by Joy Sarkar (sole proprietor), India
Email: [email protected]
Website: crowdhero.net

Grievance Officer: Joy Sarkar
Email: [email protected]

The Grievance Officer acknowledges every complaint within 24 hours and resolves it within 15 days of receiving it.