Kharchy
Privacy Policy — Kharchy
Last updated: 2026-08-23
Applies to: Kharchy for Android, iOS and web (iq.moneymanager.app)
1. Who we are
Kharchy is a personal finance record-keeping app published by Kharchy, an independent app project based in India.
Contact for anything in this policy: kharchy.support@gmail.com
2. The short version
Your financial records stay on your phone. Everything you enter — accounts, transactions, categories, tags, budgets, savings goals, recurring rules, receipt images and settings — is stored in an encrypted database on the device itself (AES-256-GCM, key held in the iOS Keychain / Android Keystore). It reaches us only if you deliberately create a backup, and even then it goes to your own Google Drive, not to us. There is no Kharchy account and no Kharchy server holding your ledger.
Two kinds of data do travel:
- Diagnostics. Kharchy sends anonymous usage and crash data to Google Firebase so faults get found and fixed. This covers which screens are opened, whether an action succeeded or failed, performance timings, and the technical details of a crash. It is on by default and you can switch it off at any time in More → Privacy & security; that choice is remembered across restarts and stops collection inside the reporting services themselves, not merely in the app. Section 4 sets out exactly what is sent.
- Optional features you turn on. Google Drive backup, Google Sheets export, and website icons. Each is described in section 5.
What diagnostics never contain: amounts, balances, account or category names, notes, merchants, or any other content of your records. Kharchy carries no advertising SDK, requests no advertising identifier, and does not follow you across other companies’ apps or websites.
3. Information you provide
All of the following is entered by you and stored locally on your device:
| What | Examples |
|---|---|
| Financial records | Accounts and balances, transactions, amounts, dates, merchants, notes |
| Organisation | Categories, subcategories, tags, budgets, savings goals, recurring rules |
| Attachments | Receipt photos and documents you attach to a transaction |
| Profile | The display name, email and picture you enter or import from Google |
| Preferences | Currency, theme, text size, reminder time, app-lock setting |
This data is written to an encrypted database on the device (AES-256-GCM; the key is held in the iOS Keychain / Android Keystore). It is not transmitted to us under any circumstances.
4. Information collected automatically
Kharchy uses Google Firebase (Analytics, Crashlytics and Remote Config) to find and fix faults and to understand which parts of the app get used. This is on by default and can be switched off in More → Privacy & security.
What is sent:
| What | Examples |
|---|---|
| Screen and action events | Which screen was opened; whether adding a transaction, a backup or a restore succeeded or failed |
| Crash and error reports | The technical stack of a crash or a handled error, the app version, the device model and OS version |
| Performance timings | How long startup, a backup upload or a config fetch took |
| Install identifier | A random identifier the app generates for this installation |
What is never sent: amounts, balances, account names, category or subcategory names, tags, notes, merchant names, attachment contents, your profile name or email — no content of your financial records in any form. The identifier above is generated by the app for this install only; Kharchy does not request the device advertising identifier, so this cannot be joined up with your activity in any other app.
Kharchy carries no advertising SDK and serves no ads. It does not read your contacts, calendar, location or phone number. It sets no cookies.
Switching diagnostics off disables collection in the Firebase SDKs themselves, not only in app code, and that choice persists across restarts. Data already sent before you switched it off is retained by Google under their own retention policy; email kharchy.support@gmail.com to ask for it to be deleted.
5. Optional features that send data off your device
5.1 Google Drive backup and Google Sheets export
Off by default. Available under More → Backup & sync.
When you connect a Google account, you are shown Google’s own consent screen and asked to grant:
openid,email,profile— so the app can show which account is connected. It reads your name, email address and profile picture from Google and stores them locally as your in-app profile.drive.file— permission limited to files this app creates in your own Drive. It cannot see or open anything else in your Drive.
With that connection:
- Backup writes a JSON copy of your Kharchy data to a folder named Kharchy Backups in your Google Drive.
- Sheets export writes a spreadsheet of your transactions to your Google Drive.
These files go to your Google account. They do not pass through, and are not readable by, any server of ours. Your use of Google Drive and Google Sheets is governed by Google’s Privacy Policy.
Note on backup file contents. The backup file is written as readable JSON and is protected by your Google account and Google’s own encryption at rest, not by a separate password of yours. Treat an exported backup file the way you would treat a bank statement: anyone who obtains the file can read it.
The access token is stored in the device keychain. Disconnect (Backup & sync, or Profile → sign out) revokes the grant with Google and deletes the stored token.
5.2 Website icons
Off by default — the app uses emoji icons. If you switch Appearance → Icon style to website icons, the app requests an icon for a category’s associated website from:
www.google.com/s2/favicons(Google)icons.duckduckgo.com(DuckDuckGo)favicone.com
Those requests carry the website name and, as with any network request, your device’s IP address to those services. No transaction data, amount, account name or personal detail is included. Switching back to emoji stops the requests.
6. Device permissions
Each is requested at the moment you first use the feature that needs it, never at launch, and declining any of them leaves the rest of the app fully usable.
| Permission | Used for | If you decline |
|---|---|---|
| Camera | Photographing a receipt to attach to a transaction | You can still attach from your library, or skip attachments |
| Photos / Media | Choosing a receipt image or a profile picture | You can still use the camera, or skip attachments |
| Microphone + Speech Recognition | Adding a transaction by speaking it | Type the transaction instead |
| Notifications | The optional daily reminder to log your spending | No reminder is shown; nothing else changes |
| Face ID / Biometrics | The optional app lock | The app opens without a lock |
Receipt images stay on the device. Voice entry is transcribed by your device’s own speech-recognition service; on some devices that service is provided by the operating system vendor (Apple or Google) and is subject to their privacy policy.
7. Sharing
We do not sell, rent or share your personal information. There is no advertising network, data broker, analytics provider or affiliate receiving anything from this app.
The only third party that receives data is the one you choose to connect: Google, for the Drive/Sheets and website-icon features described in section 5.
8. Data retention and deletion
Because your data is stored on your device, you control its lifetime.
- Clear all data (More → Danger zone) erases every financial record on the device immediately.
- Delete account (More → Danger zone) schedules the same erasure after a seven-day period, which you can cancel at any time before it elapses.
- Uninstalling the app removes its local database with it.
- Backups already in your Google Drive are not touched by any of the above. Delete them from Drive, or from the backup list in Backup & sync.
To have a Google connection removed, use Disconnect in the app, or revoke Kharchy at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
We hold no copy of your records, so there is nothing on our side to delete and no request to make for them. The one exception is the diagnostics described in §4: turning Usage analytics off stops collection, and you can ask us to delete what was already sent by emailing the address in §14. Full step-by-step instructions, including that request, are on the Data deletion page.
9. Security
- The local database is encrypted with AES-256-GCM; the key is stored in the iOS Keychain or the Android Keystore.
- The optional app lock requires your device biometric or passcode to open the app.
- The app blocks screenshots and hides its contents in the app switcher.
- All network requests use HTTPS. Cleartext traffic is disabled in release builds.
No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, and the security of your data also depends on the security of your device and your Google account.
10. Children
Kharchy is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from children. Because the app collects nothing, there is no children’s data for us to hold. The app is rated for general audiences.
11. International transfers
Your financial records are not transferred anywhere, because we never receive them — they stay on your device.
Two things do cross borders, and only these: the diagnostics described in section 4 are processed by Google (Firebase) on infrastructure that may sit outside your country, and, if you turn them on, Google Drive backup and Sheets export store files in your own Google account. Both are governed by Google’s own terms and its transfer safeguards, including the EU Standard Contractual Clauses where they apply. Switching diagnostics off in More → Privacy & security stops the first entirely.
12. Your rights
Depending on where you live you may have rights to access, correct, export or erase your personal data (for example under the GDPR, the UK GDPR, the CCPA/CPRA or India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023).
In this app those rights are exercised directly and immediately, without asking us: your data is on your device, export produces a complete machine-readable copy, editing is available on every record, and Clear all data erases everything. If you believe we hold personal information about you regardless, contact kharchy.support@gmail.com.
Grievance Officer (India, DPDP Act). Questions, complaints or requests about this policy go to kharchy.support@gmail.com, which reaches the publisher directly.
Where you live
Kharchy is available worldwide. Because your records never leave your device, most of what a privacy law governs simply does not arise here — there is no profile of you on a server to access, correct or delete.
Legal bases (GDPR / UK GDPR). For users in the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland:
| What | Basis |
|---|---|
| Running the app and storing your records on your device | Performance of the contract you enter by installing it (Art. 6(1)(b)) — the app cannot do its job otherwise |
| Crash and error reports | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) — keeping the app from breaking. You can switch these off at any time |
| Usage and performance analytics | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) — seeing which features are actually used, and how long the app takes to do things, so it can be improved. You have an absolute right to object: switch it off in More → Privacy & security and collection stops in the reporting services themselves, and the choice persists |
| Google Drive backup and Sheets export | Your consent, given by connecting the account and starting a backup |
Why legitimate interests for analytics. The balancing test behind that choice, stated plainly so you can hold us to it: the interest is keeping a free app working and knowing which parts of it earn their place. What is collected is limited to screen names, action names, timings, crash traces and a random per-install identifier — never a single thing you record, which is structurally impossible for these events to carry. No advertising identifier and no device identifier is requested, nothing is combined with data from any other app or website, nothing is sold or shared, and no decision is made about you. The impact on you is therefore low, it is not secret, and you can end it in two taps at any time. If you would rather it never started, switch it off the first time you open the app.
Your rights under those laws — access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection, portability, and withdrawal of consent — are exercised in the app directly, as described above, and you may also contact us. You have the right to complain to your local supervisory authority.
California (CCPA/CPRA). We do not sell or share personal information, and we do not use it for cross-context behavioural advertising. There is no financial incentive attached to any privacy choice.
India (DPDP Act, 2023). Grievances go to the contact below.
13. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes we will update the date at the top and post the revised version at this URL. Material changes will also be noted in the app’s release notes.
14. Contact
kharchy.support@gmail.com
A postal address is not reproduced here. Google Play publishes the verified developer address on the store listing, which is the address of record.