1. Who we are
KarmaGuides is an introduction service operated by Chaitanya Sharma, an individual based in Ontario, Canada. We connect seekers with vetted spiritual and holistic practitioners. We are committed to handling your personal information responsibly wherever you are located.
This Privacy Policy applies to users worldwide, including users in India, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and other countries. Your specific regional rights are described in Section 10.
2. What information we collect
From seekers:
- Quiz responses, including life domain, situation type, tradition preference, urgency, and other matching inputs. Some of this information may touch on your health, spiritual beliefs, or personal circumstances and is treated with heightened care.
- Email address, collected at the end of the quiz with your explicit consent
- Open-text responses you provide in the quiz
- Technical data: browser timezone and UTM parameters from the link you used to reach us
From practitioners (applicants):
- Name, email address, and location
- Modalities, credentials, experience, pricing, and bio
- Photos and gallery images you upload
- Application responses including case-study answers
- Booking and social links you provide
- Session format and language preferences
Automatically collected:
- Basic server request logs via Vercel (our hosting provider), including IP address and browser type, retained for up to 90 days for security purposes
- No advertising pixels, no behavioral tracking scripts, and no third-party analytics
We do not collect payment information. We do not collect government identification. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18 years of age.
3. Cookies
KarmaGuides uses only technically necessary cookies required to operate the platform. These include session tokens for authenticated practitioners and basic functional cookies set by our infrastructure providers (Vercel, Supabase). We do not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels, or behavioral analytics cookies.
4. Your consent
Before we collect your email address and store your quiz responses, we ask for your explicit consent. This consent is requested through a clear checkbox at the point of email capture. You may withdraw consent at any time by contacting us at hello@karmaguides.com, after which we will delete your data unless retention is required by law.
Practitioners provide consent by voluntarily submitting an application, with clear notice that their information will be used to create a public profile.
5. Legal basis for processing
We process personal information on the following bases:
- Consent: Quiz responses and seeker email addresses are processed on the basis of your explicit consent given at the point of email capture.
- Legitimate interest: We use aggregated, anonymized quiz data to improve our matching algorithm. No individual is identifiable in this analysis.
- Contract performance: When a practitioner is listed on the platform, we process their profile data to fulfill our commitment to display their listing.
6. How we use your information
Seeker data is used to:
- Match you with a suitable guide through our algorithm
- Generate a personalized reflection of your quiz responses using AI (see Section 7)
- Send you your match introduction and related communications by email
- Improve the matching algorithm over time using aggregated, anonymized insights
Practitioner data is used to:
- Review your application and make a vetting decision
- Create and display your public profile page
- Send you match notifications when a seeker is introduced to you
- Communicate with you about your listing
We do not sell your personal information to any third party. We do not use your information for advertising purposes.
7. AI processing of quiz responses
When you complete the quiz, your responses are sent to Anthropic (anthropic.com), an AI company based in the United States, to generate a short personalized reflection that is shown to you on the result screen. This processing happens at the time you complete the quiz.
KarmaGuides uses the Anthropic API under commercial terms. Anthropic's commercial data policy confirms that inputs and outputs from API usage are not used to train Anthropic's AI models. This applies to all commercial and API customers and is separate from Anthropic's consumer product policies. Your quiz responses are processed for the immediate request only and are not retained by Anthropic for model training purposes. You can review Anthropic's privacy practices at anthropic.com/legal/privacy.
Because your quiz responses may include information about your health, spiritual beliefs, or personal circumstances, this AI processing involves sensitive personal data. Your explicit consent at the point of email capture covers this processing. If you do not consent, you may still use the platform but we will not be able to generate a personalized reflection for you.
8. Who we share information with
We share limited information with the following service providers, solely to operate the platform:
- Supabase (database and authentication) - stores all platform data on servers in the United States
- Resend (email delivery) - used to send confirmation and match emails; servers in the United States
- Anthropic (AI processing) - seeker quiz responses are sent to Anthropic's API to generate a personalized reflection; servers in the United States; does not train on API inputs
- Vercel (hosting and deployment) - serves the platform and logs basic request data; servers in the United States and globally distributed edge locations
When a seeker is matched with a guide, we share the seeker's email address and relevant quiz context with that guide so they can make contact. This sharing is the core purpose of the service and is covered by your consent at the point of email capture.
We do not share your data with advertisers, data brokers, or any party for commercial purposes unrelated to operating the platform.
9. International data transfers
Our service providers process data primarily in the United States. If you are located in India, the European Union, the United Kingdom, or another jurisdiction with data transfer restrictions, your data will be transferred to and processed in the United States when you use KarmaGuides. We rely on the standard data processing commitments of our service providers for these transfers.
10. Your rights by region
All users:
You have the right to access, correct, and request deletion of your personal information. Contact hello@karmaguides.com We will respond within 30 days.
Users in India (Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023):
You have the right to: access your personal data, correct inaccurate or incomplete data, erase your data, and grieve any violation of your data rights.
Grievance Officer: Chaitanya Sharma
Contact: hello@karmaguides.com
We will acknowledge grievances within 48 hours and resolve them within 30 days.
We process your personal data with your explicit consent, given through a checkbox at the point of email capture. You may withdraw consent at any time.
Users in the United States (including California - CCPA/CPRA):
We do not sell your personal information. California residents have the right to: know what personal information we collect, request deletion, correct inaccurate information, and be free from discrimination for exercising privacy rights.
To exercise any of these rights, contact hello@karmaguides.com We will respond within 45 days.
Users in the European Union and United Kingdom (GDPR / UK GDPR):
You have the right to: access your data, correct inaccurate data, erase your data, restrict processing, data portability, object to processing, and withdraw consent. You may also lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority.
Our lawful basis for processing seeker data is explicit consent, obtained through a checkbox at the point of email capture. For practitioner data, our basis is contract performance and legitimate interest.
To exercise any GDPR rights, contact hello@karmaguides.com
11. Data retention
- Seeker quiz data and email addresses: retained until you request deletion
- Practitioner application and profile data: retained for the duration of your listing and for up to 2 years afterward for record-keeping
- Server logs: retained for up to 90 days
We will honor all deletion requests within 30 days, except where retention is required by applicable law.
12. Data security
We take reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), row-level security controls on our database, and limited access to personal data on a need-to-know basis. In the event of a breach that creates risk to your rights, we will notify affected users and relevant authorities as required by applicable law.
13. Children
KarmaGuides is not directed at individuals under 18. We do not knowingly collect information from minors. Contact hello@karmaguides.com if you believe a minor has submitted information.
14. Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy as the platform evolves. The date at the top reflects the most recent update. We will notify active users of material changes by email where possible.
15. Contact and grievances
Email: hello@karmaguides.com
Grievance Officer (India): Chaitanya Sharma, hello@karmaguides.com
Response time: within 30 days (grievance acknowledgment within 48 hours)
EU and UK users with unresolved concerns may contact their local data protection supervisory authority.