Privacy Policy

Introduction: our commitment to your privacy

Our vision at Maasika is to provide you with free access to relevant health information. Our ability to offer you relevant health information is based on your agreement to share with us your specific symptoms, and your information such as your age and gender. Only when Maasika knows this information about you, it is able to compare you to similar people and tell you what they were diagnosed with and how they were treated. The more specific information you give us about you and your symptoms, the more accurate and relevant information we are able to provide you with.

The security of your personal information and your privacy are extremely important to us. When you share your personal information with us, we apply high-security standards to our operational practices and work in compliance with all applicable privacy laws. We are compliant with the Information Technology Act, 2000, which has progressive laws governing data protection.

Our commitment to your privacy also means that we will use your data only to improve our services and to provide them to you. We will never sell your personal information to anyone. You will never see advertisements on our service that were tailored to you based on the information you provided us.

 We want you to trust us with your information. This privacy policy was written in plain English in order to describe exactly when, why and how we collect, use and share your personal information, and what we do to protect it.

 We encourage you to take a deep dive and read this privacy policy as it describes in detail how you can remain anonymous while using Maasika, and what information you will share with us if you create a user account.  It explains what types of information we collect about our users, how we use the information we collect, how we collect it, how long we keep it for, and under what circumstances and with whom we may share it. You may also read more about your rights in relation to your personal information, the security measures we take to protect your personal information and our cookies policy.

If anything in our privacy policy is unclear, or if you have any questions, please ask us at privacy@maasika.in 

Creating a Secure, Encrypted, Anonymous User Account

Anonymity

Whenever you create a user account or subscribe to our emailers, we create a unique user-id with respect to your account. All activities related to assessment, analytics, machine-learning tasks are performed with respect to the user-id. Your personal information is kept separately in a secure manner and in an encrypted database. It is only used by the system to send emails & notifications without any human involvement. 

You may create a user account which we will verify through your email and an SMS sent to your phone. This option gives you an extra layer of privacy, as you can log out of your account at any time. Having an account also gives you the ability to access your information when you log on from another device (for example, when your phone is lost or broken), and to use all of our services that are available in your location. When you create an account you may also add information about your medical history, chronic conditions or smoking habits. When you add this information to your profile, Maasika is able to provide you with more accurate results relevant to you and your case, and they are saved so you don’t have to enter them each time you use the app.

What types of information do we collect? 

We collect non-personal information, which is un-identified and non-identifiable, both about users who use Maasika anonymously and about users who create an account.  This information mainly consists of technical and aggregated usage information, such as browsing activities, non-identifying information regarding the users’ devices, operating system, internet browser, and similar information.  

 We also collect personal information, which is information that identifies an individual or may, with reasonable efforts, cause the identification of an individual. This information may include your name, phone number, date of birth, gender, location, IP address, billing information (name, physical billing address, payment method and transaction details), email address, and in some instances, a copy of your driver’s license or other state-issued identification for identity verification purposes. 

Personal information may also be related to your health, such as information about your illness, symptoms and their potential causes, medical history, test results, and any other personal health information. In some instances, these types of information will only be collected when you chat with a doctor using our app, and it will be subject to the Information Technology Act, 2000 in addition to this privacy policy.    

How do we use the information we collect?

 We are using the information we collect for the following purposes:

  • To provide you with relevant health information - The main reason we collect personal information is to enable Maasika to give you relevant information about your health. Maasika asks you detailed questions about yourself and your symptoms to compare your case with people like you who share your age, gender, and symptoms. Sharing your information with the app enables maasika to provide you with relevant health information based on what thousands of doctors did for people like you when they were in your situation.
  • To enable the use of our service - We may also use the information we collect in order to operate and customize our services; for example, to remember information about you so that you will not have to re-enter it when using our app, or to provide you with customer assistance and technical support. 
  • To contact you - We may use the information to be able to send you promotional content about our services by e-mail, text messages, push notifications and similar forms of communication from us or our partners (acting on our behalf). If you do not wish to receive such promotional messages, you may notify us at any time at support@maasika.in , or follow the “unsubscribe” or “STOP” instructions contained in the promotional communications you receive. If you choose to use our chat-based virtual visit, you will receive notifications to your mobile device when your physician responds.
  • As part of our user support - We may also contact you with important information regarding our services, such as in event a certain service is temporarily suspended for maintenance, to reply to your support inquiries, or send you notices regarding payments for your subscriptions.  It is important that you are always able to receive such messages. For this reason, you are not able to opt-out of receiving such service and billing messages unless you are no longer a user of the services.  These types of messages are not encrypted, however, if we need to share information with you of a sensitive nature, we will direct you to log into the app in order to receive such information securely. 
  • For other legitimate interests - We may also use your personal information to enhance our data security and fraud prevention capabilities and tools, to support legitimate interests that we have as a business (such as for by identifying user trends) and to comply with any applicable laws and regulations or in connection with legal proceedings.

How do we collect information?

  • Information you share with usWe collect the information you provide to us, for example when you create an account, contact us directly or write to us on social media platforms. This information may include personal information including information relating to your health.
  • Information we collect automaticallyWhen you visit or use our app or website, we may gather, collect and record information about it. We do this ourselves or with the help of third-party services, including through the use of “cookies” and other tracking technologies, as further detailed below. This information may include your IP address (which may also be associated with your domain name or the domain name of your internet service provider), data relating to your use and navigation, unique identification numbers associated with your mobile device or our mobile application and your approximate geographical location.
  • Information we receive from third parties and social mediaWe cooperate with third parties who help us operate Maasika. From time to time, we may receive information about you from those third parties (such as Apple’s Healthkit or Fitbit or third party apps like google fit).  

When and with whom do we share your personal information?

We may share your personal information with third parties if we receive your explicit consent, or without your approval, only in the following manners and instances:

  • Third party service providers - We may share personal information with certain service providers, whose services and solutions complement, facilitate and enhance our own. These include hosting and server services, communications and content delivery networks (CDNs), data and cybersecurity services, billing and payment processing services, session recording and remote access services, performance measurement services, data optimization and marketing services, content providers, and our legal and financial advisors.

Such service providers may have access to personal information according to their particular roles and purposes, and may only use the information for such purposes.

  • Our Affiliated Doctors – If you chose to use our “Virtual Consultation” service or our “ Treatment/Care Plans (available only in certain areas), we will share personal information with the doctors affiliated with us, in order for them to provide you care.  
  • Transactions, Liquidation – We may share personal information with third parties in connection with a transaction, such as a merger, sale of company assets or shares, reorganization, financing, change of control or acquisition of all or a portion of our business, or in the event of a bankruptcy or related or similar proceedings.
  • Law Enforcement, Legal Requests and Duties - Where permitted by local data protection laws, we may disclose your personal information pursuant to a legal request, or in compliance with applicable laws, if we have good faith belief that the law requires us to do so, with or without notice to you.
  • Protecting Rights and Safety - Where permitted by law, we may share your personal information with others if we believe in good faith that it will help protect the rights, property or personal safety of Maasika, any of our users, or any member of the general public, with or without notice to you.

With whom do we not share your personal information?

  • We will never sell your personal information to anyone.
  • We will never share your personal information with advertisers. We only share usage information stripped of both identifying information and any personal health-related information that helps us optimize our marketing campaigns. 
  • We will never share your personal information in a manner that was not described in this privacy policy, without asking for your explicit approval beforehand.

When do we share non-personal information? 

Information that cannot be traced back to an individual is non-personal information, such as anonymized or aggregated information.  We may transfer, share, disclose or otherwise use non-personal Information at our sole discretion and without the need for any further approval from you. You accept that we own all the aggregated and anonymized data collected or created by us.

What about information you want to share with others?

Maasika enables you to share your personal information with others, including healthcare providers, friends and contacts via social media, via our app or otherwise. Please use caution when sharing your personal information with others. The information you share will be shared according to your instructions and actions, and we have no control over what happens with your information once you share it with others.

How long do we keep your personal information? 

We will keep your personal information for as long as your user account is active, in order to allow you to have access to your information and to provide you with our services.

We may continue to retain your personal information even after you deactivate your user account or stop using Maasika, as reasonably necessary to comply with our legal obligations, to resolve disputes regarding our users, enforce our agreements or protect our legitimate interests.

If you use our “Virtual Consultation” or “Treatment/Care Plans” service, we may be obligated to keep your personal information for a longer period, and we will do what is legally required in each case.

When your personal information is no longer required, we will ensure it is securely deleted.

How old do you have to be to use Maasika?

All our services at Maasika are not designed for anyone under the age of 18. Furthermore, we do not knowingly collect or solicit any information from anyone under the age of 18.  If we learn or are informed that we unintentionally collected personal information from an individual under the age of 18, we will delete such information.  If you believe that we might have any information regarding a person under the age of 18, please contact us at privacy@maasika.in 

Where is the information stored?

The information we collect from you may be stored and processed in India, or any other country in which we, or our affiliates, maintain facilities in, and in other jurisdictions as necessary for the proper delivery of our services or as may be required by law. If you are located outside India, please note that we may transfer your information, including your personal information, to a country that does not have the same data protection laws as your jurisdiction, and you consent to such transfer of information to India. or any other country in which the company or its service providers maintain facilities.

Who has access to your personal information?

Your personal information may be processed or accessed by Maasika employees, contractors and service providers in India. Our Staff members that have access to personal information and sensitive data are specifically trained and are granted only the minimal access rights required to perform their duties. We have detailed internal privacy and security policies and procedures and perform periodic training of our staff to ensure that they are all aware of our security and privacy procedures.

What security measures do we take to secure the data?

We care deeply about the security of your information, and we maintain high standards of physical, administrative, and technological safeguards to preserve the integrity and security of all information collected by us.

We use encrypted transportation of any data when it is transferred from the app to our servers, and we encrypt the data while it is stored in our database servers.

The Information Technology Act 2000, establishes national Indian standards to protect individuals’ electronic personal health information, and Maasika is compliant with ITA standards. All service providers that we use and that deal with sensitive data, are ITA compliant and meet our strict requirements, and all applicable laws and regulations.

We also regularly monitor our systems for possible vulnerabilities and attacks, and regularly seek new ways and third party services for further enhancing the security of our services and protection of our users’ privacy.

Please note that regardless of the measures and efforts taken by Maasika, we cannot and do not guarantee the absolute protection and security of your personal information we hold. In the event that any information under our control is compromised as a result of a breach of security or a technical failure, we will take reasonable steps to investigate the situation and, where appropriate, notify those individuals whose information may have been compromised and take other steps, in accordance with any applicable laws and regulations.

Use of Cookies & Tracking Technologies

We, together with our marketing, analytics and technology partners, use certain monitoring and tracking technologies (such as cookies, beacons, pixels, tags and scripts) on our website, certain partner sites and social networks. These technologies are used in order to maintain, provide and improve our services on an ongoing basis, and in order to provide our users with a better experience. Such technologies enable us to maintain and keep track of our users preferences and authenticated sessions, to better secure our services, to identify technical issues, user trends and effectiveness of campaigns, and to monitor and improve the overall performance of our services.

In order for some of these technologies to work properly, a small data file (“cookie”) must be downloaded and stored on your device. By default, we use several persistent cookies for purposes of session and user authentication, security, keeping the user’s preferences (such as regarding default settings), monitoring performance of our services, and generally providing and improving our services.

If you would prefer not to accept cookies, most browsers will allow you to adjust your settings to notify you when you receive them, automatically reject them or disable existing ones. Depending on your mobile device and operating system, you may not be able to block and delete all cookies.

Deleting cookies does not delete Local Storage Objects (LSOs) such as Flash Objects and HTML5 Local Storage or Session Storage. If you use Google Chrome, You can learn more about locally stored data in your browser, and how to control at: https://www.google.com/chrome/privacy/.

Please note that deleting our cookies or disabling future cookies or tracking technologies may prevent you from accessing certain areas or features of our services, or may otherwise adversely affect your user experience.

How do I manage cookies?

Most web browsers let you choose whether to accept cookies.  Most also let you delete cookies already set.  The choices available, and the mechanism used, will vary from browser to browser.  Such browser settings are typically found in the “options”, “tools” or “preferences” menu. You may also consult the browser’s “help” menu. For example: 

Cookie settings in Internet Explorer

Cookie settings in Firefox

Cookie settings in Chrome

Cookie settings in Safari 

There are online tools available for clearing all cookies left behind by the websites you have visited, such as www.allaboutcookies.org.  Usually, deletion of cookies will anonymize the information associated with the pixel and a website will not receive any further associated information.

Online Advertising

In order to promote our app and services, we use platforms such as Facebook for online campaigns.  

For example, we may use Facebook’s “Custom Audience Tool” to display interest-based ads promoting our app. We do not share personal information with Facebook, but given that Facebook knows the identity of their users, they may link the fact you clicked on our ad with your identity.  Further, we report app events to Facebook to help optimize our campaigns, but we do not share with Facebook the meaning of such events. In other words, Facebook will receive information about your usage of the app (for example “User X completed apple” which means something about your usage of the app to us, but not to Facebook) but not any personal, medical or health related content. If you do not want to receive interest-based ads on Facebook, you can adjust your ad preferences through your Facebook settings. We use the same approach with other ad partners, such as Google; we will never share your personal information with any of them.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may modify or update our privacy policy from time to time, as we change our business and practices. Future changes will not affect data that was collected under a previous version of this policy. When we change our policy in a material manner we will notify you, and update the “last modified” date as set forth at the beginning of this policy.

Our Privacy Policy in Other Languages

This privacy policy was written in English, and maybe   translated into other languages for your convenience. If a translated (non-English) version of this privacy policy conflicts in any way with its English version, the provisions of the English version shall prevail.

Choice of law and Dispute resolution

This Privacy Policy, its interpretation, and any claims and disputes related to it, shall be governed by, interpreted and enforced in accordance with the laws of the State of Karnataka. Any claim and dispute shall be brought in and decided by a court of competent jurisdiction located in Bangalore, Karnataka.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or wish to exercise any of your rights as set forth in this policy, please contact us at privacy@maasika.in . 

Please contact us also if you have any issues regarding our use of your personal information.