Privacy Policy

RankArena is an exam-preparation app for SSC and Railway aspirants in India. This policy explains what personal data the app collects, why, who it is shared with, and the rights you have over it under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act).

RankArena is operated by Vishal Gupta, India. For anything in this policy, write to rankarenasupport@gmail.com.

1. Data we collect

You give us

• Mobile number — required. Sign-in is by phone number and a one-time password (OTP).
• Date of birth — required, and asked first, before any other detail. It decides whether an account can be created at all, whether advertising is shown to you, and whether your real name may appear publicly. Because it decides those things, it can be changed only once after it is first set; further corrections go through the Grievance Officer below.
• Name — required, shown to you and used in reports.
• Username — required. This is the identity shown to other users on leaderboards.
• State/UT — optional.
• Profile photo — optional. Your photo stays on your own phone. It is checked on the device to confirm it shows a face, and the image itself is never uploaded to our servers or sent anywhere else.
• Parent's WhatsApp number — optional, only if you switch on the Parent Progress Report.
• Payout details — only if you become a teacher on RankArena: legal name, PAN, bank account number and IFSC, needed to pay you and to deduct tax at source. See section 6.

Created as you use the app

• Chosen exam and app language.
• Study activity: questions asked in the AI Doubt Solver, test and mock attempts and scores, streaks, mistakes saved, flashcard progress, quiz-battle results, study-room activity and forum posts.
• Courses you enrol in, and — if you teach — the courses you publish and the sales they make.
• Subscription status for RankArena Pro, and the Google Play purchase token used to verify it.
• Verified rewarded-ad views, counted so that free AI answers can be unlocked.
• A record of the consents you gave or withdrew, with the timestamp and app version.
• A record of each change to your date of birth — the old value, the new value and when — kept because that field controls advertising and public identity, and changes to it need to be auditable.
• Reports you make about other users or their content, and the list of users you have blocked. See section 5.

2. Why we use it

3. Advertising

RankArena shows rewarded video ads through Google AdMob. They are optional and never interrupt you: you choose to watch one, and watching three unlocks one free AI answer. That is how free answers are paid for. RankArena Pro subscribers are shown no ads at all.

When an ad is requested, Google AdMob receives your device's advertising identifier and standard ad request information. So that a reward can be credited to the right account, your RankArena account identifier is sent to Google with the ad request and returned to our server when Google confirms you finished watching.

Ads are non-personalised unless we know you are an adult. If you have not given a date of birth, personalisation is switched off, ad content is restricted, and Google is told not to use your data to build an advertising profile. We do not sell your data to advertisers, and no advertising SDK reads your study activity, your questions or your test results.

4. Optional consents

Three consents are optional, are switched off by default, and can be withdrawn at any time in the app under Profile → Privacy & My Data:

• Analytics tracking
• Marketing emails/notifications
• Anonymous usage data

As of the date above, no analytics SDK is active in the app. These switches record your preference so that no such collection can begin without it. If that changes, this policy will be updated before any collection starts. Advertising is covered separately in section 3.

5. Safety: reporting and blocking

The forum and study rooms carry content written by other users, so the app has reporting and blocking.

• When you report something, we record who reported it, who wrote it, why, anything you add, and a copy of the reported content as it was at that moment. The copy is taken by our server, not sent by your phone, so that a report cannot misquote someone — and because study-room messages are private to that room, it is the only way a report about one can be reviewed without reading the room.
• Reports are read only by RankArena's moderator. The person you reported is not told who reported them, and reporters cannot read their own reports back.
• When you block someone, we store that you blocked them. They are not told. You stop seeing their forum posts and study-room messages, and they cannot send you a friend request.
• If content is removed by moderation it is marked as removed rather than erased, so that a decision can be explained or reversed later. It stops being shown to anyone.

Reports and moderation records are kept while your account exists, because they are the record of why an action was taken.

6. If you teach on RankArena

Teachers give us a legal name, PAN, bank account number and IFSC so that earnings can be paid and tax deducted at source. We do not ask for Aadhaar. These details are stored where no app, including your own, can read them back — the app shows only the last four digits so you can check you entered the right account. They are collected only when you are about to be paid for the first time, not when you become a teacher.

Your public teacher profile shows your display name, the subjects you teach, and your courses.

7. Who your data is shared with

We do not sell your personal data. It is processed by these service providers so the app can work:

We may also disclose data if required by law or to protect the safety and rights of our users.

8. What other users can see

Other users can see your username, your leaderboard scores, and any posts or answers you write in the community forum or study rooms. Your real name is shown publicly only if we know you are an adult and you have left the "show my real identity" setting on — you can turn it off at any time. If you have not given a date of birth, your real name is withheld. Your phone number, date of birth, parent's number and payout details are never shown to other users.

9. Children

RankArena does not create accounts for anyone under 18. Date of birth is asked on its own screen before your name, photo or any other detail, so that nothing about a person under 18 is collected in the first place. Accounts cannot be created for anyone under 13 at all.

If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we will erase it.

10. How long we keep it

• Account and study data: while your account exists.
• After you request deletion: erased within 30 days.
• Consent records: 3 years, as required for compliance.
• Date-of-birth change records and safety reports: while your account exists.
• Anti-abuse request counters: minutes to hours, then discarded automatically.

11. Your rights

All of these are built into the app, under Profile → Privacy & My Data:

• View my data — see everything stored about you.
• Correct my data — edit your name, contact and state. Your date of birth can be corrected once; after that, write to the Grievance Officer below and we will correct it for you.
• Download my data — export a copy as a file.
• Withdraw consent — switch off any optional consent.
• Delete my account — permanently deletes your data within 30 days.

You may also exercise any of these by writing to rankarenasupport@gmail.com.

12. Security

All traffic uses HTTPS. Access to the database is restricted by server-side security rules, and sensitive actions — awarding Pro, grading tests, deciding battles, recording your date of birth, and acting on reports — are performed on the server so a modified app cannot change them. Server-side rate limits protect sign-in, reporting and the AI features from abuse. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affecting your data occurs, we will notify the Data Protection Board and affected users as the DPDP Act requires.

13. Changes

If this policy changes materially, the updated version will be published here and the date at the top will change. Continuing to use the app after that means you accept the updated policy.

14. Grievance Officer