Privacy policy

This policy explains what personal data the Short2News Android app and the website short2news.com collect, why, who else handles it, how long it is kept, and what you can do about it. The service is run by Short2News Media Network Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad, India ("Short2News", "we"), which is the Data Fiduciary for this data.

1. What we collect

Account	Your mobile number when you sign in with a one-time code, or your name, email address and profile photo when you sign in with Google. A sign-in session token is stored on your phone in the Android Keystore.
Profile	The display name, handle, photo and bio you choose, your reading languages, and the state, district and town you set as your area.
Location	Only if you allow it. The app reads your precise location once, to suggest your area, and our server turns it into a town and district name. We store the area, not a location trail, and the app does not read your location in the background. You can set your area by hand instead.
Microphone	Only if you allow it, and only while you are using a voice feature: speaking a search or a question to Shorty AI, or recording audio in AI Studio. Voice typing uses your phone's speech recognition service (on most phones, Google's). Recordings you choose to submit are uploaded so they can be processed.
Photos and videos	Only the files you pick or capture: community posts, Shorts, news tips, profile pictures and AI Studio inputs. The app has no gallery-wide access. Some photo effects (such as background removal) run on your phone.
What you post	Community posts, comments, reactions, confirmations, Shorts, captions, news submissions and AI Studio prompts.
Activity	Articles you open and listen to, bookmarks, followed topics, Shorts watch progress, likes and the interests we infer from them, so the feed can show more of what you read. Questions you ask Shorty AI are saved as a conversation history you can see.
Device	Phone model, Android version, app version, language, IP address, and a push notification token so we can send the alerts you have switched on.
Advertising	Your Android advertising ID, collected by Google AdMob and its partners when ads load. See Ads.
Coins and payouts	Your coin balance and history. If you withdraw earnings, the UPI ID or bank account details you give us for the payout, and the payout records.
Support	What you write to us by email or in a report, and any reports you file about content.

We do not collect your contacts, call logs, SMS, or files you have not chosen to share.

2. How we use it

• To run the service: sign you in, show news in your languages and area, read stories aloud, save bookmarks, and deliver the notifications you chose.
• To run the features you use: publish your posts and Shorts, answer Shorty AI questions, run AI Studio, and credit and pay out coins.
• To personalise the feed from what you read and watch. You can clear your reading history in the app.
• To show ads that keep the app free.
• To keep the service safe: detect spam, fraud and coin abuse, moderate content, and respond to reports and legal requests.
• To fix bugs and understand which features are used, from aggregated counts.

We process your data with your consent, which you give by using a feature and granting its permission, and for the legitimate uses the DPDP Act allows, such as meeting a legal obligation. You can withdraw consent at any time: switch off a permission in Android settings, turn off notifications, or delete your account. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that already happened.

3. Who processes it

We do not sell personal data. We share it only with the service providers below, who process it on our behalf for the purpose listed, and with authorities when Indian law requires it.

Google Firebase	Sign-in (phone codes and Google Sign-In) and push notifications. Receives your phone number or Google account, device token and IP address.
Google AdMob, Meta Audience Network, Unity Ads	Showing ads. Receive the advertising ID, device and app information, IP address and approximate location derived from it.
Google Gemini, OpenRouter	AI summaries, Shorty AI answers and AI Studio. Receive the text of your question or prompt and any photo or audio you submit to that feature. OpenRouter passes requests to the AI model provider selected for the task.
Microsoft text-to-speech, ElevenLabs	Turning story text into speech. Receive the text being read.
Cloudflare R2, Bunny Stream	Storing and delivering the photos, audio and videos you upload, and streaming Shorts.
OpenStreetMap Nominatim, CARTO	Turning coordinates into a place name (sent from our server, not your phone) and drawing community maps.
GIPHY, YouTube, TMDB	GIF search in comments, playing embedded videos, and film information. When you play a YouTube video, Google's own terms apply.
Banks and UPI	Sending payouts you request.
Our hosting provider	Runs the servers and database the service runs on.

If you open an external AI tool from AI Studio, or follow a link to a news publisher, that site's own privacy policy applies to what you do there.

4. Ads and the advertising ID

The app is free because it shows ads. Ads are served by Google AdMob, which may pass requests to Meta Audience Network and Unity Ads. They use your phone's advertising ID to limit how often you see an ad, measure it, and, where allowed, choose ads that fit your interests. We do not give advertisers your name, phone number or email.

To reset or delete your advertising ID, open Android Settings → Privacy → Ads (or Settings → Google → Ads on older phones). Ads will still appear, but they will not be linked to your past activity. Where you tell us you are under 18, we do not show personalised ads or full-screen ads.

5. What is public

Your display name, handle, profile photo and bio, and everything you post (community posts, comments, Shorts and their captions, and approved news submissions) can be seen by anyone, in the app and on short2news.com, and can be shared. Do not post personal details you do not want others to see. Payout details, your phone number and your email are never public.

6. Where it is stored

Our database runs on servers rented from a cloud hosting provider. Some of the providers above store or process data outside India, for example in the United States or the European Union. We transfer data only as the DPDP Act permits, and not to any country the Government of India has restricted.

All traffic between the app, the website and our servers is encrypted with TLS. Access to the database and admin tools is limited to staff who need it, behind individual accounts. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your data, we will tell you and the Data Protection Board of India as the law requires.

7. How long we keep it

Account and profile	Until you delete your account.
Reading history, bookmarks, Shorty AI conversations	Until you clear them or delete your account.
Shorts watch progress	180 days.
Inferred interests	365 days.
Shorts view events	400 days, used for creator earnings and fraud checks.
Original video files	30 days after upload. The published, encoded video stays until you, a moderator or a takedown removes it.
Coin, earnings and payout records	8 years, for tax and accounting law, even after you delete your account.
Moderation and takedown records	5 years, under the IT Rules.
Server logs	A short period, for security and debugging.

See Delete your account for what happens to each kind of data when you leave.

8. Children

Short2News is meant for people aged 18 and over. If you are under 18, use it only with the consent of a parent or guardian. Where you tell us you are under 18, for example when Shorts asks for your age, we switch off personalised ads, interest profiling and behavioural tracking, show no full-screen ads, apply quiet hours, and ask for a guardian's consent. If you believe a child has given us personal data without that consent, write to grievance@short2news.com and we will delete it.

9. Your rights

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 you can:

• Access a summary of the personal data we hold about you and who we shared it with.
• Correct or update it. Most of it you can edit yourself in the app.
• Erase it, by deleting your account in the app or on this page.
• Withdraw consent for any purpose that relies on it.
• Nominate someone to exercise these rights if you die or become unable to.
• Complain to our Grievance Officer, and then to the Data Protection Board of India if you are not satisfied.

Write to grievance@short2news.com from the email address or phone number on your account. We answer requests within 30 days.

10. Cookies and local storage on the website

short2news.com uses no advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. It stores only:

s2n_state cookie	The state whose news you chose to see. 60 days.
s2n_seen cookie	So one visit counts as one view of a story. 30 days.
s2n_theme, s2n_getapp_off	Kept in your browser's local storage: your light or dark choice, and that you closed the "Get the app" bar.

11. Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we update the date at the top. If a change affects how we use data you have already given us, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.

12. Contact and grievances

Questions about this policy or your data go to our Grievance Officer:

Name	S. Ramakrishna Sharma
Role	Grievance Officer and Data Protection contact
Email	grievance@short2news.com
Address	Short2News Media Network Pvt. Ltd., Level 4, Cyber Gateway, HITEC City, Hyderabad, Telangana 500081, India
Acknowledgement	Within 24 hours
Resolution	Within 15 days of acknowledgement. Requests to remove content that is unlawful under Rule 3(1)(d) of the IT Rules, 2021 are acted on within the time the Rules set.