Privacy policy

Last updated 20 August 2026 · Sammelan is currently in pilot.

Who we are

Sammelan is a sole proprietorship based in Bangalore, India. We run a WhatsApp-based service that lets hosts and businesses send invitations, schedules, reminders and updates to people who have agreed to hear from them.

For anything in this policy, write to hello@sammelan.co.

Who this policy covers

Two different groups of people, with different relationships to us:

• Recipients — guests at an event, or customers of a business, who receive our messages. Most people reading this are here.
• Customers — the hosts, planners and businesses who use Sammelan to reach those recipients.

For recipients, the host or business decides what to send you and is responsible for having your permission. We handle the sending, and we hold the data described below.

What we hold about recipients

• Your name and WhatsApp number, as given to us by the host or business whose event or shop you are connected to. We do not collect numbers ourselves and there is no public sign-up — every contact reaches us from someone who already had it.
• Your replies to us, and the messages we send you.
• What you tell us in the course of the event — whether you are attending, how many people are coming with you, and anything you volunteer such as a dietary preference or an accessibility need.
• Delivery and read status of messages, which WhatsApp reports back to us.
• A record of your consent and of any opt-out, including when it happened and what wording you were shown.

We do not collect your location, your contacts, or anything from your device. We cannot see any of your other WhatsApp conversations.

What we hold about customers

• Contact and account details for the person running the event or the campaign.
• The event or campaign itself — schedules, venues, guest lists and message history.
• Billing details, including the information required to raise a compliant Indian tax invoice.

Why we hold it

• To send you the messages you agreed to receive, and to reply when you write back.
• To record whether you are attending, so the host knows.
• To honour an opt-out permanently, which requires us to keep a record that you opted out.
• To bill our customers, and to meet Indian tax and accounting obligations.
• To keep the service working — diagnosing failures, preventing abuse.

We do not use your data to build advertising profiles, and we do not sell or rent it.

Consent, and how to withdraw it

We only message people who have agreed to hear from the host or business in question. Where that permission came from a list our customer gave us, our customer is required to confirm to us that they hold it.

To stop event messages, reply STOP to the conversation. We will confirm and stop.

To stop promotional messages, reply STOP, or turn off Offers and announcements on our business profile inside WhatsApp. Turning off that setting stops promotional messages from that number entirely, including from other businesses we send for.

Stopping promotional messages does not stop messages about an event you were invited to, and stopping messages about one event does not remove you from another. Tell us if you want everything stopped and we will do that.

Who else sees it

• Meta. Messages travel over the WhatsApp Business Platform, so Meta processes them under its own terms. We do not control that, and Meta’s handling of WhatsApp data is governed by its own policy.
• Our infrastructure providers. Hosting and database services that store the data on our behalf, under contract, and do not use it for their own purposes.
• Our AI provider. Where we use AI to answer a question you asked, the text of that conversation is sent to our AI provider to generate a reply. It is not used to train their models.
• Our payment provider, for customer billing only. Recipients’ data is never sent to it.
• The host or business whose event or campaign you are part of. They see your name, your number, your RSVP and what you have told them.

We will disclose data if the law requires it. We will not otherwise hand it to anyone.

Where it lives, and for how long

Data is stored on managed cloud infrastructure, which may be located outside India. We keep event data for as long as the host’s account is active, and for a reasonable period afterwards so that a host can return to a past event. Billing records are kept for as long as Indian tax law requires.

Opt-out records are kept indefinitely. This is deliberate: it is the only way to guarantee we never message you again.

Your rights

Under India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you may ask us to:

• tell you what we hold about you, and who we have shared it with;
• correct anything that is wrong or out of date;
• erase what we hold, where we are not required to keep it;
• withdraw your consent, at any time and as easily as you gave it;
• nominate someone to exercise these rights if you are unable to.

Write to hello@sammelan.co and we will respond. Where the data belongs to an event run by one of our customers, we may need to pass your request to them.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, contact our grievance officer:

Vinit Dhoka
Grievance Officer, Sammelan
Bangalore, India
hello@sammelan.co

We aim to respond within a reasonable time. If you remain dissatisfied, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

Photographs and face matching

Children

Sammelan is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect data about anyone under 18 other than a name appearing on a family guest list. If you believe we hold more than that about a child, write to us and we will remove it.

Changes

We will update this page when the service changes. The date at the top always reflects the current version. A change that materially affects recipients will be announced before it takes effect, not after.