Privacy Policy

TutorByPin ("TutorByPin", "we", "our" or "us") is a location-first discovery marketplace that helps students and parents find nearby verified tutors using PIN code, city, teaching mode and service radius. Protecting the personal information shared with us is fundamental to how we operate.

This Privacy Policy describes what information we collect on tutorbypin.comand our related applications (collectively, the "Platform"), how we use it, when we share it, and the choices you have about that information.

This policy applies to anyone who visits the Platform, creates a TutorByPin account (as a Student, Parent or Tutor), subscribes to our newsletter, contacts our support team, or otherwise interacts with our services.

It does not cover the practices of tutors listed on the Platform or of any third-party website that we may link to. When you engage a tutor directly, the tutor becomes an independent controller of any additional information you share with them.

We collect information you provide directly, information generated when you use the Platform, and information from a limited set of third-party providers (such as payment gateways and authentication providers). The next four sections break each category down.

When you create an account or update your profile we collect:

• Full name and role (Student / Parent / Tutor)
• Email address (required for account verification)
• Phone number (required before certain marketplace actions)
• City, PIN code and preferred teaching radius
• Password (stored only as a salted bcrypt hash — never in plain text)
• Optional profile picture and biographical information you choose to add

Tutors additionally provide profile details that make their listings useful to students:

• Subjects, boards and academic levels taught
• Teaching mode (online, at student's home, at tutor's location)
• Hourly rate, availability windows and years of experience
• Qualifications, certifications and teaching philosophy
• Introduction, achievements and public links (e.g. LinkedIn)

Only fields you mark as public appear on your tutor profile. Contact details are released to a student only after a Contact Unlock is completed.

Students and parents may additionally provide:

• Learning goals and preferred subjects
• Preferred teaching mode, budget range and schedule
• Tuition requirements posted on the marketplace
• Applications and messages exchanged with tutors on the Platform

Every visit to the Platform automatically generates:

• Device and browser type, operating system and language
• IP address, coarse geolocation derived from it and connection times
• Referring / exit pages and clickstream data
• Cookie identifiers (see the Cookie Policy)
• Server logs, error traces and other diagnostic telemetry

We use the information we collect to:

• Create, authenticate and secure your TutorByPin account
• Match students with nearby verified tutors and rank search results
• Facilitate Contact Unlocks between students and tutors
• Process payments and record credit-wallet transactions
• Send transactional emails (verification, password reset, ticket updates)
• Deliver the newsletter — only when you have double-opt-in confirmed
• Investigate abuse, prevent fraud and enforce our Terms of Service
• Understand aggregate usage and improve the Platform

Tutor contact details are hidden by default. A student must spend Unlock Credits to reveal a tutor's phone number and email. Once unlocked:

• The tutor is notified that their contact has been unlocked, together with the student's name and city.
• Both parties can then correspond off-platform.
• We retain a record of the unlock event for dispute resolution, fraud detection and refund eligibility for a rolling 24 months.

A Contact Unlock does not grant either party a licence to publish or resell the other party's contact details.

Payments for credit-pack purchases and subscription plans are processed through regulated payment aggregators (for example PhonePe, Razorpay or Cashfree). We do not store your full card number, CVV or bank credentials on our servers.

The aggregator returns a token, transaction identifier, payment status and a masked instrument label (e.g. "Visa ****4242" or "UPI · vpa@bank") which we retain to reconcile the transaction and support refunds.

TutorByPin uses first-party cookies for authentication, session continuity and preference storage, and a small number of third-party analytics cookies to understand usage patterns. See the Cookie Policy for the full list and the browser controls available to you.

We never sell your personal information. We share it only when:

• A student purchases a Contact Unlock — the tutor receives the student's name, city and contact details, and vice versa.
• A payment aggregator needs to process a transaction.
• A service provider (email, hosting, error tracking) processes data on our behalf, under a written data-processing agreement.
• A court, regulator or law-enforcement authority issues a valid legal request.
• We are involved in a merger, acquisition or asset transfer and personal information forms part of the transferred assets.

TutorByPin relies on the following categories of trusted vendors:

• Cloud hosting & databases — regional data centres inside India where available.
• Email delivery — SMTP providers for transactional email.
• Payment aggregators — PCI-DSS-certified processors listed above.
• Analytics — privacy-respecting metrics for aggregate usage only.
• Authentication providers — Google Identity Services for Sign in with Google (optional).

Each vendor is bound by a data-processing agreement that restricts them to the purposes we have engaged them for.

We retain personal information only for as long as we have a lawful basis to do so:

• Active account data — until you close the account.
• Contact Unlock records — 24 months after the unlock, for dispute resolution.
• Payment and invoice data — 8 years, as required by applicable tax law.
• Marketing consent (newsletter) — until you unsubscribe or delete your account.
• Server logs — up to 12 months, then anonymised or purged.

We follow industry best practice to keep your data safe, including:

• TLS 1.2+ encryption for all traffic between your device and the Platform.
• Salted bcrypt password hashing (cost factor 12).
• JWT access tokens with short lifetimes plus HttpOnly refresh cookies.
• Role-based access control and audit logging for admin operations.
• Regular vulnerability scans and dependency patching.

No system is completely secure. If we ever become aware of a breach that materially affects your data, we will notify you and the relevant regulator without undue delay.

Subject to applicable law you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you.
• Correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Delete your account and associated personal information.
• Withdraw consent (for example unsubscribe from the newsletter).
• Object to or restrict certain kinds of processing.
• Receive a portable copy of your account data.
• Lodge a complaint with a data-protection authority.

To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@tutorbypin.com from the address associated with your account.

TutorByPin is intended for use by adults. Students under the age of 18 must have a parent or legal guardian create the account and manage any Contact Unlocks on their behalf. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided personal information to us, please contact us and we will delete it.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our Platform or the law. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page always reflects the most recent revision. Material changes will be highlighted on the Platform and, where required, communicated by email before they take effect.

Questions, requests or complaints about this policy should be sent to:

TutorByPin — Privacy Team
Email: privacy@tutorbypin.com
Support: tutorbypin.com/contact