This policy explains how HVC.social ("HVC.social", "we", "us") collects, uses, shares and protects personal data when you use hvc.social and its apps (the "Service"). It applies to account holders, members invited to a brand, and visitors to our website.
1. Who is responsible for your data
HVC.social is the data controller (data fiduciary under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023) for account and billing data. For content you create about your own customers, you are the controller and we process it on your behalf. You can reach us at contact@litbylines.com.
2. Data we collect
- Account data: your name, email address, password (stored only as a secure hash), country, state (for Indian GST), billing currency and plan. If you sign in with Google or Facebook, we receive your name, email address, account ID and profile picture from them, never your password.
- Billing details: billing name, address and GSTIN if you add them, and the invoices we issue to you.
- Brand data: brand names, descriptions, brand knowledge, audience, location, colours, logos, style examples, contact details and calls to action you add or import from your website.
- Products and services: names, descriptions, prices, photos and documents you upload or import from your website.
- Content: post briefs, generated captions and graphics, media you upload, drafts, schedules and campaigns.
- Connected social accounts: when you connect Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or X, we receive the page or profile name, ID, profile picture and access tokens needed to publish on your behalf. We do not receive your social media passwords.
- Usage and billing data: AI credits used, the AI models and requests made (including prompts and outputs, kept for quality and cost auditing), payment status and invoices. Card and bank details are handled by our payment provider and never stored by us.
- Technical data: IP address, browser and device information, log files and error reports, and essential cookies.
3. How we use your data
- To provide the Service: generate content, render graphics, schedule and publish posts, run campaigns and send reminders.
- To bill you, track AI credits and prevent abuse.
- To support you, keep the Service secure, fix errors and improve features.
- To send service emails such as post reminders, campaign alerts and account notices. We send marketing emails only where the law allows and you can opt out at any time.
We rely on performing our contract with you, our legitimate interests in running a secure and reliable service, your consent (for example when you connect a social account) and legal obligations.
4. AI processing
To create content, we send the relevant brand, product and post details to AI providers: Anthropic (Claude) for writing and website reading, and fal.ai for images. Website reading and trend research use those providers' web tools to read public web pages. We do not allow these providers to train their models on your data through our API use, as governed by their API terms. AI output can be inaccurate, so please review content before you publish it.
5. Who we share data with
We do not sell personal data. We share it only with service providers who help us run the Service, under contracts that protect it:
- AI providers: Anthropic and fal.ai.
- Social platforms you connect: Meta (Facebook and Instagram), LinkedIn and X, to publish the posts you approve.
- Payments: Razorpay.
- Sign-in and spam protection: Google and Meta (only if you choose to sign in with them) and Google reCAPTCHA, which checks forms for automated abuse under Google's privacy policy and terms.
- Invoice PDFs: our document rendering service, which receives the invoice content only to produce the PDF.
- Hosting, storage and email: our hosting provider, DigitalOcean (file storage) and our email delivery provider.
We may also disclose data if required by law, to protect our rights or users, or as part of a business transfer, in which case this policy will continue to apply.
6. International transfers
Some providers process data outside your country, including in the United States and the European Union. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses.
7. How long we keep data
- Account, brand and content data: while your account is active, and deleted within 30 days of account deletion, except where we must keep it longer by law (invoices and payment records are kept for 8 years under Indian tax law).
- Contact form messages: up to 2 years, so we can follow up on your request.
- AI request logs and error logs: 30 days.
- Social access tokens: until you disconnect the account or it expires.
- Backups: overwritten on a rolling basis within 30 days.
8. Your rights and data deletion
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or export your data, to withdraw consent, to object to or restrict processing, and to nominate someone to exercise your rights. You can edit most data in the app, disconnect social accounts at any time, and delete brands. To delete your account or make any other request, email contact@litbylines.com. We respond within 30 days.
If you connected Facebook or Instagram, you can also remove HVC.social from your Facebook settings (Settings & privacy → Apps and websites). We then delete the related tokens and pages from our systems and give you a confirmation code you can check on our data deletion status page.
9. Cookies
We use only essential cookies: to keep you signed in, protect forms against forgery and remember preferences. Our sign-in, registration and contact forms use Google reCAPTCHA, which may set its own cookies to tell people from bots. We do not use advertising cookies.
10. Security
We use encryption in transit (HTTPS), hashed passwords, encrypted storage of sensitive tokens, access controls and monitoring. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong, unique password.
11. Children
The Service is for businesses and is not intended for anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect children's data.
12. Grievances and complaints
Grievance officer: HVC.social Support, contact@litbylines.com. If you're not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India or to your local data protection authority.
13. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. We'll post the new version here with a new date, and tell you by email or in the app about significant changes.