Aura — Privacy Policy
In short: Aura does not require an account, and it does not build a profile of you.
- Your name never leaves your device. Not to us, not to Google, not to any advertiser.
- Your birth details (date, time and place) leave your device for one purpose only — our own calculation endpoints turn them into your astrological facts. We keep no database of them and attach no account to them, and they are never given to an advertiser (see section 2a, which also explains the performance cache).
- Your streak and your mood check-ins never leave your device. Not the moods themselves, not your streak length. Our anonymous usage statistics record only that a screen was opened or a check-in happened — the count, never the content (section 2d).
- If you use the compatibility feature, another person's birth details are sent only to produce that one reading and are never saved — kept in memory for the session only.
- Aura is free and supported by ads. We ask you first — the ads SDK is not started at all until you allow it. Once you do, Google receives your device's advertising ID — never your name, your birth details, or your readings (section 2g).
Aura ("Aura", "we", "us") is a daily astrological-guidance app published by Rohan Surve. This policy explains what information the app handles, why, and the choices you have. By using Aura you agree to this policy.
1. Information stored only on your device
When you set up Aura and use it day to day, the following is saved locally on your phone, using the device's standard app storage. Because it lives on your device, deleting the app removes it.
These never leave your device at all — not to us, not to Google, not to any advertiser:
- Your name (as you enter it during onboarding).
- Your chosen focus area (e.g. love, career, wellbeing).
- Your daily streak — including your streak length.
- Your mood check-ins — including which mood you chose, each time.
- Your app preferences and notification settings.
- A cached copy of the daily guidance content so the app works offline.
Our anonymous usage statistics (section 2d) do record that you opened the streak screen or made a mood check-in, because we need to know which features are used at all. They carry no mood value and no streak number — the count, never the content. There is nothing in what we receive from which your mood diary or your streak calendar could be reconstructed.
These are stored on your device and are also sent to our own calculation endpoints — and to nowhere else (section 2a explains exactly when, and what happens to them):
- Your birth date, birth time, and birth place.
- Your birth star (natal nakshatra), moon sign, and — when you have provided a birth time — your rising sign (ascendant), cached after they are computed.
2. Information that leaves your device
a. Birth-details calculations (used to compute your reading, not to profile you)
To turn your birth details into the astrological facts Aura shows you, the app sends them to our calculation endpoints over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection. These features do this:
- Your birth star, moon sign and rising sign — your birth
date, birth time, and your birth place's coordinates and timezone are sent
to
/v1/natalonce, at the end of onboarding (re-run only if the lookup fails or you edit your birth details). The server returns your natal nakshatra and its quarter (pada), your moon and sun signs, and — when you have provided a birth time — your rising sign (ascendant). - Your dasha (planetary-period) timeline — your birth
date and birth time are sent to
/v1/dasha. - Your full birth chart — when you have provided a birth
time, your birth date, birth time, and your birth place's coordinates and
timezone are sent to
/v1/chartto compute your complete chart: your rising sign, your twelve houses, and the sign, house and direction of each of the nine planets. Without a stated birth time no chart is computed (a chart cannot exist without one). The chart is cached back on your device.
Our server keeps no database of your birth details, and no account
is attached to them. To keep the app fast, the answers to your
birth-star (/v1/natal) and full-chart (/v1/chart)
requests are cached on our content-delivery network for up to a year. Those
requests are identified by the birth details in their web address, so your
birth date, birth time, and your birth place's coordinates and timezone are
held in that edge cache for that period. This is a temporary performance cache,
not a profile — nothing in it is tied to your name or an account — and each
answer is also cached back on your device.
b. Compatibility check — a second person's birth details (session only, never stored)
Aura's compatibility feature compares your birth details with
another person's. When you use it, you enter that person's
(your partner's) birth date, and optionally their
birth time, birth place and timezone. To produce the reading,
the app sends both your birth details and the other person's
to our calculation endpoint (/v1/compatibility) over HTTPS.
The other person's details are held in memory only for the length of that session — they are never saved to your device and never stored on our server, and they are discarded as soon as you leave the compatibility flow. The server does not store either person's details or the reading. Please enter someone else's birth details only with their knowledge.
c. Daily guidance and timing content
Each day the app downloads pre-computed astrological content. The general daily guidance is keyed only by your birth star — and, when you have provided a birth time, your rising sign; the same content is served to everyone who shares those signs, and the download is keyed by those signs only, never by your birth details or anything that identifies you.
Two pieces of content depend on where you are rather than who you are — your lucky time window and your auspicious (muhurat) timings, which are both derived from local sunrise. For these, the app additionally sends your birth place's approximate coordinates (rounded to about an 11 km area) and timezone so the times are correct for your location. When you have a known birth time, the muhurat request also carries your rising sign so the windows can be ordered for it. These requests carry no name, no birth date, and nothing else that identifies you, and nothing about them is stored on the server.
d. Anonymous usage analytics
To understand how Aura is used and to improve it, the app records anonymous usage events. Each event is tagged with a random device identifier that we generate on your device — it is not your name, email, phone number, or advertising ID, and it is not linked to your identity. These events describe what parts of the app were used. For a few screens the event notes which astrological content was on screen (for example, that a rising-sign or birth-star page was viewed, and for which sign) — never the birth details it was computed from. Categories include:
- App opened, and screens viewed (home, calendar, profile).
- Onboarding progress (which step was viewed/completed, and completion).
- Feature interactions: that a mood check-in happened (never which mood), that the streak screen was opened (never your streak length), lucky-time, muhurat (auspicious-timing) and score-detail views, compatibility checks (never the other person's details), birth-details updates.
- Notification prompt responses (shown / allowed / denied) and notification opens.
These events do not include your name, your birth details, your mood check-ins, your streak length, or your precise location.
e. Crash diagnostics
To find and fix crashes, Aura uses Google Crashlytics. When the app crashes, a diagnostic report is sent that includes the crash stack trace, your device model, and operating-system version, tagged with the same random device identifier described above. These reports are used only to diagnose and fix stability problems. They are not linked to your identity and do not include your name, birth details, or precise location. Crash reporting is disabled in development builds. Google's handling of this data is governed by the Firebase / Crashlytics privacy terms.
f. Support messages (in-app help)
When you contact us from inside the app, your message is sent to our server
(/v1/support/tickets) so we can read it and reply to you in the app.
It is stored with your anonymous device identifier and a small set of technical
diagnostics we capture automatically — the app version,
which screen you contacted us from, and the last error the app recorded
— so we can help without a back-and-forth. Those diagnostics never
include your name or your birth details. A support message is written in your
own words, so please avoid including sensitive details you do not need to
share. Retention: we keep support messages while your issue is
open and for up to 24 months after it is closed, after which they are
deleted; you can ask us to delete them sooner through the same support
screen.
g. Advertising (Google AdMob)
Aura is free to use, and advertising is how it is paid for. Ads in Aura are served by Google AdMob, Google's advertising platform. Google acts as our advertising provider and processes the data below for that purpose.
To request, show and measure an ad, the Google Mobile Ads SDK built into the app sends the following to Google:
- Your device's advertising ID — a resettable identifier that Android provides for advertising. This is a different identifier from the random device identifier used for our own analytics (section 2d); we do not join the two.
- Your IP address, from which an approximate (roughly city-level) location can be inferred.
- Device and app information used to select and render an ad — for example your device model, operating-system version, screen size and language, and the app's identifier and version.
- Ad interaction events — that an ad was shown, whether it was tapped, and whether a rewarded ad was watched to the end.
Why this is collected: to choose which ad to show, to limit how often you are shown ads, to measure whether an ad was seen or acted on so that we are paid correctly, and to detect invalid or fraudulent ad traffic.
What is never sent to Google's ad platform or to any advertiser: your name, your birth date, birth time or birth place, your birth chart or any astrological fact computed from it, your streak, or your mood check-ins. Ads in Aura are not targeted using your birth details or your readings.
We ask you before any of this happens, and you can change your answer. The Google Mobile Ads SDK is not started when the app launches. Before it is started for the first time — and therefore before any advertising ID is read, any ad is requested, or anything in this section leaves your device — Aura shows you a notice describing what is above and asks you to choose. If you decline, the ads SDK is never started and no advertising data leaves your device; the app stays free and fully usable. You can change your choice at any time from Profile → Ads & data inside the app: withdrawing is the same one tap that allowing was. No further ads are requested from that moment on, and the ads SDK is not started again on later launches — though an SDK already running in the current session stays loaded until you close the app. Where local law requires a further, separate consent choice — for example in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland — Google's User Messaging Platform presents it as well, before any ad is requested.
You can also reset or delete your advertising ID at any time from Android's Settings → Privacy → Ads; deleting it stops apps receiving one. Google's handling of advertising data is governed by how Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services and the Google Privacy Policy.
3. No account required, and nothing to buy
Aura does not require you to create an account or sign in. We do not collect an email address unless you choose to contact us. Aura takes no payment of any kind: there is no subscription, no purchase and no in-app currency, so we neither receive nor store any card, bank or Google account details.
4. Children
Aura is a general-audience app intended for adults and is not directed to children under 13 (or the minimum age required in your country). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
5. Keeping and deleting your data
- On-device data: uninstalling Aura deletes your name, birth details, streak, mood history and all other locally stored data.
- Analytics data: because analytics are tied to a random device identifier and not to your identity, we cannot look you up by name. If you would like your analytics events deleted, email us from the device (see below) and we will remove events for your device identifier.
- Advertising data: reset or delete your advertising ID in Android's Settings → Privacy → Ads. Resetting it breaks the link to everything previously associated with it; deleting it stops apps receiving one at all. Data already held by Google is governed by Google's own policies, linked in section 2g.
6. Security
Network requests use encrypted HTTPS connections. On-device data is protected by your device's standard app-sandboxing. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable measures to protect your information.
7. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as Aura evolves. Material changes will be reflected by the "Last updated" date above and, where appropriate, noted in the app.
8. Contact
Questions, or a request to delete your analytics data? Email rohan.surve5@gmail.com.