This Data Deletion Policy explains how a Fourth Idly user may request deletion of their account and associated personal data, what information may be removed, what information may need to be retained, and the general processing sequence applicable to deletion requests.
This Policy is intended to be read together with the Fourth Idly Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. It reflects the current application flow, including Donor, NGO, and Volunteer accounts; NGO and Volunteer verification documents; donations and Need Requests; delivery and payment records; notifications; chat; ratings; feedback; impact posts; and administrative dispute handling.
6.1 Account Deletion
Users may request deletion of their Fourth Idly account, subject to applicable law and any lawful retention requirements. Account deletion may be requested through any account-deletion functionality made available in the Platform or through the official privacy/support channel.
Where the application provides an Account Settings or Profile deletion option, the User may submit the request through that flow. Where no in-app deletion option is available for a particular account state or role, the User may contact Fourth Idly using the official privacy or support contact details published through the Platform.
Upon receiving a deletion request, Fourth Idly may verify the identity of the requester before initiating deletion in order to prevent unauthorised deletion or disclosure. If additional information is reasonably necessary to verify the requester, the User may be asked to provide it.
A deletion request does not automatically require immediate destruction of every record. Fourth Idly may first identify active data, transaction records, unresolved disputes, verification records, security records, and other information subject to lawful retention.
6.2 What Is Deleted
Subject to the exceptions described in this Policy, Fourth Idly will take reasonable steps to delete or anonymise personal data from active systems when it is no longer required for a lawful purpose. Depending on the User’s role and activity, this may include:
- Name, username, email address, phone number, location/profile information, and other ordinary profile information.
- Optional profile photograph.
- Account authentication/profile records that are no longer required after account closure, subject to security and legal retention requirements.
- Donor donation information associated with the User, where deletion is legally and operationally possible.
- NGO Need Requests and associated profile information, subject to transaction, audit, dispute, and legal retention requirements.
- Volunteer task, pickup, delivery, and associated profile information, subject to transaction, safety, audit, dispute, and legal retention requirements.
- Uploaded NGO licence/registration documents and Volunteer driving-licence documents, except where retention is required for a lawful purpose.
- Notification-related account/device-token information that is no longer required.
- Direct messages and Platform communications associated with the account, where deletion is legally and technically possible.
- Ratings and feedback associated with the account, subject to the need to preserve transaction integrity, fraud-prevention records, and information that must lawfully remain.
- Impact posts and other user-generated content, subject to the rights of other participants, transaction history, moderation, legal obligations, and technical retention requirements.
- Saved preferences and non-essential account settings.
- Other personal data that is no longer required for a lawful and documented purpose.
Deletion may not mean that every reference to an account disappears from historical records. For example, a completed donation, payment dispute, safety incident, or administrative action may require limited retention of records, potentially in de-identified or restricted form.
6.3 Donation, Need Request and Transaction Data
Fourth Idly facilitates interactions between Donors, NGOs, and Volunteers. Deleting an account may therefore affect records that involve other Users. Where a record is necessary to preserve the integrity of a completed donation, delivery, payment verification, rating, dispute, or administrative review, Fourth Idly may retain a limited record even after the requesting User’s account is closed.
- Need Request records may be retained where necessary to document fulfilment, expiry, cancellation, disputes, or Platform history.
- Donation records may be retained where necessary to establish what was offered, accepted, delivered, cancelled, or disputed.
- Delivery records may be retained where necessary to establish pickup, delivery, receipt, or safety-related events.
- Delivery Fee records may be retained where necessary to document payment status, payment verification, or a dispute.
- Payment reference information voluntarily submitted for dispute handling may be retained for as long as reasonably necessary for that dispute and any related legal or audit purpose.
- Ratings and feedback may require limited retention to preserve the integrity of the Platform’s transaction history and prevent manipulation.
6.4 NGO Verification Data
NGO onboarding may include a licence or registration ID and an uploaded licence/registration PDF. When an NGO requests account deletion, Fourth Idly will assess whether the verification document and related records can be deleted immediately.
Where a verification record is required to demonstrate the basis on which an organisation was approved, investigate fraud or abuse, resolve a dispute, comply with legal requirements, or protect the integrity of the Platform, Fourth Idly may retain the minimum necessary information for the applicable retention period.
The original Charitey policy specified a five-year retention period for NGO verification records. That specific period has not been carried forward as an automatic Fourth Idly rule because the current Fourth Idly application flow establishes the collection and verification of NGO documentation but does not, by itself, establish a five-year statutory retention requirement. Any fixed retention period should be confirmed against the final legal and regulatory requirements applicable to Fourth Idly.
6.5 Volunteer Verification Data
Volunteer onboarding may include a driving licence ID and an uploaded driving licence PDF. These documents are used for administrative verification and approval.
Following account deletion, Fourth Idly may delete the uploaded document when it is no longer necessary. However, limited verification or administrative records may be retained where required for legal compliance, fraud prevention, investigation of complaints, safety incidents, disputes, or audit. Any retention should be limited to what is reasonably necessary for the applicable purpose.
6.6 Delivery Fee and Payment Data
The current delivery flow may involve a Delivery Fee paid by a Donor to a Volunteer through UPI. The Platform may store the Volunteer’s UPI ID, applicable Delivery Fee amount, payment status, and a payment reference ID where supplied for verification or dispute handling.
Account deletion does not necessarily erase payment-related records immediately. Fourth Idly may retain limited payment and dispute information where necessary to establish the history of a transaction, resolve an outstanding dispute, prevent fraud, satisfy accounting/audit requirements, or comply with applicable law.
Fourth Idly does not intend to store a User’s UPI PIN, banking password, or banking OTP through the Platform. Information processed by a third-party UPI application is governed by that provider’s applicable policies.
6.7 Ratings, Feedback and Impact Posts
Where an account has participated in a completed donation, Users may have submitted or received ratings, feedback, or impact-post content. Deletion requests will be assessed in the context of those records.
- Profile information may be removed or anonymised where technically and legally appropriate.
- Ratings and review information may be retained in limited form where necessary to preserve transaction integrity or prevent fraudulent manipulation.
- Written feedback may be deleted where no lawful retention purpose applies, subject to the rights and records of other participants.
- Impact posts may be deleted or anonymised where appropriate, subject to content ownership, legal obligations, moderation requirements, and the involvement of other Users.
- Content required for an unresolved complaint, dispute, investigation, or legal obligation may be retained until the relevant matter is resolved.
6.8 Chat, Notifications and Device Data
When an account is deleted, Fourth Idly will take reasonable steps to remove account-linked notification tokens and other non-essential device information that is no longer required.
Chat and communication records may be deleted where legally and technically possible. However, selected records may need to be retained for security, fraud prevention, support, dispute resolution, legal compliance, or the protection of other Users.
Notification history and operational records may be retained for a limited period where necessary for audit, troubleshooting, delivery verification, payment disputes, or other lawful purposes.
6.9 Retention Period Before Active Deletion
The original Charitey policy stated fixed deletion periods of 30 days for active deletion and up to 90 additional days for backups. For Fourth Idly, these periods should be treated as operational targets only if they are adopted into the final internal retention schedule and supported by the actual storage and backup architecture.
Following a valid deletion request, Fourth Idly will initiate the deletion process within a reasonable period and in accordance with applicable law. The timing may depend on identity verification, account state, outstanding transactions, unresolved disputes, security investigations, technical deletion cycles, and lawful retention requirements.
Where a fixed service-level period is later adopted, this section should be updated to match the actual technical deletion and backup-retention capabilities rather than promising a period the infrastructure cannot reliably meet.
6.10 Backup Removal
Data deleted from active systems may remain temporarily in encrypted backups or disaster-recovery copies because backup systems are designed to preserve system integrity and recoverability. Such data will not ordinarily be restored for active processing except where necessary for disaster recovery, security, legal requirements, or other legitimate operational purposes.
Backup copies should be overwritten or securely purged according to Fourth Idly’s applicable backup-retention schedule. The exact period depends on the final infrastructure and backup configuration. If a fixed backup period is adopted, it should be stated consistently across this Policy, the Privacy Policy, and Fourth Idly’s internal data-retention schedule.
6.11 Legal Exceptions to Deletion
Fourth Idly may retain certain personal data beyond the ordinary deletion process where retention is necessary or permitted under applicable law. Examples include:
- Compliance with applicable Indian legal or regulatory obligations.
- Responding to lawful government, court, law-enforcement, or regulatory requests.
- Resolving pending or reasonably anticipated legal disputes, claims, or complaints.
- Maintaining records required for accounting, tax, audit, or other lawful reporting purposes.
- Preventing, detecting, investigating, or documenting fraud, abuse, payment manipulation, or serious security incidents.
- Maintaining records necessary to enforce Platform Terms and protect the rights, safety, property, or security of Fourth Idly and other Users.
- Preserving evidence relating to an unresolved dispute or investigation.
- Maintaining limited transaction history where deletion would materially undermine the integrity of records involving other Users.
Where information is retained under a legal or other lawful exception, Fourth Idly will seek to limit the retained information to what is reasonably necessary and will not use retained information for unrelated purposes except where permitted by applicable law.
6.12 Blocked or Banned Accounts
If an account has been permanently blocked or banned for serious misconduct, fraud, abuse, payment manipulation, document fraud, or other prohibited conduct, Fourth Idly may retain limited information necessary to prevent the User from circumventing the restriction and creating a new account.
Such retention will be limited to the extent reasonably necessary for fraud prevention, platform security, enforcement, or legal compliance and will be handled in accordance with the Privacy Policy and applicable law.
6.13 Identity Verification for Deletion Requests
Because account deletion is an irreversible action that may affect personal data and transaction history, Fourth Idly may require reasonable identity verification before processing the request.
- The requester may be asked to authenticate through the account where available.
- Additional verification may be requested if the request originates outside the authenticated account or if suspicious activity is detected.
- Fourth Idly will avoid requesting unnecessary sensitive information solely for identity verification.
- Where identity cannot reasonably be verified, Fourth Idly may delay or reject the deletion request to protect the account holder and other Users.
6.14 Deletion of Data Shared with Other Users
Some Platform data is shared as part of the donation and delivery workflow. For example, an NGO Need Request may have been viewed by Donors, and delivery information may have been shared with a Volunteer. Deleting a User’s account does not necessarily require Fourth Idly to erase records that another User is independently entitled or required to retain.
Fourth Idly will nevertheless take reasonable steps to minimise unnecessary personal information in retained records and, where technically and legally appropriate, may anonymise or pseudonymise historical records.
6.15 Effect of Account Deletion
After an account is deleted, the User may lose access to the Platform and to historical information associated with that account, including donation history, Need Requests, task history, ratings, feedback, messages, and other account features.
Deletion does not cancel or reverse a completed donation, delivery, payment, rating, dispute, or other transaction that has already occurred. Where an outstanding obligation or dispute exists, Fourth Idly may retain limited information until the matter is appropriately resolved.
6.16 Processing Timeline Summary
The deletion process generally follows these stages:
- Stage 1 — Request received: Fourth Idly receives an account/data deletion request through an available authorised channel.
- Stage 2 — Verification: The identity and authority of the requester may be verified.
- Stage 3 — Account restriction/deactivation: Where appropriate, the account may be deactivated or access restricted while deletion is processed.
- Stage 4 — Active-data review: Fourth Idly identifies personal data that can be deleted and information that is subject to lawful retention.
- Stage 5 — Active deletion/anonymisation: Deletable information is removed or anonymised from active systems.
- Stage 6 — Backup lifecycle: Deleted information may remain temporarily in encrypted backups until those backups expire or are securely purged according to the applicable backup schedule.
- Stage 7 — Retained records: Information subject to a legal, security, audit, dispute, or fraud-prevention exception remains restricted and is used only for the applicable lawful purpose.
- Stage 8 — Completion: The deletion request is treated as completed when the applicable active-system deletion process has finished, subject to lawful retained records and technical backup cycles.
The exact duration of each stage depends on the account type, the data involved, outstanding transactions or disputes, and the final Fourth Idly technical retention schedule.
6.17 Requesting Deletion of Specific Data
A User may also ask Fourth Idly to delete a specific category of personal data without deleting the entire account, where such functionality or request is legally available. Examples may include a profile photograph, optional content, or other information that is no longer necessary.
Fourth Idly may decline or limit a specific deletion request where the information is necessary for account security, a current transaction, dispute resolution, legal compliance, or another lawful purpose.
6.18 Data Deletion and Privacy Rights
This Policy should be read together with the Fourth Idly Privacy Policy, which describes the broader rights available to Users regarding access, correction, deletion, consent withdrawal, grievance redressal, and other data-protection rights. If applicable law provides a different requirement from this Policy, the applicable law will prevail to the extent of the conflict.
6.19 Policy Updates
Fourth Idly may update this Data Deletion Policy when the Platform, storage architecture, backup systems, legal requirements, or deletion mechanisms change. The effective date and last-updated date will be revised when material changes are made.
The deletion periods described in this Policy should remain consistent with Fourth Idly’s actual technical capabilities and internal data-retention schedule.
6.20 Contact for Data Deletion
For account deletion requests, data deletion enquiries, or privacy-related assistance, Users should use the official privacy/support contact details published by Fourth Idly through the Platform or its official communications.
The final official Fourth Idly privacy/grievance email address and postal/contact details should be inserted here once confirmed. The Charitey email addresses from the source document have intentionally not been carried over.
6.21 Acknowledgement
By submitting a deletion request, the User acknowledges that account deletion may be irreversible and may result in loss of access to Platform services and historical account information. The User further acknowledges that Fourth Idly may retain limited information where required or permitted by applicable law, for unresolved transactions or disputes, fraud prevention, security, audit, or other lawful purposes.