GhumGham Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 7, 2026

GhumGham helps users explore curated Nepal travel ideas, save places, create simple trip plans, create an optional account, like and comment on experiences, and ask focused Companion AI prompts. This policy explains what information the app uses and how it is handled.

Current app status

As of this update, GhumGham is being prepared for its first public Play Store production rollout. Optional account management, experience likes and comments, Companion AI, Firebase-backed quota protection, diagnostics, remote configuration, and optional ad flows are implemented in the app, while broader production rollout and final release hardening are still in progress.

• Accounts are optional for browsing travel ideas, saving places, creating trip plans, and using Companion prompts.
• Users need an account to like experiences, add comments, report comments, and manage their profile.
• Companion AI requests include selected travel context and optional user-entered request text.
• Banner ads and rewarded quota reset remain controlled by remote configuration and can be disabled.

Information GhumGham uses

Travel content

The app displays curated travel content such as places, regions, highlights, planning details, and image links. This content may be loaded from GhumGham services, remote image hosts, or cached on the device to improve performance and provide offline fallback.

Saved places and trip plans

Saved places, trip notes, and simple trip plans are stored on the device. If Android backup is enabled, this app data may be included in the user's device backup based on Android system settings.

Account profile

If a user creates an account, GhumGham uses Firebase Authentication for sign-in and stores account profile information such as email address, first name, last name, nickname, profile role, profile timestamps, and optional profile photo URL in Firestore. This profile is used to manage the user's account and show author information for account-linked features such as comments.

Likes and comments

If a signed-in user likes an experience, GhumGham stores the user's account identifier and like timestamp in Firestore under that experience. If a signed-in user adds a comment, GhumGham stores the comment text, user account identifier, author display name, optional author photo URL, timestamps, and visibility status in Firestore. Comments may be visible to other app users.

Signed-in users can report visible comments they did not write. Comment reports store the reporter's account identifier, selected report reason, report status, and timestamp in Firestore. Report reasons include spam, harassment, hate or abuse, private information, unsafe or illegal content, and other concerns. Admins can review reported comments, see report count and latest report details, dismiss reports, or delete comments after moderation. Comment authors and admins can delete comments; deleted comments are marked as deleted and are no longer shown in the visible comments list. The public GhumGham Comments Guidelines explain the rules for comments and how to report harmful content.

Companion AI requests

When a user asks Companion AI, GhumGham may send the selected place, selected prompt, selected tone or mode, optional user-entered context, locale, app version, and a generated app instance identifier to the backend. This information is used to generate a response, apply request limits, prevent abuse, and keep the feature reliable. When live AI is enabled, the backend may send the relevant request context to an AI service provider such as OpenAI.

Users should not enter sensitive personal information into Companion prompts.

Diagnostics and service protection

GhumGham may use Firebase services, including Authentication, Crashlytics, Remote Config, Functions, Firestore, and App Check. These services may process technical information such as account authentication state, user profile records, likes, comments, comment reports, crash reports, app configuration, request metadata, rate-limit records, device/app diagnostics, and security signals. Remote Config may also provide app settings such as Companion AI availability, request limits, ad settings, and the configured AI model name.

Advertisements

GhumGham may show banner ads in app discovery feeds (such as Home, Search, and Saved) and rewarded video ads when a user chooses to reset the Companion AI quota. Ad providers such as Google Mobile Ads may process device identifiers, advertising identifiers, approximate location, ad interactions, diagnostics, and related technical data to provide, measure, personalize, limit, and protect ads, depending on the user's settings and consent choices.

Account requirements

Accounts are optional in the current version of GhumGham. Users can browse travel ideas, save places, create trip plans, and use Companion prompts without signing in. Users need to sign in to like experiences or add comments. Users can also create an account, update their profile, reset their password, log out, and delete their account from the app. Public account deletion instructions are available on the GhumGham Account Deletion page.

Device permissions

The current version uses internet and network state access. It does not request device location, contacts, camera, microphone, or photo library access.

How information is used

GhumGham uses information to:

• Show curated Nepal travel content.
• Save places and trip plans on the device.
• Create and manage optional user accounts and profile details.
• Show, count, report, moderate, and manage experience likes and comments.
• Generate Companion AI responses when requested.
• Apply Companion AI request limits.
• Configure Companion AI availability, request limits, and AI model selection.
• Show and measure ads when ads are enabled.
• Reset Companion AI quota after rewarded ads when the user chooses that option.
• Improve reliability and diagnose crashes.
• Protect backend services from abuse.

Sharing

GhumGham does not sell personal information. Account data, likes, comments, comment reports, Companion AI requests, and technical service data may be processed by backend, Firebase, and AI service providers such as OpenAI only as needed to provide app features, improve reliability, protect the service, moderate comments, and operate Companion AI. Comments and associated author display details may be visible to other app users.

Ads and monetization

GhumGham may include banner ads and rewarded video ads. Rewarded ads are optional; if offered, users can choose whether to watch them for Companion AI quota reset. If purchases, subscriptions, or additional ad formats are added later, this policy should be updated before those features are released.

Data retention

Saved places and trip plans remain on the user's device until removed by the user or the app is uninstalled. Account profiles remain in Firebase until the user deletes the account or the service removes them under its retention practices. Likes, comments, and comment reports remain in Firestore until removed by the user where supported, moderated, dismissed, deleted, or removed under service retention practices. Backend request records, diagnostics, and rate-limit records may be retained for operational, reliability, and security purposes.

User choices

Users can:

• Avoid entering sensitive personal details in Companion prompts.
• Skip optional Companion context fields if they do not want to share extra trip details in AI requests.
• Use the app without creating an account for browsing, saved places, trip planning, and Companion prompts.
• Create, update, log out of, or delete an optional GhumGham account. Account deletion instructions are available at GhumGham Account Deletion.
• Sign in to like experiences, add comments, report comments they did not write, or delete their own comments.
• Remove saved places from the Saved screen.
• Edit or clear trip planning information.
• Choose whether to watch optional rewarded ads when offered.
• Disable Android backup at the device level if they do not want app data included in system backups.
• Uninstall the app to remove local app data from the device.

Children's privacy

GhumGham is not designed for children and does not knowingly collect personal information from children. If this changes, the app and policy should be updated to meet applicable requirements.

Contact

For privacy questions, contact: [email protected]

If the email link does not open, copy and email this address: [email protected]

Changes to this policy

This policy may be updated as GhumGham adds or changes features. The updated policy will include a new “Last updated” date.