Privacy Policy

Effective date: 10 October 2026 · Applies to the BillSplit Android app and the BillSplit (बाँडफाँट) website (abhinash.info.np)

This document describes what the service actually does today. It was written to be read, not to be impressive. Where a choice had to be made, the reasoning is given in place rather than hidden in a list of open questions.

1. Who is responsible for your data

BillSplit (बाँडफाँट) (“BillSplit”, “we”, “us”) operates the BillSplit expense splitting service. BillSplit is an independent, personal project and is not operated by a registered company. All enquiries, rights requests and complaints should be sent to support@billsplit.abhinash.info.np.

1.1 The Nepali law this service is written against

Nepal has a small, young and largely public-sector-focused privacy framework. It is written in plain language below because a policy nobody can read protects nobody. This subsection is a summary and not legal advice.

Constitution of Nepal 2072 (2015), Article 28(1) — the privacy of one’s body, residence, property, correspondence and reputation is inviolable. Every other Nepali privacy rule sits underneath this article.
Privacy Act 2075 (2018) (Act No. 14 of 2075, authenticated 18 September 2018) — the main statute. The provisions most relevant here are:
- Section 12 — a person has the right to keep their personal data confidential; consent must be obtained when personal data is collected; and data collected with consent must be used only for the purpose it was collected for (purpose limitation). This is why BillSplit does not reuse your data for anything else.
- Section 23 — personal information may be collected, stored, protected, analysed, processed or published only by a person authorised under law, and with the individual’s consent. Section 23(4) requires the collector to set out the time of collection, the content, the nature, the objective, the method and process, the certainty of confidentiality, and the protection arrangements. Sections 3, 5, 6 and 8 of this policy answer each of those points directly.
- Section 25 — collected personal information must be protected, and appropriate arrangements made against unauthorized access, use, change, disclosure or transmission. See section 8, Security.
- Section 26 — personal information must not be used or given to anyone without consent, subject to stated exceptions. See section 5, Who else can see your data.
- Section 28 — you may apply to have inaccurate personal data about you corrected, on evidence, and the correction is decided on request rather than automatically. See section 7, Your rights.
- Sections 29 and 31 — specified acts are offences, and a person who suffers damage may complain to the District Court for compensation. See section 12, Contact.
Privacy Rules 2077 (2020) — the implementing rules made by the Government of Nepal under Section 36 of the Act. They set out further detail on confidential files, electronic records and consent.

The Act’s data chapters are drafted in terms of a public body and a body corporate. BillSplit is an individual, non-registered personal project. Whether a solo operator falls inside either of those defined terms is a question of Nepali law we have not been able to settle. We have resolved it by holding ourselves to the higher of the two readings: we apply Sections 12, 23, 25, 26 and 28 as though they bind us whether or not they formally do. Adopting the stricter standard voluntarily means this policy is accurate either way, and it removes any incentive to argue that a small operator is exempt.

2. What the service does

BillSplit lets a group of people record shared expenses and track who owes whom. Members create a group, join it by invitation, add bills, and settle balances with each other.

BillSplit is distributed directly as an APK from our own server. It is not distributed through the Google Play Store. This website (abhinash.info.np) describes the app, hosts the download, and publishes guides and support information. The website displays advertising; the Android app does not.

3. Data we collect

3.1 Account data you give us

Data	Why we hold it	When
Display name	Shown to the other members of your groups	Account lifetime
Username / login ID	Your unique sign-in identifier, and the target of invite QR codes	Account lifetime
Email address	Sign-in identifier and service contact	Account lifetime
Password	Never stored in readable form. We store only an Argon2id cryptographic hash with a random per-user salt	Account lifetime

Email is not currently verified. We do not send a confirmation email and there is no password reset flow. Treat your email as an identifier, not as a verified contact.

3.2 Group and expense data

To deliver the core feature we store, for every group you belong to:

the group name and a short invite identifier;
which members belong to the group;
each bill: its title, amount in Nepali Rupee, category, who paid, who recorded it, and when;
each member's share of each bill and whether that share has been marked settled;
settlements between members, including the amount, sender, recipient, status and any note;
optional comments attached to a bill;
reminder notifications you or other members send.

Group data is shared, not private. Every member of a group can see every bill, every share and every settlement in that group, including the amounts. Do not add anything to a group bill that you are not comfortable showing to every member of that group. BillSplit has no private or hidden entries, and no per-bill visibility control.

3.3 Technical data

Data	Why
Push notification device token	To deliver settlement requests and reminders to your device
Sign-in session token	Stored only as a cryptographic hash on our servers. Your device keeps the readable copy in Android encrypted storage
Unsynced bills held on your device	Queued locally when you are offline, then uploaded when connectivity returns

3.4 What we do not collect

BillSplit does not collect your location or GPS coordinates, your contacts, your photos or media, or your call logs. The Android app requests only network, notification, camera and install permissions. The camera is used solely to scan invitation QR codes. The Android app contains no advertising and no analytics or tracking software, and it does not read your advertising ID.

The website is different: it displays ads served by Google AdSense, which uses cookies and similar technologies. See sections 3.5 and 5.3.

3.5 Website visitors

You do not need an account to read this website. When you visit it, the following may be processed:

Server and network logs. Our hosting and network providers (section 5.2) may record your IP address, browser type, the page requested and the time of the request. This is standard for operating and protecting a website.
Advertising data. Google and its advertising partners may set or read cookies and use similar identifiers to show and measure ads. We do not receive your browsing history from them. See section 5.3.

We do not use website visits to build profiles of individual visitors, and we do not link website visits to app accounts.

4. How we use data

To operate the service: showing your groups, computing balances, and delivering notifications.
To authenticate you and keep your account secure.
To respond to support requests.
To detect and respond to abuse, such as unauthorised access attempts.
To display advertising on the website, through Google AdSense (section 5.3), to help cover hosting costs.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share your account or group data with anyone for their marketing. Advertising on the website is served by Google and does not use the contents of your groups or bills.

5. Who else can see your data

5.1 Other group members

As described in section 3.2, all members of a group you belong to can see that group’s financial data.

5.2 Infrastructure providers (cross-border)

BillSplit relies on providers that process data outside Nepal. Your data is therefore transferred out of Nepal and you should be aware of this when you sign up.

Provider	Data	Location	Purpose
Google Firebase Cloud Messaging	Device push token, group event and notification content	Google infrastructure, global	Delivering push notifications
Amazon Web Services (TiDB Cloud)	All account and group data, as a database	Singapore (ap-southeast-1)	Hosting the database
Render	Request data in transit, including your email and display name, and server logs	Outside Nepal	Serving the API and website
Cloudflare	Request data in transit and connection logs, including IP address	Global network	DNS, delivery and protection of the website and API
Google AdSense	Website visitors only: cookies, IP address, browser and device information, pages viewed	Google infrastructure, global	Showing and measuring ads on the website

Each provider acts as an independent controller or processor for the data it holds. Their own policies govern their processing.

5.3 Advertising and cookies on this website

This website shows advertisements provided by Google AdSense. The Android app does not show ads.

Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user’s prior visits to this website or other websites.
Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this site and/or other sites on the Internet.
You can opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings. You can also opt out of some third-party vendors’ use of cookies for personalised advertising at www.aboutads.info.
To learn how Google uses information from sites that use its services, see policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings. The website still works, but ads may then be less relevant.

Where the law of your region requires your consent before advertising cookies are used, we ask for it before personalised ads are shown. We do not control the cookies set by Google or its partners, and we cannot read them.

6. How long we keep data

Account and group data is retained until you delete your account, except as noted below. The Nepali framework does not set one fixed statutory retention period; it requires purpose limitation instead, which is to keep data only as long as it is needed for the purpose it was collected for. That is the rule this section is written to.

Deleting your account removes your bills, settlements and groups immediately. There is no separate retention period to wait out.

Sign-in sessions expire when you sign out, sign out of all devices, or change your password. Server-side data needed for security monitoring is retained for a short period for abuse prevention.

Advertising cookies and the data behind them are held by Google and its partners under their own retention rules, not by us. Clearing your browser cookies removes the ones stored on your device.

7. Your rights

Subject to the Privacy Act 2075 (2018) and the Privacy Act Rules 2077 (2020) of Nepal, you may:

Access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Correct — change your display name, email or password from within the app.
Delete — delete your account and its data from within the app, permanently.
Withdraw consent — for optional processing, by uninstalling and deleting your account.
Opt out of personalised ads — on the website, using the links in section 5.3.
Complain — to us first at support@billsplit.abhinash.info.np, and to the Office of the Attorney General or the relevant authority if you are not satisfied.

Account deletion is available under Profile in the app. Because group data is shared, deleting your account removes your own record and your memberships; it does not rewrite bills that other members still hold, which remain in their groups.

Data portability. There is no one-click export today. If you want your data out, email us and we will provide it in a machine-readable form. We will not charge for this, and we will not use the request as a reason to delay.

8. Security

Passwords are stored only as Argon2id hashes with per-user random salts, and are never transmitted in readable form after sign-up.
Sign-in tokens are transmitted over HTTPS and stored on our servers only as hashes.
Your session token is held on your device in Android encrypted storage.
Sign-in attempts are rate limited, and sign-in records are reviewed for abuse.
Only the member who added a bill may edit or delete it.

No system is perfectly secure. If you believe your account has been compromised, change your password immediately and contact us.

9. Children

BillSplit is not directed at children under 18 and is not intended for use by them. We do not knowingly collect data from children, and we do not knowingly show personalised ads to children. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.

10. Your responsibilities

Keep your password confidential, and do not share your account with anyone.
Use a password that is not used for any other service.
Tell us promptly if you suspect unauthorised access.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the service changes. The effective date at the top always reflects the current version. Where a change is material, the app will ask you to review and accept the updated policy before you continue to use the service.

12. Contact

BillSplit (बाँडफाँट)
Email: support@billsplit.abhinash.info.np
Website: abhinash.info.np