Privacy Policy

ProHippo (“ProHippo”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is a practice-management application for chartered accountants, tax practitioners and other professionals, operated by MEHTAJI BIZCON LLP (LLPIN AAV-0638), a Limited Liability Partnership incorporated in India. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use and protect it, and the choices you have. It applies to the ProHippo web application, browser extension and website at prohippo.in.

ProHippo is a tool that professionals use to manage information about their own clients. Where you enter information about your clients (referred to as “assessees”) into ProHippo, you are the controller of that data and ProHippo processes it on your behalf.

1. Information we collect

• Account information — when you sign in with Google, we receive your name and email address to create and secure your account.
• Practice data you enter — details of your clients/assessees (such as name, PAN, contact details, address), and records of matters, hearings, notices, invoices and communications that you create.
• Documents — notice, order and other PDFs that you upload or sync into the app.
• Income-tax portal login credentials — if you choose to use the portal-sync feature, the User ID and password you save so the app can log in to the Government of India Income-tax e-filing portal on your instruction. These are stored in encrypted form (see Section 4).
• Google Calendar authorisation — if you connect Google Calendar, the address of the Google account you chose and an authorisation token allowing ProHippo to write to the calendar it creates for you. The token is stored in encrypted form and is never exposed to your browser.
• Technical and usage data — standard log and device information (such as browser type and timestamps) used to operate and secure the service.

2. How we use information

• To provide, maintain and improve the ProHippo service;
• To read and extract fields from notices/orders you upload (see Section 5);
• To surface deadlines, hearings and reminders;
• To help you communicate with your clients, including via WhatsApp/email where you initiate it and your client has consented;
• To secure the service, prevent abuse, and comply with law.

We do not sell your data or your clients’ data, and we do not use it for advertising.

3. Where data is stored

Your data is hosted on Google Firebase / Google Cloud infrastructure (Cloud Firestore, Cloud Storage and Firebase Authentication). This may involve storage or processing on servers located outside India, subject to appropriate safeguards.

4. Sensitive data & portal credentials

We understand that PANs, financial documents and portal passwords are sensitive. Income-tax portal passwords you save are encrypted at rest using AES-256-GCM with a key held by the application, and are decrypted only transiently on our secure server at the moment you ask the app to log you in. They are not readable by other users and are not shown back to you in plain text. You are responsible for ensuring you are authorised to access any account whose credentials you store.

4A. The ProHippo Sync browser extension

ProHippo Sync is an optional Google Chrome extension, published on the Chrome Web Store, that lets the ProHippo web app open the Income-tax e-filing portal for an assessee you choose and bring that assessee's e-Proceedings, notices, orders and replies into your ProHippo account. Its single purpose is that sync. This section describes what the extension itself does with data.

• Where it runs. The extension runs only on pages of the Income-tax e-filing portal (*.incometax.gov.in) and on ProHippo's own pages. It does not read, alter or collect anything from any other website, and it has no access to your browsing history.
• Portal credentials. When you press an auto-login or sync button in ProHippo, the app retrieves the assessee's saved portal User ID and password from our server (decrypted transiently, as described in Section 4) and passes them to the extension. The extension holds them in the browser's session memory only for as long as it takes the portal's login page to load and be filled in, then deletes them. They are never written to disk, never stored by the extension, and never sent anywhere other than the Income-tax portal's own login form.
• What it reads from the portal. During a sync the extension reads, from the logged-in portal session, the assessee's PAN and profile details (name, date of birth or incorporation, address, contact details, jurisdiction), the list of e-Proceedings, and the notice, order and reply documents that belong to them. It reads nothing else from the portal.
• Where that data goes. Everything read is sent only to your own ProHippo account (Firebase / Google Cloud, Section 3) and stored there as part of your practice data. The extension does not send data to any other party, does not include analytics or advertising code, and does not load or run code from a remote server.
• What it stores in the browser. Nothing that persists. The only browser storage it uses is session storage, which Chrome clears when the browser closes, and which the extension itself clears as soon as the portal tab has picked up the credentials.
• No sale, no unrelated use. Data handled by the extension is not sold, is not used or transferred for purposes unrelated to the extension's single purpose, and is not used to determine creditworthiness or for lending purposes.
• Removal. You can remove the extension at any time from chrome://extensions. Removing it deletes everything it holds in the browser; data already synced into your ProHippo account remains there until you delete it in the app (Section 8).

You are responsible for ensuring you are authorised to access the portal account of every assessee you sync (see our Terms, Section 3).

5. AI processing

To extract details (such as section, assessment year, dates and amounts) from documents you upload, the document is processed using Google’s Gemini API. This processing is used only to return the extracted fields to you within the app. AI-generated output is provided for convenience and must be verified by you; it is not a substitute for professional judgement.

6. Google Calendar sync

If you choose to connect Google Calendar, ProHippo creates a single new calendar named “ProHippo — Hearings” in your Google account and writes your own hearing and deadline entries into it. We request only the calendar.app.created permission, which limits our access to calendars ProHippo itself creates — we cannot read, change or delete your personal calendars, or any event we did not create.

Sync is one-way: information flows from ProHippo to Google, and changes you make in Google are never written back into your practice records. Where you have switched on “Include client details”, event titles and descriptions carry assessee names, PAN and case numbers; switching it off limits events to the authority and assessment year. Google’s handling of this information is governed by Google’s own privacy policy.

You can disconnect at any time from Settings, or revoke access at myaccount.google.com/permissions. Disconnecting revokes our access and deletes the stored authorisation; events already created remain in your calendar until you delete that calendar yourself.

ProHippo’s use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

7. Sharing with third parties

We share information only with service providers that help us operate ProHippo, and only as needed:

• Google — hosting (Firebase/Google Cloud), authentication, document processing (Gemini API), and, if you connect it, Google Calendar;
• Meta Platforms / WhatsApp — where you use messaging features to contact your clients who have consented to be contacted;
• Legal — where required by law, regulation, or valid legal process.

8. Data retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the service. You may delete individual records at any time within the app, clear all of your practice data from Settings, or request deletion of your account (see our Data Deletion page). We will delete or anonymise data within a reasonable period, except where retention is required by law.

9. Your rights

Subject to applicable law (including India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023), you may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data, and may withdraw consent. To exercise these rights, contact us at info@prohippo.in.

10. Security

We use industry-standard measures including encryption in transit (HTTPS), encryption of stored credentials, access controls and least-privilege server functions. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and to promptly address issues.

11. WhatsApp & communications consent

ProHippo lets professionals message their clients. You may only send messages to recipients who have consented to be contacted, and you are responsible for obtaining that consent. Messaging is subject to WhatsApp’s and Meta’s policies.

12. Children

ProHippo is intended for professionals and is not directed to individuals under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by updating the “Last updated” date above and, where appropriate, by notice within the app.

15. Contact & governing law

For any questions about this policy, email info@prohippo.in. This policy is governed by the laws of India, and the courts at Ahmedabad, Gujarat shall have jurisdiction.