Privacy Policy
Last updated 14 October 2026
Weathervane helps small businesses in India keep track of orders and stock that arrive through Instagram conversations. This policy explains what data we handle, why, how long we keep it, and how you can have it deleted. It applies to weathervane.in and to the Weathervane application.
Weathervane is operated from Kochi, Kerala, India. For any question about this policy, or to make a request about your data, write to adwaith@weathervane.in.
Who this policy is about
There are two groups of people whose data may pass through Weathervane, and they are treated differently.
- Merchants. Business owners who sign up for Weathervane and connect their own accounts.
- Customers of merchants. People who message a merchant to buy something. They are not our users. We only process their messages on the merchant's behalf, so that the merchant can fulfil the order they asked for.
What we collect
From merchants who sign up: name, business name, email address, phone number, and the business details needed to set up an account.
From a connected Instagram account, only after the merchant explicitly connects it and grants permission through Meta:
- Messages in conversations between the merchant's business account and their customers, used to identify order details.
- Comments on the merchant's own posts, where the merchant has enabled that.
- Basic profile information of the business account, such as username and account ID.
- The name and profile identifier of a customer who has messaged the merchant, so the order can be attached to the right person.
Order information derived from those conversations: product, variant, quantity, price, delivery address, and payment status, together with any orders the merchant enters manually.
We do not collect payment card numbers, bank credentials or UPI PINs, and we never ask for them. We do not buy data about you from anyone else.
Why we use it
- To detect that an order has been agreed in a conversation and record it for the merchant.
- To update the merchant's stock counts when an order is confirmed.
- To show the merchant their own order history, and to let them correct anything we got wrong.
- To operate, secure and support the service, including diagnosing faults.
- To comply with legal obligations that apply to us in India.
We rely on the merchant's consent, given when they connect an account, and on our legitimate interest in providing a service they asked for. A merchant may withdraw consent at any time by disconnecting the account or by writing to us.
What we do not do
- We do not sell, rent or trade personal data. Not to anyone, for any price.
- We do not use message content to advertise to anyone.
- We do not use a merchant's or their customers' message content to train general-purpose AI models.
- We do not send messages to a merchant's customers on our own initiative.
- We do not read conversations that are unrelated to the connected business account.
Meta platform data
Where Weathervane accesses data through Meta's Instagram Messaging platform, that access happens only with the merchant's explicit authorisation, is limited to the permissions the merchant grants, and is used solely to provide the order and stock features described above. We handle that data in line with Meta's Platform Terms and Developer Policies.
If a merchant disconnects their account or deletes their Weathervane account, we stop accessing platform data immediately and delete the platform data we hold, subject to the retention section below.
Automated processing
Weathervane uses automated language processing, powered by Anthropic's Claude AI models, to read a conversation and propose the details of an order. This is a suggestion, not a decision. The merchant reviews and confirms every order, and can edit or reject anything we propose. No decision with a legal or similarly significant effect on a person is made automatically.
Who we share with
We share personal data only with service providers who help us run Weathervane, and only as far as they need it:
- Supabase and DigitalOcean, who host our database and application server.
- Anthropic, whose Claude AI models we use to read conversation text and propose order details. Message content is sent to Anthropic only to produce that suggestion. Anthropic processes it under its own commercial terms and privacy policy, which state that API input and output are not used to train their models unless we opted in, which we have not. We do not control Anthropic's infrastructure or retention beyond what those terms provide, so once content is sent for processing, Anthropic's handling of it is governed by their policies, not ours. See Anthropic's privacy policy and commercial terms.
- PostHog, which measures visits and interactions on our public website. We use its US service to receive page views, link and button interactions, and selected actions such as product tab choices and contact form results. We do not send the contact details entered in that form to PostHog, and we do not use session recordings.
We may disclose data if required by law, or to protect the rights and safety of our users or the public. If Weathervane is ever acquired, data may transfer as part of that transaction, and we will say so before it happens.
Where data is stored
We store data on cloud infrastructure and prefer Indian regions where our providers offer them. Some providers, including Anthropic, may process data outside India, including in the United States. Where that happens we rely on the contractual protections those providers offer.
How long we keep it
- Message content used to extract an order is kept only as long as needed to produce and confirm that order, and in any case no longer than 90 days.
- Order and stock records are kept while the merchant's account is active, because they are the merchant's business records.
- Account details are kept while the account is active.
- After an account is deleted we remove the data within 30 days, except where we must keep something to meet a legal or tax obligation.
Security
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access to production systems is restricted to people who need it. No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise. If a breach affects your data, we will tell you and the relevant authority as the law requires.
Your rights
Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, and other laws that may apply to you, you can ask us to give you a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, or stop a particular use of it. You can also complain to the relevant data protection authority.
Write to adwaith@weathervane.in and we will respond within 30 days. If you are a customer of a merchant rather than a merchant yourself, we will pass your request to that merchant, since the data is theirs, and help them act on it.
Data deletion
To delete your data, email adwaith@weathervane.in with the subject Delete my data and the account or business name. We will confirm once it is done. Merchants can also disconnect their Instagram account at any time from within Weathervane, or revoke access from their Meta account settings, which stops all further access immediately.
Children
Weathervane is a business tool and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18.
Cookies and browser storage
The public website uses PostHog analytics storage to distinguish visits and understand which parts of the page people use. It is not used for advertising or retargeting. We do not record sessions or collect contact form entries in PostHog. The Weathervane app remembers your sign-in.
Changes
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top, and for a significant change we will tell merchants by email before it takes effect.
Contact
Weathervane, Kochi, Kerala, India
adwaith@weathervane.in