Privacy Policy

Last updated: 12 September 2026

This policy explains what personal information MindMonks collects when you use this website, why we collect it, how long we keep it, and what rights you have over it. It is written to comply with India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (DPDP Act), the Information Technology Act 2000 and its rules, and the Telemedicine Practice Guidelines 2020.

We have tried to write this in plain language rather than legal boilerplate. If anything here is unclear, please write to us and ask.

Who we are

MindMonks is an online mental health practice operated by two independently qualified practitioners:

• Dr. Shovan Chakraborty — Consultant Psychiatrist. MBBS (Hons.), MD (Psychiatry), DNB (Psychiatry), Post-Doctoral Fellowship in OCD & Related Disorders. Registered medical practitioner; the registration number appears on any prescription issued.
• Shveta Sharma — Licensed Clinical Psychologist. M.Phil. (Clinical Psychology), registered with the Rehabilitation Council of India, licence A85496.

MindMonks is not currently incorporated as a separate legal entity. The practitioners named above are jointly responsible for the personal data collected through this website.

Website: https://mindmonks.in
Contact for all privacy matters: admin@mindmonks.in

What we collect, and why

When you book a consultation

To arrange and deliver your appointment we collect:

• Your full name
• Your email address
• Your WhatsApp number, including country dialling code
• Your age
• Your country
• Who the appointment is for (yourself, your child, a partner, a parent, or someone else)
• Whether you have had previous mental health treatment — a set of broad checkboxes, not a clinical history
• Your preferred date and time, if you choose to give one
• The service you selected and the amount paid
• Your IP address, recorded automatically at the time of booking
• A record that you gave consent, and when

Why: we need these to contact you, arrange your appointment, take payment, and let your clinician know who they are seeing. The IP address is kept as a basic fraud and abuse safeguard.

Our lawful basis: you asked us to provide a service and we cannot deliver it without this information. Your consent is recorded at the point of booking.

What we deliberately do not ask for: the booking form has no “what brings you here?” box. We do not want you typing a clinical history into a web form before you have met anyone. Whatever you wish to share, you share directly with your clinician during your consultation.

When you request an Expert Opinion

In addition to the details above, we store the written question you submit, so that it can be read and answered by the psychiatrist. This is health information and is treated accordingly.

When you use the Self Assessment Centre

We collect nothing at all. The assessments are completely anonymous. There is no account, no name, no email address, no phone number. Your answers and results are held in your own browser for that visit only and are never transmitted to MindMonks or stored on any server. Closing the tab clears them, and there is a button to clear them yourself at any time.

Because nothing is collected or stored, the DPDP Act’s obligations around consent, retention and deletion do not arise for this tool. If you book a consultation from a result page, only a note that you came from the assessment centre is carried across — never which questionnaire you took or how it scored.

When you use the contact form

We collect the name, email address and message you provide, so we can reply. Please do not use the contact form to describe symptoms or clinical concerns — book a consultation instead.

Your consultation happens over Google Meet

This is important, so we want to be direct about it.

After you book and pay, the MindMonks team contacts you on WhatsApp and/or email to agree a time and sends your Google Meet link. Your session takes place over Google Meet. Video is encouraged, but audio-only is available if you prefer. The content of your consultation is not stored on this website.

What this means for you:

• Google Meet is operated by Google LLC and is subject to Google’s own privacy policy. We have no control over Google’s data practices, and we encourage you to read their policy.
• The notification sent after payment includes your booking details: name, age, email, phone number, country, the service booked, who the appointment is for, your booking reference, preferred appointment time if given, the amount paid, and — for Expert Opinion bookings — the question you submitted. For regular consultations, previous treatment history (the broad checkboxes you selected on the form) is also included. It never carries clinical notes, screening answers from the Self Assessment, or any information beyond what you entered on the booking form.
• Your clinician keeps their own clinical notes of the consultation, as they are professionally required to do. Those notes are the clinician’s record, held under their professional obligations, and are separate from this website.

Who else sees your information

We do not sell your data. We do not share it for anyone else’s marketing. It is shared only with the services we need to run the practice:

• Razorpay — processes your payment. Your card details go directly to Razorpay and never touch this website. Razorpay holds its own record of the transaction under its own privacy policy and India’s payment regulations.
• Our web host — hosts this website and therefore stores our database on its servers.
• Our email provider — delivers your booking confirmation and any correspondence.
• Google (Google Meet) — hosts the video and audio sessions between you and your clinician, as described above.

We may also disclose information where we are legally required to — for example under a court order, or where a regulator with jurisdiction over a registered practitioner requires it.

How long we keep it

• Booking and payment records: 7 years from the date of the booking. This matches the retention period required for financial records under Indian tax law.
• Contact form messages: kept for 2 years, then deleted.
• Self Assessment answers: never stored, so nothing to retain.
• Clinical notes held by your clinician are retained under their own professional obligations — a minimum of 3 years, and longer in certain circumstances.

After the retention period, booking records are anonymised: your name, email, phone number, age, country, IP address and treatment history are erased, and only the financial transaction record remains.

Your rights

Under the DPDP Act 2023 you have the right to:

• Know what we hold about you and how it is being used.
• Correct anything that is wrong or incomplete.
• Ask us to erase your data where we are not legally required to keep it.
• Withdraw your consent — though this may mean we can no longer provide the service.
• Complain to us, and if we do not resolve it, to the Data Protection Board of India.
• Nominate someone to exercise these rights on your behalf if you are unable to.

How to make a request

Write to admin@mindmonks.in with the subject line “Data request”. Tell us what you want and include the email address you booked with, and your booking reference if you have it. We will ask you to confirm your identity before we act — this protects you from someone else making a request in your name.

We respond within 30 days.

What we can and cannot delete

We want to be honest about this rather than promise something we cannot deliver.

We can erase: your name, email address, phone number, age, country, IP address, treatment history, preferred appointment times, and any Expert Opinion question you submitted.

We cannot erase:

• Payment transaction records — we are legally required to retain these for 7 years under tax law. A right to erasure does not override a statutory retention obligation.
• Your clinician’s clinical notes — a registered practitioner is professionally required to maintain patient records, and cannot delete them on request.
• Records held by Razorpay — these are on Razorpay’s systems, governed by their policy and by payment regulations. You would need to approach them directly.
• Google Meet session data — call metadata held by Google is on Google’s systems, governed by their policy. You would need to approach them directly.
• Messages in WhatsApp or email conversations — any messages exchanged between you and the MindMonks team or your clinician exist on your device and theirs, and in Meta’s systems (for WhatsApp) or your email provider’s systems. We cannot reach into those systems to delete them on your behalf.

When we act on a deletion request we tell you exactly what was erased and what was retained, and why.

Grievance Officer

If you have a complaint about how your personal data has been handled, contact:

Ishan Sharma
Grievance Officer, MindMonks
Email: admin@mindmonks.in

We acknowledge complaints within 7 days and aim to resolve them within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may escalate to the Data Protection Board of India.

Children and young people

Under the DPDP Act, anyone under 18 is a child, and their data may only be processed with verifiable parental consent.

A consultation for someone under 18 must be booked by a parent or an identified adult family member, who must be present and responsible throughout the consultation, as required by the Telemedicine Practice Guidelines 2020. Our booking form will not accept a booking marked “Myself” where the age given is under 18. We do not knowingly collect data directly from a child.

How we protect your information

• This website is served entirely over an encrypted HTTPS connection.
• Card details never reach our servers — payment is handled entirely by Razorpay.
• Booking records are stored as private records that are not publicly addressable, are excluded from search, and are not exposed through the website’s programming interface.
• Clinical information is never placed in a web address, a WhatsApp message, or an activity log.
• Access to the administrative area is restricted to the practitioners and authorised staff.

No system is perfectly secure. If a data breach occurs that is likely to affect you, we will notify you and the Data Protection Board of India as the DPDP Act requires.

Cookies and tracking

This website uses only the cookies necessary for it to function — for example, keeping you logged in if you are a member of staff, and remembering your in-progress booking within a single browser session.

We do not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels, or third-party analytics that profile you. If this changes we will update this policy and add a cookie consent banner before any such cookie is set.

If you are outside India

Our servers and our practitioners are in India, so your information is stored and processed in India under Indian law. If you book from another country, you are consenting to that transfer. Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under your own country’s law; write to us and we will do our best to honour them.

This is not an emergency service

MindMonks arranges planned appointments. It is not an emergency or crisis service and nobody monitors this website continuously.

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, contact emergency services on 112, the Tele-MANAS mental health helpline on 14416, or go to your nearest hospital emergency department.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle your information we will update this page and change the date at the top. Where a change materially affects your rights, we will tell you directly.

Contact us

Any question about this policy, or about your data:
admin@mindmonks.in