Privacy Policy

When you raise a petition, we collect your name, your mobile number, and the description of your problem in your own words. These three are needed to register a petition.

You may also give us the location of the problem, photos or documents, and a voice recording. If you use the citizen portal, you may add your address, ward, pincode, date of birth, gender and voter ID number. All of these are optional.

When you message us on WhatsApp, we store your phone number and the full text of the messages you send to us and that we send to you.

Our servers record your IP address and browser details when you sign in. We also keep a record of the actions our staff take on your petition.

• To register your petition and give it a reference number.
• To send you updates about your petition by SMS and WhatsApp.
• To send you a one time password when you sign in.
• To pass your petition to the right department or ward officer.
• To count how many people report which problems, so the office can plan its work.

Your petition is not published on this website. Petition details can be seen only by staff of the MLA Office who are signed in.

When you message our WhatsApp number, we use an automated system to understand what you have written, so that it can ask you the right next question.

To do this, the text of your message is sent to OpenAI, a company outside India, and is processed on computers outside India. Only the text of your message is sent. Your phone number is not sent.

We store the text of your messages and what the automated system understood from them. We use this to improve how well the service understands Tamil.

Photos, documents and voice recordings are never sent to this automated system.

We use other companies to run parts of this service. They receive only what they need to do their work.

• Meta, which runs WhatsApp, receives your phone number and the messages sent between you and our WhatsApp number.
• OpenAI receives the text of your WhatsApp messages, as described above.
• ElevenLabs receives your voice recordings, to turn them into text.
• MSG91 receives your mobile number, to send you SMS messages.
• Ola Maps receives the address or location you type or choose, to find it on the map.
• Our cloud storage provider holds the photos, documents and voice recordings you upload.

We keep your petition and the information you gave with it for as long as this service runs. It is not deleted automatically.

PDF copies of petitions that staff download are deleted after 7 days.

We keep backups of our records for 14 days. If you ask us to delete your information, it stays in these backups until they expire.

• You can ask us to show you the information we hold about you.
• You can ask us to correct it if it is wrong.
• You can ask us to delete it. Write to us or call the office, and we will act on your request within 30 days.

We may need to keep some records where the law requires it.

We use one cookie to keep you signed in, and one cookie to remember whether you chose English or Tamil.

We do not use advertising or tracking cookies. We do not use Google Analytics, Meta Pixel, or any similar tool. Videos on this site load from YouTube only after you click play.

If we change this policy, we will update the date shown at the top of this page.

For any question about your information, or to make a request, contact the MLA Office.

MLA Office
No.12, 4, 1st Main Rd, Sidco Nagar, Villivakkam, Chennai, Greater Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600049
[email protected]
9800858008

The office is reachable at any time.