Privacy Policy for RailDesk

1 Data stored on your device

Your trips (route, travel date and alert settings, and — once booked — the PNR, an optional fare and any e-ticket PDF you attach), routines, holiday alert choices, saved trains, and your custom city/class lists are stored locally on your device using a local database (Room/SQLite). This data is never sent to us or to any server we operate — RailDesk has no backend server.

Public holiday list: to show upcoming holidays, the app downloads a public list of holiday dates from a file hosted on GitHub, at most about once a day. The request contains no information about you or your trips; as with any web request, GitHub receives standard connection details such as your IP address, under GitHub's privacy statement.

Shared trip links: if you share a trip, the link you send contains that trip's details (route, date, train, class, PNR and fare, if entered). They sit after the "#" in the link, a part browsers never send to a web server — when the link opens our trip page on lkm-apps.in, the details are read only inside the recipient's browser, to show them and to open RailDesk. Anyone who has the link can see those details, so share it only with people you'd show the ticket to.

2 Ticket import from an e-ticket PDF (on-device, no sign-in needed)

You can add a trip from an IRCTC e-ticket PDF — either by picking the file in the app, or by sharing it to RailDesk (or opening it with RailDesk) from another app such as RailOne, IRCTC Rail Connect, a file manager or a chat app. RailDesk reads the text already inside the PDF entirely on your device; the file is never uploaded anywhere. Only the PDF you choose to share or open is read — RailDesk does not look through your files or other apps.

The text is parsed on-device for ticket details (PNR, train, class, route, date, fare) and shown to you as a draft to review and edit before anything is saved — nothing is imported automatically. The PDF is copied into the app's private storage so it stays attached to the trip; removing or replacing it on the trip deletes that copy, and uninstalling the app or clearing its data deletes all of them.

Earlier versions also offered a ticket-screenshot import using Google's ML Kit on-device text recognition. It has been removed, and RailDesk no longer includes ML Kit.

3 Optional Google Sign-In

Signing in with Google is entirely optional and only needed for the Drive backup feature. If you never tap "Sign in with Google," none of the data below is accessed.

Google Drive backup (scope: drive.appdata): if you use the backup/restore feature, the app uploads a JSON file (containing your trips and the related data listed in Section 1), plus any attached e-ticket PDFs, to a hidden, app-private storage area within your Google Drive called the "app data folder," and can download it back. This folder is not visible in the regular Google Drive interface and cannot be browsed or opened by you, us, or any other app — only RailDesk can read or write to it, using your Google account's authorization. The app keeps your three most recent backups there and deletes older ones.

Your account email and photo: once you connect Drive, RailDesk asks Drive for the connected account's email address and profile photo link, using the same drive.appdata permission, and shows them on the Me screen and as your avatar. The photo is downloaded once and refreshed weekly, kept only in the app's private storage on your phone, never sent anywhere else, and deleted when you disconnect Drive.

Limited Use disclosure: RailDesk's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Note: an earlier version of RailDesk also offered a Gmail-based ticket import. That feature is currently disabled and the app does not request Gmail access — this section will be updated if it's reintroduced.

4 No affiliation with IRCTC

RailDesk is an independent, unofficial app. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or otherwise officially connected to the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), Indian Railways, or any of their affiliates. RailDesk has no contract, partnership, or data-sharing agreement with IRCTC, and does not use any IRCTC API or otherwise connect to IRCTC's systems in any way.

The e-ticket import (Section 2) works only by reading a PDF you already have, on your device — it never queries IRCTC or any other app, such as the RailOne app, that the PDF came from. Because the details are found by pattern-matching, they can occasionally be incomplete or inaccurate, and booking/PNR status, fares, or schedules can change after a ticket was issued. RailDesk is a personal organizer for your own reference only — always verify booking status and travel details on the official IRCTC website (irctc.co.in) or the official IRCTC/RailOne app before you travel.

When you tap "Open IRCTC" or "Check status on IRCTC," RailDesk simply opens the official RailOne or IRCTC Rail Connect app if you have one installed, or the official website otherwise. For a status check it copies the trip's PNR to your clipboard so you can paste it there; nothing is sent to those apps or sites on your behalf.

5 Premium payments

RailDesk offers an optional Premium upgrade, a one-time purchase through Google Play Billing. Earlier versions sold it as a subscription, and existing subscriptions still work. Payment details (card numbers, UPI IDs, billing address, etc.) are handled entirely by Google Play — we never see or receive them. We only receive confirmation from Google Play of whether you own Premium or have an active subscription.

6 Ads in the free version

The free version of RailDesk shows ads, served by Google AdMob through the Google Mobile Ads SDK. With Premium there are no ads, and the ads SDK isn't started.

What the ads SDK collects: to show and measure ads and to prevent fraud, Google's SDK collects your device's advertising ID and other device identifiers, your IP address (from which an approximate location can be worked out), how you interact with ads and the app (for example, ad views and taps), and diagnostic information. Google receives and processes this data as described in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services and the Google Privacy Policy.

What it never gets: RailDesk doesn't pass your trips, PNRs, fares, tickets, holiday choices or anything else you've entered to the ads SDK or to advertisers.

Where ads appear: a small card marked "Ad" on a few screens. Never on the alarm screen, in notifications or widgets, or in the half hour either side of a booking window opening.

Your choices: you can reset or delete your advertising ID in Android Settings (Privacy → Ads, or Google → Ads, depending on your phone). Premium removes ads altogether.

7 Usage statistics

To see how RailDesk is used and what to improve, the app uses Google Analytics for Firebase, for free and Premium users alike.

What it collects: a random ID for this installation of the app (not your name, email or phone number); your device model, Android version, app version and language; your approximate location (country and region, worked out from your IP address); when and how long you use the app; which screens you open; and actions such as adding a trip and how you added it (typed, from an e-ticket or from a shared link), marking a trip booked, what you do on the alarm screen, opening the Premium screen, and sharing. Analytics doesn't read your advertising ID, and its data isn't used to personalise ads.

What it never gets: anything inside your trips. No cities, stations, dates, trains, PNRs, fares, passenger names or tickets.

Google processes this data on our behalf, as described in Privacy and Security in Firebase and the Google Privacy Policy. We look only at totals and trends, such as how many people used the app this week, never at anyone by name.

8 What we don't do

• The only third-party SDKs that collect data are Google's ads SDK in the free version (section 6) and Google Analytics for Firebase (section 7).
• We don't sell your data. Apart from the ads data Google collects in the free version (section 6), we don't share it with third parties; Google handles usage statistics on our behalf (section 7).
• We don't have user accounts, servers, or a backend of our own — everything above happens either on your device, or directly between the app and Google's APIs authorized by your own Google account. Our website (lkm-apps.in) only serves static pages, such as this policy and the shared-trip page, and never receives your trip data.

9 Your controls

• Revoke Google access: in the app, use "Sign out" or "Revoke access," or manage it directly at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
• Delete local data: clear the app's storage or uninstall it from Android Settings.
• Delete your Drive backup: because it's stored in Drive's hidden app data area, it isn't visible to browse or delete from Drive's normal file list. Go to drive.google.com/drive/settings → Manage apps, find RailDesk, and use "Delete hidden app data" — or simply revoke access as described above, which removes RailDesk's ability to read it even if the data isn't immediately erased.

10 Children

RailDesk is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect data from them.

11 Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the "Last updated" date above will change and, for material changes, we'll note it in the app's Play Store release notes.

12 Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: