TelePlant Doctor privacy policy
You sign in with your mobile number or email and a code we send you. We do not ask for your name, and your checks and shared photos are not linked to your account. Photos are stored on Government of Nepal servers and are not sold or used for advertising. You can delete your account in the app at any time.
TelePlant Doctor is a free app from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Nepal that helps farmers recognise crop diseases from a photo and find treatment advice. This policy explains what the app collects, why, and how it is protected, in line with Nepal's Individual Privacy Act, 2075 (2018).
1. Your account
To use the app you sign in with a mobile number or an email address. We send a 6-digit code to it by SMS (through Tech Himalaya's SMS service) or by email (through Brevo), and keep the number or email, when the account was created and when it was last used. We use them only to sign you in and to protect the service from abuse; we do not send marketing messages. Sign-in codes expire after 10 minutes and only a scrambled form of them is stored.
To delete your account, open Settings → Delete my account in the app. Your number or email and every sign-in are removed from our server at once. Checks saved on your phone stay until you delete them. If you can no longer open the app, see how to request deletion.
2. When you check a leaf
The app sends the photo, the crop you chose, your district (if you chose one) and the app version. We use them to tell you the disease, and we keep them to check and improve the accuracy of the service and to see where diseases are appearing. They are not linked to your account. Hidden information inside the photo, such as the location where it was taken and the phone model, is removed when it reaches our server.
3. When you share crop photos
Only after you agree on the consent screen, the app sends the photos, the crop, what you think the disease is, and your district. Agriculture experts at FAO and its partners look at them and use them to teach the app to recognise diseases better. Because these photos are not linked to your account, we cannot find and delete them later.
4. Location
The app asks for your location only when you tap Near me on the agrovets screen, to list the nearest shops. It sends an approximate position (to about 1 km), which is used for that search and not stored. You can refuse and still use the app by choosing your district.
5. Information kept only on your phone
- Your language, district and crops.
- Your sign-in, in the phone's secure storage.
- "My checks": your past checks and their photos (the last 50). Delete them any time in Settings.
- Saved copies of disease advice, weather and agrovets, so the app works without internet.
6. What we do not collect
- No name, and no phone number or email other than the one you sign in with.
- No contacts, messages or other photos on your phone.
- No advertising and no advertising or tracking IDs.
7. Other services
- Calling an agrovet opens your phone's dialler; Directions opens Google Maps with the shop's location. Those apps have their own privacy policies.
- Weather comes from Open-Meteo and Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology. Our server fetches it for each district; no information about you is sent to them.
8. Where data is kept and who can see it
Data sent by the app, including accounts, is stored on servers of the Government of Nepal (Government Integrated Data Center). Only authorised staff of FAO, the Ministry and partner agriculture experts can see photos, through a password-protected administration site. We do not sell data. Results may be published only as totals (for example, how many late blight cases in a district), never in a way that identifies a person.
Like any website, our server's logs record the IP address of each request, for security. They do not record your location and are deleted after 14 days.
9. Children
The app is meant for farmers and is not directed at children.
10. Questions
Contact the FAO Representation in Nepal.
11. Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be published at this address with a new date.