Privacy policy — PAN Guide

Effective date: 23 October 2026. This policy applies only to the India Customer Care PAN Guide at g.indiacustomercare.com/pan/, its language versions, its contact/report forms and its browser tools. It does not cover other India Customer Care projects or external sites we link to.

Contact messages and reports

The contact form asks for an optional name, email, mobile number and subject, and a required comment. We use these details to read your message, respond if you provide contact details, correct the guide and prevent abuse. We do not publish your contact details or use contact messages for advertising.

Messages are recorded in files on our server that are protected from public web access. Copies may also be sent to the team by email. Email notifications are rate-limited; a message may be saved for later review without being emailed. An identical contact submission within 90 seconds is ignored without a second message record or email. Server access logs may still record the web request.

A simple, locally generated arithmetic question helps protect the form. It does not use a third-party CAPTCHA provider. Please do not send PAN or Aadhaar numbers, passwords, OTPs, financial details or identity documents. The forms mask recognisable PAN/Aadhaar/VID patterns in message text as an extra precaution, but this is not a guarantee that all sensitive information will be detected.

Browser tools and saved details

The name checker, password helper and file-unlock tool process typed details and selected files in your browser. Files selected for unlocking are not uploaded to our server. Our file-unlock libraries are downloaded from this site's assets when needed.

Supported tool details, such as names, dates, PAN and TAN, can be kept in browser session storage for the visit. If you select “Remember on this device for 30 days”, they are also kept in local storage with an expiry. “Forget my details” clears this stored tool data. Do not enable remembering on a shared device. Aadhaar numbers are not stored by this remember feature. Browser storage controls can also be used to clear these details.

Cookies, technical information and service providers

Your browser and our hosting/security services may process IP addresses, requested pages, timestamps, browser information and error records to deliver and protect the site. The guide uses Cloudflare's country information, with a browser-timezone fallback, to show relevant advice for visitors outside India. Your selected region may be remembered in local storage.

Pages request fonts from Google Fonts. Helpline voting connects to our phone-ratings service and uses a browser/device-derived identifier and locally saved voting choices to limit repeat votes. These providers receive the technical information needed to serve those requests. This is separate from the contact form and browser-only tool inputs.

Google AdSense and advertising

Advertising is currently switched off on this PAN project. If Google AdSense is enabled, Google and other third-party advertising vendors may use cookies or similar technologies to show and measure ads. Google's advertising cookies can enable Google and its partners to show ads based on visits to this guide and other websites. Other ad networks may also use their own cookies when their ads are served.

You can manage personalised advertising through Google Ads Settings and find participating vendors' opt-out options at YourAdChoices. You can also manage cookies in your browser. Learn more about how Google uses information from partner sites and Google advertising technologies. Where consent is required, advertising will be subject to your consent choices.

Access, retention and your choices

Contact records are kept for follow-up, resolving problems and maintaining records until we remove them. There is no automatic fixed deletion period for contact messages. Copies in email, server logs and hosting backups may have different retention periods. Access is intended for the people administering this guide and the service providers operating its hosting and email. We do not sell contact-form details.

You may ask us to correct or delete a contact record using the Contact us form or by emailing [email protected]. Give enough information to locate the message without sending identity documents. We will review requests and explain any operational or legal reason we need to retain a record. Clearing browser storage removes locally saved tool details, not messages already sent to us.

External links and changes to this policy

Official PAN portals and other linked websites have their own privacy practices. Check their policies before entering personal information. We may update this policy when this project's features or data handling change; the effective date will identify the latest version.