Layo helps a household keep its shopping list, expenses, recipes and reminders in one place, shared with the family members you invite. This policy explains what we collect, why, and what you can ask us to do about it.
Contact: info@nexotri.com · Kolhapur, Maharashtra 416113, India
Who the data is about
- You, when you create an account.
- Your family — the people who join your family with your invite code. They see everything shared in that family.
- People you name but who never sign up. If you record that you paid for a friend, we store the name you typed. That person is not a user and never agreed to anything. Only your family sees it, but you are storing someone else's name in our system.
What we collect
Only what the app needs to work. Nothing is bought from data brokers and nothing is collected for advertising.
From everyone who signs in
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Name, email address or verified WhatsApp number | To identify your account and sign you in |
| Mobile number | Optional. Only if you add it, so family recognise you |
| Password | Stored only as a scrypt hash — we cannot read it |
| A one-time code and its expiry | To confirm your email or reset your password. Stored as a hash, never in the clear |
| Google account id, name, email and profile picture URL | Only if you choose Google sign-in |
| Device name and date last seen | So you can see which device is signed in, and signing in elsewhere cuts off a lost phone |
| Notification token | To notify your device, if you allow it |
What you and your family share
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Family name and invite code | To create the shared space and let people join |
| Shopping list items — name, quantity, unit, note, urgency, price you enter | This is the list itself |
| Who added each item and who ticked it off | So the family knows what is already bought |
| Whether you have marked yourself “at the market”, and when | So the family knows who to send items to. This is a switch you press — we do not read your location, ever |
| Shared expenses — amount, category, note, date | To show what the family spent |
| Who an expense was paid for, and whether the money is owed back | To track money between family members |
| The name of a non-member you paid for | Free text you type. See above |
| Shared reminders, due dates and who they are for | So the family is reminded |
Recipes you create
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Recipe name, emoji, tags, ingredients and steps you write | So you can keep your own recipes and cook from them |
| Your name, shown as the recipe's author | So your family, and anyone you give the share code to, know whose recipe it is |
| A share code for each recipe | So you can pass a recipe to someone who can then save their own copy |
What only you can see
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Personal expenses | Your own spending, stored on our server so it survives losing your phone |
| Personal reminders | The same |
These are stored on our server, not only on your phone. They are scoped to your account and no family member can read them — but they are on our server, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.
Exports and backups
“Export a backup file” in Settings builds a file on your device containing your lists, expenses and reminders, and hands it to whatever app you choose to save or send it to. That file is not encrypted — treat it like a photo of your accounts book, and be careful where you put it. It never passes through us.
The server also has a place to store one backup file per account, but the app does not use it yet, so we hold nothing of the kind today. If that changes, this policy will say what is stored and whether we can read it, before the feature ships.
Payment notifications, if you switch it on
On Android you can let Layo watch for payment alerts, so that paying by GPay, PhonePe or UPI offers you a ready-made expense instead of making you type it. It is off until you turn it on, and we ask before sending you to the Android screen that grants it.
With it on, Layo reads notifications posted by payment and bank apps on your phone and looks for two things: how much was paid, and who it was paid to. That reading happens on your phone. The text of a notification is never sent to us and never shown to anyone else — not to your family members, not to us. Detected payments wait on your Expenses screen; one becomes a real expense only when you tap to add it, and then it is stored exactly like an expense you typed in yourself.
To do this, Layo runs a small background service that Android wakes when a notification arrives. You can turn the whole thing off at any time in Android Settings → Notifications → Device & app notifications, and the app keeps working without it.
The version of Layo on the Play Store does not read notifications from messaging apps, and the app has no permission to read your SMS.
This feature is available only in Android builds that include the payment-notification listener. It is excluded from the current app build configuration; in those builds, Layo does not request notification access or show the payment-detection switch.
Speaking instead of typing
The microphone button on the shopping list uses your phone's own speech recognition, and it works one of two ways depending on the phone.
On most phones Layo opens the voice dialog that belongs to your phone. That dialog records under its own permission and hands Layo nothing but the finished text.
On phones where that dialog is missing or does not work, Layo records through Android's speech recogniser itself — this is why the app asks for microphone permission — and the recogniser, usually Google's, turns the speech into text. Layo does not keep the recording and never sends it to our servers. What the recogniser does with the audio is governed by whichever voice-input provider your phone uses, not by us. The only thing Layo keeps is the text, and only once you add the item.
What we do not collect
No location, at all — there is no location permission in the app. No advertising identifiers. No contacts, photos, files or camera. No analytics or crash SDK is installed. No browsing history. The only thing that runs in the background is the payment-notification service described above, and only if you switch it on.
Where it is stored, and who can see it
In a PostgreSQL database on a server we operate in Mumbai, India, reached only over HTTPS.
Access is scoped by family. Anything you mark as personal is visible only to you. Anything shared is visible to every member of that family — including anyone who later joins with the invite code, who can see the family's existing shared list, expenses and reminders. Share the code only with people you would show all of that to. Anyone can leave a family, which stops their access from that moment.
A recipe share code works the same way: any signed-in Layo user who has the code can open that recipe and save their own copy, and it shows your name as the author. Give the code out accordingly.
We do not sell your data or share it for advertising. It reaches third parties only as:
- Meta (WhatsApp Business Platform) — verifies your WhatsApp number when you choose WhatsApp login, delivers invitations you send, and sends reminder titles only when the recipient enables WhatsApp reminders in Settings. You can disable these reminders at any time.
- Spacemail (Spaceship) — sends verification and password-reset codes.
- Google — only if you choose Google sign-in, to confirm the account is yours.
- Expo — relays push notifications to your device, if you enable them.
- Razorpay — processes subscription payments. Card and UPI details are entered on Razorpay's own checkout and never reach our servers.
- Anyone we are legally required to disclose to, such as a valid police or court request.
How long we keep it
- While your account is active. When you delete it, your personal expenses and reminders are erased immediately — not after a waiting period.
- Routine database backups are pruned daily once they are more than 14 full days old; rotation is not an exact 14-day deadline. Separate restricted deployment-recovery snapshots expire after 30 days and are removed at the next daily cleanup. Account deletion does not immediately remove data from these copies. Contact us about a deletion request affecting backups or recovery snapshots.
- Verification and reset codes are retired as soon as they are used, replaced or expire.
- Shared shopping-list items, expenses and reminders stay with a family that still has members, without your account attribution. Recipes, khatas and their entries, and recurring-expense templates created by your account are deleted, including ones shared with a family. Previously recorded shared expenses remain.
- Payment records are kept as long as tax and accounting law requires.
Your rights
Write to info@nexotri.com and we will:
- Show you the data we hold about you.
- Correct anything wrong. Most of it you can edit yourself in the app.
- Delete your account — though you can do this yourself, at any time, without asking us: in the app under Settings → Delete my account, or from any browser at nexotri.com/layo/delete-account. We email you a code first, and nothing is removed until you enter it. Your personal expenses and reminders are erased permanently and every device is signed out. Shared entries such as shopping-list items, expenses and reminders stay with a family that still has members, without your account attribution. Your recipes, khatas and their entries, and recurring-expense templates are deleted even if shared. A family with nobody left in it is deleted entirely. Any recurring payment mandate must be cancelled before deletion can complete; if cancellation fails, the account remains and you are asked to retry or contact support.
- Export your data in a machine-readable form. The app can also do this itself — Settings → Export a backup file.
- Withdraw consent for notifications at any time, in your phone's settings — both the alerts we send you and, separately, the reading of payment alerts described above.
We acknowledge requests within 24 hours and answer them within 15 days. Complaints about how we handle personal information can be sent to the same address, marked for the Grievance Officer.
Security
Passwords are hashed with scrypt. One-time codes are stored as hashes, expire in 15 minutes and are locked after five wrong guesses. The API is served over HTTPS. Your account stays signed in on one device at a time — signing in somewhere new ends the previous session, so a lost or stolen phone loses access the moment you sign in again elsewhere. Access to the server is by SSH key only, and the database is not reachable from the internet. Backups are taken nightly.
No system is perfectly secure. If we discover a breach affecting your data, we will tell you and the Data Protection Board as India's DPDP Act requires.
Children
Layo is for adults running a household. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If you believe a child's data is here, write to us and we will remove it.
Changes
We will update this page and change the date above. If a change materially affects your rights, we will tell you in the app.