What we collect

• Name, phone number, and (optionally) email address, when you register.
• Blood group, district, and locality, for donors — plus, optionally, when you last donated (asked at registration, and again after you accept a request, so your donation history stays accurate without you having to remember to update it yourself).
• Precise location (GPS), only if you explicitly choose to share it, to match you to nearby blood requests. You can withdraw this at any time from your dashboard.
• Health check-in answers (recent antibiotics, vaccination, feeling unwell) — used only to temporarily pause your eligibility to donate, and never shared outside this system.
• For blood requests: patient name, hospital name, and contact details you provide, visible to our admin team and to matched donors (in summary form). This is captured as its own patient record so it can be recognised on a future request even if the patient themselves never creates an account.
• When a request names a patient other than yourself, we ask you to confirm you have that patient's permission (or their family's) to share their details before the request can be submitted, and we record that you gave this confirmation.
• An optional photo — for you, or for a patient you're requesting blood for. Never required. Used only so a donor and the person they're helping can recognise each other in person; visible to our admin team and to people actually matched on a relevant request, and never shown publicly.
• Your phone verification status, and, if you opt in, your consent to receive WhatsApp messages about nearby requests matching your blood group.
• When you submit a blood request, or ask the app to show you a donor's phone number so you can call them: your connection details (IP address) and device/browser information at that moment. This is kept separately from the rest of your account data, is never shown to donors or other requesters, and is used only so our team can investigate if a donor reports being harassed or misused through this app.

How we use it

To match blood requests with nearby, eligible donors; to notify you (in the app while you have it open, by push notification from the Blood Near Me mobile app if you allow notifications, and by WhatsApp and/or email where you've enabled them) about requests and to check whether you're still available to donate; and to let our admin team review activity and reach donors or requesters directly when needed. We do not sell your data, and we do not use it for advertising.

The Blood Near Me mobile app

The Blood Near Me app for Android and iPhone uses the same account as this website, so everything on this page applies to it too. In addition, the app handles the following:

• Location: only while you are using the app, and only after you allow it. We use it to show requests and donors near you and, if you are a donor and choose to share it, to match you to nearby urgent requests. The app never tracks your location in the background. You can turn this off in the app or in your phone's settings.
• Push notifications: if you allow notifications, your phone gives the app a notification token, which we store with your donor profile so we can alert you about matching blood requests. Notifications are delivered through a push notification service and your phone's built-in notification system. The token is removed when you sign out or delete your account. If you turn notifications off in your phone's settings, you stop receiving them.
• Photos: if you choose to add a profile photo, the app opens your photo library so you can pick one picture. We only receive the photo you pick. The app does not use your camera or read the rest of your photos.
• Health check-in: the same eligibility questions as on the website. Your answers are used only to set whether you can donate right now. This is not medical advice; your eligibility is always confirmed by the blood bank before you donate.
• Sign in with Google: if you choose it, Google shares your name, email address and a Google account ID with us so we can create or find your account. We do not receive your Google password or anything else from your Google account.
• Fingerprint, face or passcode unlock: if you turn on quick sign-in, the check is done by your phone. Your fingerprint or face data never leaves your phone and is never sent to us. If you use an app passcode instead, the passcode itself is never stored; only a secure, one-way code made from it is kept, and it is used only to check the passcode you enter.
• Calling a donor or requester: the app opens your phone's own dialer with the number filled in. It does not place calls by itself or read your call log or contacts.
• Stored on your phone: your sign-in token, and any quick sign-in token, are kept in your phone's built-in secure storage and removed when you sign out.
• Crash reports: if the app crashes, it sends a technical error report (the type of error, app version, phone model and operating system version) to a crash-reporting service, so we can fix the problem. Your name, contact details, location and messages are removed from these reports before they are sent.

The app does not show advertising and does not use advertising or tracking identifiers.

Service providers we use

To run Blood Near Me, we use a small number of trusted third-party service providers, each for one specific job:

• Secure cloud hosting and database: to run the website and the app, and to store account, donor and request information.
• Secure cloud file storage: to store photos you choose to upload, such as a profile photo.
• Email and WhatsApp messaging: to send verification codes, request alerts and replies to your messages.
• Push notification delivery: to deliver alerts from the mobile app to your phone.
• Sign-in service: only if you choose “Sign in with Google”, to confirm who you are.
• Crash reporting: to receive technical error reports from the app, with personal details removed.
• Website usage statistics: to understand, in general, how pages on the website are used, so we can improve them.

These providers act only on our instructions and only to provide their service to Blood Near Me. They are not allowed to use your information for their own purposes. Some of them store or process data on secure servers outside India.

We do not sell, rent or share donors' or requesters' information with any other company, and we do not combine it with data from advertisers, data brokers or any other company.

Who can see what

Admin staff can see donor and requester contact details, search and filter donors (including finding donors who've gone quiet, to follow up by phone), and edit account details when helping someone directly. Some staff have more limited access — they can review and add records, but can't see or edit full contact details. Health check-in answers are visible only to you and are used only to set your availability status.

A request you submit is visible to matching donors and starts notifying nearby matches immediately — there is no manual review step before that happens, though our team can still see and step in on any request. Once submitted, you also see a short list of nearby, currently-available donors of the matching blood group — including their phone number, roughly when they last used the app, and their last recorded donation date — so you can call directly during an emergency instead of only waiting on a notification. This list only appears on requests you submitted yourself, and never includes your own donor record if you also happen to be a donor. If a number doesn't connect when you call, you can flag it; that flag is then visible to other requesters who see the same donor, so nobody wastes time on a known-bad number. A report doesn't change the donor's own availability status — it's a contact-quality note for other requesters, not a judgement about the donor.

The connection/device metadata described above (captured when you submit a request or view a donor's number) is visible only to admin staff investigating a specific report of misuse — it is never shown to donors, other requesters, or anyone browsing the app normally.

Groups you join

Blood donation groups — for example NSS units, NCC units, youth and student wings, religious or community service groups, and workplace teams — can use Blood Near Me to organise their members. Every group is checked by our team before it can invite anyone, and agrees to our group charter (no payment for blood, no campaigning, no sharing members' details outside Blood Near Me).

• You join a group only by choosing to, through its invite link, and you give consent for that group separately. Signing up through a group's link, or having someone share a request with you, does not make you a member.
• A group's coordinators see your name, blood group, taluk, whether you can donate now, and how recently you confirmed your availability. Your phone number is never shown in their member list. When a coordinator taps Call, Blood Near Me records the call (who, for which group, and how it went) and passes your number straight to their phone to dial, so it can appear on their phone's call screen and call log. Fully masked calls, where neither side sees the other's number, are planned.
• A coordinator who has just spoken to you can mark you as available; that is recorded as their confirmation, not yours.
• Groups see totals — how many members, how many are active, how many donated — and which of their share or invite links brought people to Blood Near Me. Other members of a group only ever see totals, never a list of names, and small units show only a single total.
• You can leave a group at any time from your account. Its access to your details ends straight away; past call records are kept for safety and audit.

Your circle

Your circle is family and friends you choose to connect with. A connection only exists when both of you agree, and the label you give someone (family, friend, colleague, neighbour) is visible only to you.

• People in your circle see your first name. Your blood group and whether you can donate now are hidden unless you switch them on under My Circle → What my circle sees.
• If you raise a request and tick “Also alert my circle”, the people in your circle are told the blood group, component, hospital area and urgency — never the patient's name, diagnosis or ward. If you also tick “friends of my circle”, compatible donors who can donate now and are connected to someone in your circle are told the same, with the mutual friend's first name and not yours. Both are off unless you tick them, and you can switch off receiving or passing on these alerts.
• When you add someone by phone number, we tell you the same thing whether or not that number is registered, so the feature can't be used to find out who uses Blood Near Me.
• Your circle is never shown to groups, coordinators or anyone else. You can remove anyone at any time without them being told.

Shared request links

When you share a request, you get your own short link. It shows the request's live status and, if you shared it for a group, “Shared by” that group — never the patient's name or other patient details. We record when a shared link is opened and whether it led someone to sign up (for 30 days, using a first-party cookie), so the right person and group are credited. We store a scrambled, shortened fingerprint of the network address, never the address itself, only to spot misuse such as mass fake signups.

How long we keep it, and your rights over it

Your account data is kept for as long as your account is active, plus a reasonable period afterwards to resolve any in-progress requests and meet our own record-keeping obligations. You can ask us to access, correct, or delete your personal data, or to withdraw a consent you previously gave (such as location sharing or WhatsApp opt-in), at any time by contacting our team through the platform. We will act on a deletion request except where we are required to retain limited records by law or to resolve an active dispute.

Deleting your account. You can delete your account yourself at any time: in the mobile app under Settings → Delete my account, or on this website under Account → Delete account. Any blood requests you still have open may need to be closed first. If you can't sign in, request deletion at bloodnearme.org/delete-account; we will confirm the request with you and complete it within 7 days.

Deleting your account removes your profile, contact details and photo, your donor listing and location, your blood requests and donation records, your health check-in answers and consents, your notification tokens, and your WhatsApp chat history with us, and signs you out on every device. Feedback you sent and some activity logs are kept with your name and contact details removed. Copies in our backups are removed automatically as those backups expire.

Security

Passwords are stored using industry-standard hashing, never in plain text. Access to donor and requester contact details is limited to authenticated staff accounts, with the level of access scoped to each person's role. We use encrypted connections (HTTPS) throughout the website and the mobile app, and the mobile app keeps your sign-in details in your phone's secure storage.

Your choices

• You can share or withdraw location sharing at any time from your dashboard.
• You can change your password, or log out of all devices, from Account settings.
• You can mark yourself unavailable at any time.
• Any photo you add is optional and can be removed later from your account.
• You can opt in or out of WhatsApp notifications at any time from Account settings.
• In the mobile app, you can allow or refuse location, notifications and photo access, and change these at any time in your phone's settings. The app still works if you say no; only the related feature is unavailable.
• You can turn fingerprint, face or passcode sign-in on or off in the app's settings.

Children's privacy

This platform is intended for use by adults capable of donating blood or requesting it on behalf of a patient. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children.

Changes to this policy

If we make a meaningful change to what we collect or how we use it, we'll update this page and change the effective date above.

Contact

Blood Near Me is operated by Docking Station Technologies, Gayatri Building, 3rd Floor, Technopark Campus, Kazhakoottam, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala – 695581. For any privacy question, or to access, correct, or delete your data, contact our team through the platform, email info@dockingstation.co.in, or call +91 94964 68961 / +91 98950 34545.