Creator Scout Policies

1Information We Collect

We collect the following categories of information from our users:

• Identity & Contact Information — Full name, email address, phone number, and profile details provided at registration.
• Social Media Data — Social media handles, platform links, follower counts, engagement rates, audience demographics, and other creator statistics shared or connected to your account. For creators who connect their Instagram account: we also fetch and store per-post performance metrics (reach, impressions, saves, shares), Stories performance (reach, completion rate, replies), branded-content history (handles of brands you have tagged in paid partnerships, post dates, and engagement on those posts), and engaged-audience breakdowns (age, gender, country, city) returned by the Meta Instagram Graph API.
• Payment & Banking Information — Bank account details, UPI IDs, PAN, GST number, and other financial information required for payment processing and tax compliance.
• Location Data — City, state, and country of operation as provided by you. We may also collect approximate location via IP address for fraud prevention purposes.
• Usage Data — Pages visited, features used, campaign activity, chat logs within the platform, and other behavioural data collected automatically.
• Device & Technical Data — IP address, browser type, device identifiers, and operating system.

2How We Use Your Information

We use your information for the following purposes:

• To create and manage your Creator Scout account
• To facilitate connections between brands and creators on the platform
• To process payments and manage escrow transactions
• To provide subscription services and manage billing
• To resolve disputes between brands and creators
• To improve platform features, performance, and user experience through analytics
• To send transactional communications (campaign updates, payment confirmations, policy changes)
• To conduct targeted advertising and remarketing campaigns for Creator Scout’s own marketing purposes
• To comply with applicable laws, including tax reporting obligations under Indian law
• To detect and prevent fraud, abuse, and unauthorised access

3Payment Protection & Refund Guarantee

Creator Scout operates an escrow-based payment model. Brand payments are held securely until a creator successfully delivers the agreed collaboration. In cases where a creator fails to fulfil their obligations, brands are entitled to a full refund with no deductions of any kind — whether from the brand’s bank account or their Creator Scout Wallet.

The following situations qualify for an automatic full refund:

• Order not accepted — The creator does not accept the collaboration request within the stipulated acceptance window.
• Creator goes silent (ghosting) — The creator becomes unresponsive after accepting the order and fails to communicate or deliver.
• Missed deadline — The creator fails to deliver the agreed content by the confirmed deadline without an approved extension.
• Substandard delivery — Where the creator submits work that materially fails to meet the agreed brief, the brand must raise a formal Type G dispute from the order page. Creator Scout will review and issue a binding decision on fund disbursement. No automatic refund is triggered by a substandard delivery claim alone.

Refund requests can be raised from the order page or by contacting contact@creatorscout.in. Our team will review and process eligible refunds within 5–7 business days.

4Sharing of Information

We share your information only in the following limited circumstances:

• With other platform users — Creator profile data (handle, stats, niche, location) is visible to brands on the platform. Brand campaign details are visible to creators you are matched with.
• With payment processors — We share necessary financial information with payment gateway partners (e.g., Razorpay) to process transactions securely.
• With analytics providers — Aggregated, anonymised usage data may be shared with analytics tools to improve platform performance.
• With advertising platforms — We may share hashed identifiers (such as email) with advertising platforms (e.g., Meta, Google) for remarketing purposes under strict data agreements.
• With legal and regulatory authorities — We may disclose information if required by law, court order, or government regulation applicable in India.

Government and law-enforcement requests

Scoutiq Technologies Private Limited reviews every government or law-enforcement request for user data against applicable Indian law (including the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Code of Criminal Procedure / BNSS, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and the platform terms governing the underlying data). We do not act on informal or unauthenticated requests.

Where a request is overbroad, lacks lawful authority, or otherwise fails our legality review, we object in writing and, where necessary, challenge the request before the appropriate court before any data is released. For lawful requests we apply data-minimisation principles and disclose only the specific records named in the legal instrument — we do not provide bulk exports, related-account data, or information beyond the date range and category specified.

Every request received, the legal reasoning applied, the personnel involved, and our response are documented in an internal register retained for at least seven years. We notify affected users where the law permits.

5Data Storage & Security

Your data is stored on secure servers located in India or with cloud service providers operating under adequate data protection standards. We implement reasonable security practices including encryption, access controls, and regular security audits to protect your personal information.

Payment and banking information is handled exclusively through PCI-DSS compliant payment gateways. We do not store full payment card details on our servers.

6Data Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide services to you. Upon account deletion, we will delete or anonymise your personal data within 30 days, except where retention is required by law (for example, financial records required under the Income Tax Act or GST regulations may be retained for up to 7 years).

7Your Rights

As a user, you have the following rights over your data:

• Access the personal information we hold about you
• Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data
• Request deletion of your account and associated data (subject to legal retention requirements)
• Opt out of marketing communications at any time via your account settings or unsubscribe links
• Withdraw consent for data processing where consent is the legal basis

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at contact@creatorscout.in. We will respond within 30 days.

8Cookies & Tracking

Creator Scout uses cookies and similar tracking technologies to improve your experience, remember preferences, and analyse platform usage. You may control cookie settings through your browser. Disabling cookies may affect certain platform features.

We may use third-party analytics tools (such as Google Analytics) and advertising pixels (such as Meta Pixel) on the platform. These tools collect anonymised or pseudonymised data for analytics and remarketing purposes.

We also use PostHog for product analytics. PostHog collects anonymised usage data including page views, feature interactions, and session behaviour to help us improve the platform. Admin routes are excluded from PostHog tracking. PostHog data is not used for advertising purposes.

9Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically. Material changes will be communicated via email or platform notification. Continued use of Creator Scout after such notification constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.

10Instagram & Meta Platform Data

We collect the following data from your Instagram account when you connect it via Instagram OAuth using the instagram_business_basic permission (available for Instagram professional — Business or Creator — accounts only): Instagram user ID, username, follower count, profile picture URL, average likes per post, average comments per post, and calculated engagement rate. This data is fetched from the Instagram Graph API with your explicit consent.

Instagram data is used solely to display verified creator statistics to brands on Creator Scout for the purpose of influencer-brand matching. We do not use this data for advertising, profiling, or any purpose beyond what is described here.

Instagram data is stored as long as your Creator Scout account is active. If you disconnect your Instagram account or delete your Creator Scout account, your Instagram data will be permanently deleted within 30 days.

We do not sell, rent, or share your Instagram data with any third parties. Instagram analytics displayed on your public profile are visible to registered brands on Creator Scout only.

You can request deletion of your Instagram data at any time by disconnecting Instagram from your Creator Scout settings, or by emailing us at contact@creatorscout.in. We also honor deletion requests sent by Meta directly.

11YouTube & Google Data

When you connect your YouTube channel to Creator Scout, we request access via the YouTube Data API v3 and YouTube Analytics API using Google OAuth 2.0. The following data is collected with your explicit consent:

• Channel identity — channel title, custom handle (e.g. @handle), and profile thumbnail URL
• Channel statistics — subscriber count and total video count
• Video engagement metrics — average view count, average like count, average comment count, and calculated engagement rate based on the 20 most recent videos
• Audience demographics — age group distribution (13–17, 18–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55–64, 65+) and gender distribution (from YouTube Analytics API)
• Geographic reach — top 5 countries and top 5 cities by view count (from YouTube Analytics API)
• Watch time metrics — estimated total minutes watched and average view duration (from YouTube Analytics API)
• OAuth tokens — encrypted access token and refresh token, used to periodically refresh your analytics data on your behalf. These are stored encrypted and never shared with third parties.

We also collect your Google Account ID (a unique identifier provided by Google’s OpenID Connect service) at the time you connect your YouTube channel. This identifier is used solely to prevent duplicate YouTube account connections across multiple Creator Scout accounts. It is stored securely, never displayed publicly, and never shared with third parties.

YouTube data is used solely to display verified creator statistics on your Creator Scout profile and analytics dashboard. We do not use YouTube or Google API data for any purpose other than this. Specifically, we do not:

• Sell, rent, or trade YouTube/Google user data to any third party
• Transfer YouTube/Google user data to data brokers, information resellers, or aggregators
• Use YouTube/Google user data to serve advertising, including personalized, interest-based, retargeted, or third-party advertising
• Use YouTube/Google user data to determine credit-worthiness or for any lending purpose
• Build, enrich, or maintain databases for sale, marketing lists, or any purpose outside the user-facing features of Creator Scout

YouTube data is retained for as long as your Creator Scout account is active and your YouTube connection is enabled. If you disconnect your YouTube channel from Creator Scout settings, all YouTube data is permanently deleted within 30 days. You can also revoke access at any time from your Google account permissions page.

Periodic Data Refresh

Your YouTube channel statistics and audience analytics are automatically refreshed nightly via a scheduled background process. This ensures brands viewing your profile see accurate, up-to-date data. You can disconnect your YouTube account at any time from your profile settings, which will stop all future data refresh.

Our Limited Use Commitments

Creator Scout’s use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. In particular:

• Use limited to user-facing features. We use Google user data only to provide and improve the user-facing features of Creator Scout (verified creator statistics, analytics dashboards, brand-creator matching).
• Limited transfers. We do not transfer Google user data to others except: (i) as necessary to provide or improve these user-facing features, (ii) to comply with applicable law, or (iii) as part of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets with notice to users and equivalent privacy protections.
• No advertising. We do not use Google user data for serving advertisements of any kind, including personalized, interest-based, or retargeted advertising.
• No human reading. We do not allow humans to read Google user data unless (i) we have obtained your explicit consent for specific data, (ii) it is necessary for security purposes such as investigating abuse, (iii) it is required by applicable law, or (iv) the data has been aggregated and anonymized for use in internal operations.

No AI / ML Training

We do not use YouTube or Google user data to develop, improve, or train generalized or non-personalized artificial intelligence or machine learning models. Any internal ranking or recommendation models that operate on Creator Scout use only aggregated, anonymized signals derived from platform activity — never raw Google API data tied to an identifiable user.

Human Access to Google User Data

Google user data is processed by automated systems on Creator Scout. Creator Scout personnel access individual Google user data only in the following circumstances: (i) when you explicitly request support that requires us to inspect your data, (ii) during a security or abuse investigation, (iii) where required by applicable law, court order, or regulatory request, or (iv) in aggregated, anonymized form for internal operations such as capacity planning. All such access is logged.