Privacy Policy — Photo Habit Tracker

Last updated: April 18, 2026

This policy explains what Photo Habit Tracker (the “App”) collects, how it’s used, and the controls you have. The short version: your habits and photos stay on
your device by default, we collect only what’s needed for the features you turn on, we don’t sell your data, and we don’t track you across other apps.

## Who runs this app

Photo Habit Tracker is an indie iOS app built and operated by Puya Seid-Karbasi. Questions about this policy or your data: pseidkarbasi@gmail.com.

## Data stored on your device only

The following never leaves your device unless you explicitly opt in to a feature described below:

Your habits (name, icon, color, schedule, notification preferences)
Your check-in photos
Notes you attach to check-ins
Precise GPS coordinates of check-ins (only if you enabled optional location sharing — see below)
Streak and completion history
App preferences All of the above live in a private on-device database. Other apps cannot read it. If you delete the app, this data is removed along with it. Accountability Buddy features (opt-in) If you choose to use the Accountability Buddy or Pods features, we send the following to our servers so your buddy or pod members can see your progress:
A display name you choose (does not need to be your real name)
An anonymous user ID we generate for you (a random UUID, not your device ID, not your Apple ID, not your IDFA)
A summary of each habit you share with a buddy: name, icon, color, streak count, scheduled days, and the date of your latest check-in
Check-in photos you take, uploaded to our backend so they can be displayed to your buddy. Photos are stored privately — only you and the buddies you
connect with can view them, using short-lived signed URLs.
Optional coarse location label attached to a check-in (see Location section below)
Push notification tokens issued by Apple so we can send your buddy notifications on your behalf To help you find friends who already use the app, we offer an optional contact-discovery step. If you allow contact access:
We compute a one-way cryptographic hash of each contact’s phone number on your device
We send only the hashes to our server and check them against hashes of other registered users
We never send, store, or log actual phone numbers or contact names
You can decline contact access without losing any other feature Location (optional) Photo Habit Tracker can optionally attach a coarse location label to check-ins you share with a buddy. This is off by default and never happens without your explicit action. What we collect. When you turn on Share check-in location with buddies on a specific habit and grant “When in Use” location permission, your device
captures a single GPS reading at the moment you check in for that habit. We reverse-geocode that reading on your device into a short place label — typically a
neighborhood and city (for example, “Prospect Park” or “Mission District, San Francisco”). We never read, store, or share a street-level address. What stays on your device. The precise GPS coordinates (latitude, longitude, and accuracy) are kept locally on your phone alongside the check-in record,
for potential future features like a personal map view of your own habits. They are never sent to our servers and never shared with buddies. What we share with your buddy. Only the short place label (“neighborhood, city”), attached to that specific check-in, sent through our backend to the buddy
or pod members connected to you. The place label is never included in push notification previews on the lock screen — it’s only visible when your buddy opens
the check-in inside the app. How you control it. Three independent controls; any one of them turns location off:

Per-habit toggle (Habit → Edit → Location). Off by default for every habit.
Master kill switch (Settings → Privacy → Share location with buddies). Suppresses location sharing across all habits.
iOS system permission. Revoke under Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Habit Tracker. Without this permission, no location is ever
captured regardless of the in-app toggles. Changes of mind. Turning off a toggle stops sharing location on all future check-ins immediately. Place labels already attached to past check-ins remain
visible to buddies who received them. Deleting your cloud data (Settings → Delete Cloud Data) removes all of your check-in records — including any attached
place labels — from our backend. Analytics The app sends anonymous product usage events (e.g., “user launched the app”, “user created a habit”, “user checked in”) to our backend so we can understand how
the app is used and improve it. These events include:

A random install ID generated on first launch (not your Apple ID, not your IDFA, not your device hardware ID)
App version, iOS version, device model generation, locale, App Store storefront country
The event name and a small set of scalar properties describing the event Analytics events never contain your habit names, photos, notes, phone number, contacts, location coordinates, or any free-text content. The event schema is
enforced by our code to prevent any of that from being sent accidentally. Tracking We do not track you. Specifically:
We do not use Apple’s Advertising Identifier (IDFA) or any other cross-app identifier
We do not share your data with advertising networks, analytics vendors, or data brokers
We do not show ads
We do not link your data with data collected by other apps, websites, or offline sources Apple’s App Tracking Transparency prompt is therefore not shown, because the app does not engage in “tracking” as Apple defines it. Third parties we rely on Your data flows through the following providers strictly to operate the app’s features:
Amazon Web Services (AWS) — hosts our backend servers and photo storage (S3). Our data lives in the us-west-2 region. AWS acts as our data processor and
does not use your data for their own purposes.
Apple Push Notification service (APNs) — delivers push notifications to your device when a buddy interacts with you. Apple’s push infrastructure sees
only the encrypted notification payload and the destination device token. We do not share data with any other third party. Your rights and controls
Delete cloud data: Settings → Delete Cloud Data wipes your user record, habits-shared-with-buddies, photos, and any attached location labels from our
servers. Your on-device data is also reset.
Disable features: buddy, pods, location, contacts, photos, notifications are all optional. You can disable any of them without affecting the others.
Revoke permissions: iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services / Contacts / Notifications / Photos → Habit Tracker to revoke any permission at
any time.
Export: Settings → Backup exports all your habits, completions, and photos to a JSON file you control (iCloud Drive, Files, email to yourself, etc.)
Contact us: pseidkarbasi@gmail.com for any question about your data or to request deletion outside of the in-app flow. Children Photo Habit Tracker is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Data retention
Active users: we retain your buddy-related data (user record, habit summaries, photos, location labels) as long as your account is active.
After account deletion: records are removed from the active database immediately. Photo files and backup logs may persist in provider backups (AWS) for
up to 30 days before being permanently purged, per standard AWS retention.
Analytics events: stored for 90 days for debugging and aggregate reporting, then automatically deleted. Changes to this policy If we change this policy in a way that materially affects you, we’ll update the “Last updated” date at the top and — for significant changes — surface a notice
inside the app or via the support channel. Continued use of the app after a change means you accept the updated policy. Contact Questions, data requests, or complaints: pseidkarbasi@gmail.com.

The backslashes you see before # and * above are just to prevent the chat from rendering them — they should not be copied. Let me give it one more time inside
a fenced code block so the markdown is literally visible and copy-safe:

# Privacy Policy — Photo Habit Tracker

Last updated: April 19, 2026

## Who runs this app

Photo Habit Tracker is an indie iOS app built and operated by Puya Seid-Karbasi. Questions about this policy or your data: pseidkarbasi@gmail.com.

## Data stored on your device only

The following never leaves your device unless you explicitly opt in to a feature described below:

Your habits (name, icon, color, schedule, notification preferences)
Your check-in photos
Notes you attach to check-ins
Precise GPS coordinates of check-ins (only if you enabled optional location sharing — see below)
Streak and completion history
App preferences All of the above live in a private on-device database. Other apps cannot read it. If you delete the app, this data is removed along with it. Accountability Buddy features (opt-in) If you choose to use the Accountability Buddy or Pods features, we send the following to our servers so your buddy or pod members can see your progress:
A display name you choose (does not need to be your real name)
An anonymous user ID we generate for you (a random UUID, not your device ID, not your Apple ID, not your IDFA)
A summary of each habit you share with a buddy: name, icon, color, streak count, scheduled days, and the date of your latest check-in
Check-in photos you take, uploaded to our backend so they can be displayed to your buddy. Photos are stored privately — only you and the buddies you
connect with can view them, using short-lived signed URLs.
Optional coarse location label attached to a check-in (see Location section below)
Push notification tokens issued by Apple so we can send your buddy notifications on your behalf To help you find friends who already use the app, we offer an optional contact-discovery step. If you allow contact access:
We compute a one-way cryptographic hash of each contact’s phone number on your device
We send only the hashes to our server and check them against hashes of other registered users
We never send, store, or log actual phone numbers or contact names
You can decline contact access without losing any other feature Location (optional) Photo Habit Tracker can optionally attach a coarse location label to check-ins you share with a buddy. This is off by default and never happens without your explicit action. What we collect. When you turn on Share check-in location with buddies on a specific habit and grant “When in Use” location permission, your device
captures a single GPS reading at the moment you check in for that habit. We reverse-geocode that reading on your device into a short place label — typically a
neighborhood and city (for example, “Prospect Park” or “Mission District, San Francisco”). We never read, store, or share a street-level address. What stays on your device. The precise GPS coordinates (latitude, longitude, and accuracy) are kept locally on your phone alongside the check-in record,
for potential future features like a personal map view of your own habits. They are never sent to our servers and never shared with buddies. What we share with your buddy. Only the short place label (“neighborhood, city”), attached to that specific check-in, sent through our backend to the buddy
or pod members connected to you. The place label is never included in push notification previews on the lock screen — it’s only visible when your buddy opens
the check-in inside the app. How you control it. Three independent controls; any one of them turns location off:

Per-habit toggle (Habit → Edit → Location). Off by default for every habit.
Master kill switch (Settings → Privacy → Share location with buddies). Suppresses location sharing across all habits.
iOS system permission. Revoke under Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Habit Tracker. Without this permission, no location is ever
captured regardless of the in-app toggles. Changes of mind. Turning off a toggle stops sharing location on all future check-ins immediately. Place labels already attached to past check-ins remain
visible to buddies who received them. Deleting your cloud data (Settings → Delete Cloud Data) removes all of your check-in records — including any attached
place labels — from our backend. Analytics The app sends anonymous product usage events (e.g., “user launched the app”, “user created a habit”, “user checked in”) to our backend so we can understand how
the app is used and improve it. These events include:

A random install ID generated on first launch (not your Apple ID, not your IDFA, not your device hardware ID)
App version, iOS version, device model generation, locale, App Store storefront country
The event name and a small set of scalar properties describing the event Analytics events never contain your habit names, photos, notes, phone number, contacts, location coordinates, or any free-text content. The event schema is
enforced by our code to prevent any of that from being sent accidentally. Tracking We do not track you. Specifically:
We do not use Apple’s Advertising Identifier (IDFA) or any other cross-app identifier
We do not share your data with advertising networks, analytics vendors, or data brokers
We do not show ads
We do not link your data with data collected by other apps, websites, or offline sources Apple’s App Tracking Transparency prompt is therefore not shown, because the app does not engage in “tracking” as Apple defines it. Third parties we rely on Your data flows through the following providers strictly to operate the app’s features:
Amazon Web Services (AWS) — hosts our backend servers and photo storage (S3). Our data lives in the us-west-2 region. AWS acts as our data processor
and does not use your data for their own purposes.
Apple Push Notification service (APNs) — delivers push notifications to your device when a buddy interacts with you. Apple’s push infrastructure sees
only the encrypted notification payload and the destination device token. We do not share data with any other third party. Your rights and controls
Delete cloud data: Settings → Delete Cloud Data wipes your user record, habits-shared-with-buddies, photos, and any attached location labels from our
servers. Your on-device data is also reset.
Disable features: buddy, pods, location, contacts, photos, notifications are all optional. You can disable any of them without affecting the others.
Revoke permissions: iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services / Contacts / Notifications / Photos → Habit Tracker to revoke any permission at
any time.
Export: Settings → Backup exports all your habits, completions, and photos to a JSON file you control (iCloud Drive, Files, email to yourself, etc.)
Contact us: pseidkarbasi@gmail.com for any question about your data or to request deletion outside of the in-app flow. Children Photo Habit Tracker is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Data retention
Active users: we retain your buddy-related data (user record, habit summaries, photos, location labels) as long as your account is active.
After account deletion: records are removed from the active database immediately. Photo files and backup logs may persist in provider backups (AWS) for
up to 30 days before being permanently purged, per standard AWS retention.
Analytics events: stored for 90 days for debugging and aggregate reporting, then automatically deleted. Changes to this policy If we change this policy in a way that materially affects you, we’ll update the “Last updated” date at the top and — for significant changes — surface a notice
inside the app or via the support channel. Continued use of the app after a change means you accept the updated policy. Contact Questions, data requests, or complaints: pseidkarbasi@gmail.com.

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