Privacy Policy

The short version

• Your transactions, budgets, goals, receipt photos, notes and settings are stored on your phone. Budget Buddy has no account and no server of ours that receives them.
• If you turn on cloud backup, the app saves a copy once a day to your own Google Drive (Android) or iCloud (iPhone). It goes from your phone to your account, and we can’t see it.
• The app sends anonymous usage statistics to Google Analytics, such as which screens are opened and which features are used. They never include amounts, notes, names or anything you type.
• The free version shows ads from Google AdMob. To show them, Google collects information about your device, such as an advertising identifier and an approximate location from your IP address. Premium has no ads.
• Apple or Google handle Premium purchases. The app only checks whether you have an active subscription.
• Converting amounts to another currency asks a public rate service for today’s rate. Only the two currency codes are sent.
• We see personal information only when you email us.

For a shorter tour with screenshots, see Your data. The rules for using the app are in the Terms of Use.

Who is responsible

Budget Buddy is made by Domen Dolanc, who publishes apps as SmartLifeUtils from Slovenia, in the European Union. He is the controller of the personal information described in this policy under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In this policy, “we” and “us” mean him.

Write to smartlife.utilities@gmail.com about anything in this policy.

What stays on your phone

Everything you enter is saved in the app’s own storage on your phone:

• transactions, amounts, categories, accounts and notes;
• budgets, savings goals, repeating payments and reminders;
• receipt photos and warranty dates;
• your settings, including the app lock.

You don’t need an account, and the app doesn’t send these entries to us. Charts, forecasts, recaps and reminders are worked out on the phone. The only sign-in is to your Google account, and only if you turn on backup to Google Drive.

Your entries leave the phone only in three ways: when you share a backup or export file yourself, when you turn on cloud backup to your own Google Drive or iCloud, and through your phone’s own device backup, depending on its settings. All three are described under Backups.

What we receive

We don’t receive anything you enter in the app. We have no copy of it, so we can’t read it, recover it or delete it for you.

We do receive:

• Emails you send us. Your email address, your message and anything you attach, such as a screenshot. Our mailbox is a Gmail account, so Google stores these emails for us.
• Anonymous usage statistics. Which features are used and how often, without your entries. See Usage statistics.
• Reports from the app stores. Apple and Google give us figures about the app, such as downloads and sales by country, and crash reports from people whose phones are set to share diagnostics with app developers. We use them to fix bugs and to see how the app is doing. They don’t contain your entries.

The app has no crash reporting service of its own.

Usage statistics

The app uses Google Analytics for Firebase to show us which features people use, where new users get stuck and what is worth improving. It records:

• screens you open and features you use, such as adding an entry, creating a budget or watching the monthly recap, with simple details such as expense or income, or how many seconds adding an entry took;
• rough counts, such as whether you have 1, 2 to 5 or 6 to 20 budgets;
• some settings, such as theme, language and currency;
• when the Premium screen opens, from where, and whether a purchase goes through. Google Analytics also records the product and its price;
• a random ID for this installation of the app, device model, system version, app version, language, and an approximate location, such as the country or region, that Google works out from your IP address.

It never records amounts, balances, notes, names of categories, accounts or goals, receipt photos, or anything else you type. The app sets no user ID and doesn’t give Google Analytics the advertising ID on Android or the IDFA on iPhone, and Google signals are off. So the statistics are not linked to you or to your Google account, and they are not used for ads.

Google processes the statistics for us under the Firebase data processing terms. We see them only as totals and charts, and they are deleted after 14 months. Because they are tied to a random ID and not to your name or email, we can’t look up one person’s statistics. Deleting the app ends collection, and installing it again starts with a new random ID.

Ads

The free version shows banner ads and occasional full-screen ads from Google AdMob. To choose, show and measure ads and to prevent fraud, Google’s ad software in the app collects:

• device and advertising identifiers, such as the advertising ID on Android;
• your IP address and the approximate location it reveals;
• device type, system version, language and app version;
• how you interact with ads, such as views and taps;
• diagnostic data about how ads load and perform.

The app doesn’t pass your transactions, budgets or other entries to Google. Google uses the data above as described in how Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services and in the Google Privacy Policy.

Personalised and non-personalised ads

Personalised ads are chosen using a profile of your interests that Google builds from your activity in other apps and on websites. Non-personalised ads are chosen from the context, such as the app you are using and your general location, without that profile. Google may still use identifiers for non-personalised ads, for example to limit how often you see the same ad, to count views and to stop fraud.

Your choice in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland

In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, the app shows Google’s consent form before any ad loads. It asks whether Google and its advertising partners may use your information for personalised ads and the related purposes it lists. You can accept, refuse, or choose purpose by purpose. Ads start once you have answered. Refusing means you get non-personalised or limited ads.

To change your answer later, open Settings in the app and tap Ad privacy choices. This row appears only where the consent form applies.

Everywhere else

Outside those regions the app shows no consent form, and whether ads are personalised depends on Google’s settings and on the law where you live. On Android you can reset or delete your advertising ID in the phone’s settings.

On iPhone

The app doesn’t show Apple’s App Tracking Transparency prompt, so neither the app nor Google’s ad software can read your iPhone’s advertising identifier (IDFA). Ads on iPhone can still use the other information listed above.

Premium

Ads are not shown to Premium subscribers, and they are not asked to fill in the consent form.

Premium purchases

Premium is a subscription you buy through the App Store or Google Play. Apple or Google take the payment and keep your payment details under their own privacy policies. We never see your card details.

The app asks the store only what it needs to unlock Premium: whether you bought it and whether the subscription is still active. Restore purchases asks the store again which purchases belong to your store account. Apple and Google also send us order and sales reports, which can include an order number, the product, the price and the country of purchase.

Currency rates

When you convert amounts to another currency, for example after changing your currency in Settings, the app asks frankfurter.dev, a free public service, for today’s exchange rate published by the European Central Bank. The request contains only the two currency codes, such as USD and EUR. No amounts or other entries are sent. Like any website, the service sees your phone’s IP address when the app connects to it.

Without an internet connection, you type the rate yourself and nothing is sent.

Phone permissions

The app asks for a permission when you turn on or use a feature that needs it. You can say no, or turn a permission off later in your phone’s settings, and the rest of the app keeps working.

The app also uses the internet connection, for ads, usage statistics, purchases, currency rates and cloud backup as described in this policy.

Backups

You can make a backup file in the app at any time and save or share it wherever you choose, such as a cloud drive or your email. When you turn on weekly backups, the app saves a backup once a week to a folder you choose. Once a backup file is somewhere else, the service that holds it handles it under its own terms.

Cloud backup to Google Drive or iCloud

Cloud backup is off until you turn it on. Then the app saves a copy of your data once a day, including goals, settings and receipt photos:

• On Android, to your Google Drive. You sign in with Google and allow Budget Buddy to use its own hidden folder in your Drive. The app can’t see your other Drive files, and the folder doesn’t show in Drive. The app keeps a few recent copies there and deletes older ones. It reads your Google account’s email address only to show you which account is connected. Automatic backups wait for Wi-Fi. Budget Buddy’s use of information received from Google APIs follows the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
• On iPhone, to your iCloud, in the app’s own iCloud storage, which doesn’t show in the Files app. Your iPhone uploads it in the background.

The copy goes straight from your phone to your own account. There is no server of ours in between, and we have no access to your Google Drive or iCloud. Google or Apple store the copy under the terms of your account with them. A new phone signed in to the same account can restore from it. Turning cloud backup off stops new copies and, on Android, removes the app’s access to your Drive. Copies already saved stay until you delete them, as described under Deleting your data.

The app doesn’t add a password to backup and export files. Keep the files you save yourself somewhere only you can open. Cloud copies are protected by your Google or Apple account.

Your phone’s own backup can include the app’s data too: iCloud Backup on iPhone, and Google’s backup on Android, depending on your phone’s settings. Apple or Google make and store those backups under your account with them, and we have no access to them.

How long data is kept

• Your entries stay on your phone until you delete them, delete all data in the app, or delete the app.
• Backup files stay wherever you saved them until you delete them.
• Cloud backups stay in your Google Drive or iCloud until you delete them. On Google Drive, the app deletes older copies as it saves new ones.
• Usage statistics are kept by Google Analytics for 14 months and then deleted.
• Emails to us are kept as long as we need them to answer you and handle any follow-up, and then deleted. You can ask us to delete them at any time.
• Ad data is kept by Google for the periods set out in its privacy policy.
• Purchase records are kept by Apple or Google under their own policies.

Deleting your data

In the app’s personal data settings you can delete all your data, or all data and settings, in one step. Deleting the app also removes everything it stored on the phone.

To delete cloud backups:

• Google Drive: on drive.google.com, open Settings, then Manage apps. Next to Budget Buddy, choose Options, then Delete hidden app data. Choose Disconnect from Drive as well to remove the app’s access.
• iCloud: on your iPhone, open Settings, tap your name, then iCloud and the storage list. Choose Budget Buddy, then Delete Data.

Backup files you saved elsewhere, and your phone’s device backups, stay until you delete them there. To have your emails to us deleted, write to us. For ad data, you can reset or delete the advertising ID on Android and use the controls Google describes in its privacy policy.

Legal bases

Under the GDPR, we rely on these legal bases:

• Personalised ads, and storing or reading information on your device for ads where the law requires consent: your consent, given in Google’s form (Article 6(1)(a)). You can withdraw it at any time under Ad privacy choices. Withdrawing doesn’t affect what happened before.
• Non-personalised and limited ads: our legitimate interest in paying for the free version with ads (Article 6(1)(f)).
• Premium purchases and restoring them: performing our contract with you (Article 6(1)(b)).
• Usage statistics: our legitimate interest in learning which features people use, so we can fix and improve the app (Article 6(1)(f)). We collect only what that needs, without your entries and without linking it to you.
• Currency rate lookup: providing the feature you asked for (Article 6(1)(b)).
• Cloud backup: providing the feature you turned on (Article 6(1)(b)). The copies are stored by Google or Apple in your own account, and we can’t access them.
• Answering your emails: our legitimate interest in helping you, or performing our contract when your question is about Premium (Article 6(1)(f) and (b)).
• Store reports: our legitimate interest in fixing bugs and running the app (Article 6(1)(f)).

Google decides for itself how it uses ad data for its own purposes, as set out in its policies.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

• get a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• have it corrected;
• have it deleted;
• restrict how we use it;
• receive it in a format you can take elsewhere;
• object to uses based on our legitimate interest, including ads and usage statistics;
• withdraw consent at any time.

Write to smartlife.utilities@gmail.com. We answer within one month. We hold none of your entries, so for data in the app you can view, export and delete it yourself.

You can also complain to a data protection authority. Ours is the Information Commissioner of the Republic of Slovenia (Informacijski pooblaščenec). You can also turn to the authority in the EU country where you live or work.

California and other regions

People in California and in other places with privacy laws may have similar rights, such as to know what personal information is collected, to have it deleted and to opt out of targeted advertising. This policy lists what is collected and by whom. To use these rights, write to us. On Android you can also limit ad targeting by resetting or deleting your advertising ID, and on any phone Premium removes ads. Using your rights doesn’t change how the app works for you.

Children

Budget Buddy is a general money app. It is not meant for children under 13, or under the age of digital consent in their country, which is up to 16 in parts of the EU. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children. Should a child have sent us personal information, for example by email, write to us and we will delete it.

Security

Your entries are protected by your phone’s own security, such as its passcode, and by the app’s PIN or Face ID, Touch ID or fingerprint lock when you turn it on. Anyone who can unlock both your phone and the app can see your data.

The app connects to Google, Apple and the currency rate service over HTTPS, cloud backups included. Backup and export files are plain files, so store them where only you can open them.

Transfers outside the EU

Google may process ad data, usage statistics, Google Drive backups and our emails in the United States and other countries outside the EU. Google states that it uses the safeguards EU law requires for these transfers, such as the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses. Apple and Google may also process purchase data and iCloud backups outside your country under their own policies.

Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when the app or the law changes. The date at the top shows the current version. When a change matters, such as a new kind of information leaving your phone, we will also mention it in the app’s release notes.

Contact

Domen Dolanc, SmartLifeUtils, Slovenia
smartlife.utilities@gmail.com

See also the Terms of Use and Your data.