Privacy Policy

Last updated: 1 October 2026

1. Who we are

Screen Time Machine ("the app") is provided by Steven Freville ("we", "us"). You can reach us at support@screen-time-machine.com. This policy explains what the app does with information on your device, and what (very little) reaches anyone else.

2. Information we collect

We do not collect personal information. There is no account system, we never ask for your name or email, and we hold nothing that identifies you. The anonymous analytics described in section 5 are the only routine transmission the app makes, and they are not tied to any identity we can trace back to a person.

The app creates and reads the following on your device only:

• Your settings: which apps you've chosen to lock, your colour and light mode choice, and whether sound and haptics are on.
• Your game progress: your dots, your Elo, the level you play at, how many runs you've finished, and when your apps lock again.
• The list of apps installed on your device: read only to fill the picker where you choose which apps to lock. If you allow usage access (section 3), today's usage is read too, only to put your most-used apps first in that list. It is shown to you and never leaves the device.

All of it lives in the app's private local storage, in the app's own sandbox, where other apps cannot read it. Uninstalling the app deletes all of it.

Feedback you choose to send is the one exception, because it only works by leaving your device. When you submit the in-app feedback form, we receive your message and your thumbs-up or thumbs-down, together with basic context for support: the app version, platform and OS version, device model, which of the app's permissions are granted, roughly how many days you've had the app, and the same anonymous purchase identifier described under Purchases. That identifier is what lets us send a reply back to your app, and nothing else can be looked up from it. When your app shows you a reply, it marks that reply as read in our database. Feedback is stored in Google Cloud Firestore, read by us, used only to read and answer your message, and never sold or shared. The list of apps you lock is never included. To have a submission deleted, email us at support@screen-time-machine.com.

3. Permissions, and why the app asks

Screen Time Machine uses a few sensitive Android permissions to do its job. Each is explained in the app before it is requested, and none of them is used to gather information about you.

Accessibility Service Prominent disclosure

Screen Time Machine uses Android's Accessibility Service API for one purpose only: to know which app has just come to the foreground, so it can lock that app if it's one you chose and you have no open time running. This is the only mechanism Android offers an app for that purpose.

The service does not read the content of your screen, log what you type, collect your messages, or record anything about what you do inside other apps. The foreground app's name is checked on the spot against the apps you chose and is not stored, profiled, or transmitted. We do not use the Accessibility Service to collect any data, and we do not share or sell any data obtained through it.

Usage access

Optional. Lets the app read how long each app has been in the foreground today, via Android's UsageStatsManager, only to sort the app picker with your most-used apps first. The figures are read on your device, used for that list, and stay there.

Ignore battery optimization

Optional. Asks Android not to put the app to sleep, so the lock keeps working in the background. Declining it makes the lock less reliable but is otherwise fine.

Package visibility

The app queries the list of launchable apps so you can pick which ones to lock. It uses Android's targeted <queries> mechanism rather than the broad "query all packages" permission.

Notifications

The app does not ask to send notifications, and sends none.

Screen Time (Family Controls) on iOS

On iOS, locking is done through Apple's Screen Time (Family Controls) framework. Apple gives apps only opaque tokens for your selections, so Screen Time Machine never learns the real names or identifiers of the apps you choose, and Apple does not let that information leave your device.

4. Purchases

Screen Time Machine Pro is sold as an in-app purchase. Payment is handled entirely by the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store, so we never see your card details, billing address, or any payment information.

To check whether a purchase is active, the app uses RevenueCat, a purchase infrastructure provider. RevenueCat receives a randomly generated anonymous identifier along with purchase and device information (such as platform, app version, and store receipt) in order to validate the receipt and report back whether Pro is unlocked. This identifier is not linked to your name or email, and none of your app choices, dots or game results are sent to RevenueCat. See RevenueCat's privacy policy for how they handle it.

Your store account relationship is with Apple or Google, and their privacy policies govern it.

5. Anonymous product analytics

The app sends anonymous usage events to PostHog, a product analytics provider, so we can see which features people actually use and where the app is confusing. These events are hosted on PostHog's EU Cloud, so the data stays in the European Union.

What is sent:

• Which screen you opened: the app's own screen name, such as the paywall or the settings screen. Never the content of the screen.
• That a feature was used: for example that setup was finished, a permission was granted, a setting was changed, a run was finished, dots were spent, or the paywall was opened.
• A few plain figures about those actions: how many apps you've chosen to lock (the number, never which ones), which game a run was and how many rounds were won, your Elo rounded to a whole number, how many minutes you opened your apps for and what it cost in dots, which Pro plan was chosen, and whether a purchase succeeded.
• Opening and closing the app, and standard technical context the analytics library attaches by itself: your device model and type, operating system and version, app version, language and time zone. Your device's IP address is visible to PostHog when an event is sent and may be used to infer an approximate location, usually no finer than a city.

What is never sent: the names or identifiers of the apps you lock, your usage figures, anything the Accessibility Service observes, and anything that identifies you as a person.

It is anonymous. The analytics library generates a random identifier that stays on your device and groups that device's events together. We never call PostHog's identify function, attach no name, email or account, and build no profile of you. We cannot tell who a device belongs to, and we cannot connect it to a purchase or a feedback message.

Turning it off. The app does not currently offer a switch for this, and we would rather say so plainly. Uninstalling the app stops it, and blocking the app's network access at the system level stops it while keeping the app installed. The lock and the games work entirely on your device and keep working offline. We intend to add an in-app opt-out; when it ships, this section will say so.

Development builds never send anything. Analytics are disabled in the app's code unless it is a release build with an analytics key configured.

Under the GDPR our basis for this processing is our legitimate interest in understanding how the app is used well enough to maintain and improve it, balanced against the fact that the data is anonymous, minimal, and never used to target or profile you. PostHog acts as our processor. See PostHog's privacy policy for how they handle it.

6. What we don't do

• We do not sell or rent your data, to anyone, ever.
• We do not share your data with advertisers or data brokers.
• We include no advertising, attribution or ad-tracking SDKs, and show no ads.
• We do not send the apps you lock, your usage figures, or anything the Accessibility Service sees off your device.
• We do not build profiles of you or use your data for automated decision-making.
• We do not track you across other apps or websites.
• We run no session recording and capture no screenshots of your use of the app.

7. Your rights over your data

Everything the app records stays on your device, so you already have complete control of it without asking us. You can change the apps you lock at any time in the app, and uninstalling the app erases everything it stored.

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete or export personal data an organisation holds about you, and to complain to a data protection authority. We hold no data that identifies you: the analytics in section 5 are anonymous, so we have no way to find the events belonging to a particular person, and we would rather say that than promise a deletion we cannot perform. What we can act on is any feedback you sent us, which is stored against an identifier your app knows. Email us and we will delete it. For purchase records, see section 4.

If you want to stop contributing analytics altogether, section 5 explains how.

If you are in the European Union, the GDPR gives you those rights and the right to lodge a complaint with your national supervisory authority. In France that is the CNIL: www.cnil.fr.

For purchase records, requests should be directed to Apple, Google, or RevenueCat, who process that data as described above.

8. Children

Screen Time Machine is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect any information from anyone, including children. The app can, of course, be installed on a young person's device by a parent or guardian.

9. Security

Your data is held in the app's private storage area, protected by the operating system's own app sandboxing and by your device's lock screen and encryption. We keep no server-side database of the apps you lock or your game progress, so there is no such database to be breached. What does leave the device (anonymous analytics, purchase validation and any feedback you send) is sent over encrypted connections and held by the providers named in sections 2, 4 and 5.

10. Changes to this policy

If the app ever changes in a way that affects this policy, for example if an optional feature needed to send something off the device, we will update this page and change the date above before that feature ships. Material changes will be shown in the app.

11. Contact

Questions about this policy: support@screen-time-machine.com. This policy is governed by the laws of France.