Privacy Policy

Who we are

FinSteps ("the app") is an iOS app developed and published by Michael Curtis ("we", "us"). This policy explains what the app does with your information. If anything here is unclear, email finsteps@proton.me.

Health data we read

With your explicit permission, FinSteps reads exactly one type of data from Apple Health (HealthKit):

• Step count — the number of steps recorded by your iPhone or paired Apple Watch.

The app requests read-only access. It never writes data to Apple Health, and it does not request or read any other health or fitness data type.

Your step count is used for a single purpose: to run the game. Steps determine how much your fish are fed, whether you hit your daily goal, how your streak and history charts look, and how many in-game pearls you earn. It is also written into a small snapshot so the home screen widget can display today's progress.

Granting Health access is optional. You can decline it, and you can revoke it at any time in iOS Settings → Health → Data Access & Devices → FinSteps. If you revoke access, the app stops reading new step data.

What we do not collect

Apart from the subscription system described in the next section, FinSteps makes no network connections. It does not:

• Send your step count, health data, or aquarium off your device
• Send anything you typed, including your name or your fish's name
• Use advertising or ad-attribution SDKs
• Create an account, or ask for your email or phone number
• Collect location, contacts, photos, or your browsing activity
• Track you across other apps or websites

Your step data, health data and game data never leave your device, so they are shared with no third parties at all — no analytics providers, no advertising networks, no data brokers, no one. We do not sell or rent your information to anyone, and we never use health or fitness data for advertising, marketing, or data mining.

Purchases and subscriptions

FinSteps is free to download; its premium features require a purchase — a monthly or annual subscription, or a one-time lifetime unlock. Payment is handled entirely by Apple through the App Store using Apple's StoreKit framework. We never see or receive your payment details: your card number, billing address, and Apple Account credentials are handled by Apple and are never transmitted to us or stored by us. Apple's handling of your purchase information is governed by Apple's Privacy Policy, not by this one.

To manage subscriptions we use RevenueCat, a subscription-management service. RevenueCat is the one third party that receives data from the app, and this is the only part of FinSteps that talks to a server other than Apple's. It receives:

• Your subscription status — which plan you're on, whether you're in a trial, and when it renews, if it renews at all. This is what unlocks the app on your device, and it's what lets your subscription follow you to a new phone.
• An anonymous identifier that RevenueCat generates to hold that subscription against. It is not your name, your email, or your Apple Account, and it isn't linked to any identity we hold — we have no way to turn it back into a person.
• The multiple-choice answers you gave during setup — the reasons you chose for walking, whether you've used step apps before, your age band, your gender if you gave one, your activity level, your daily step goal, where you heard about FinSteps, and whether you turned on notifications and Health access. We use these to understand which kinds of people find FinSteps worth paying for, so we can build the right thing and stop advertising where it doesn't work.

Every one of those setup answers is a choice from a fixed list, and every question is skippable — a skipped question is recorded as "skipped". Nothing you typed is ever sent. The name you gave us and the name you gave your fish stay on your phone and are never transmitted to RevenueCat or to us.

Your step count, health data, aquarium and game history are never sent to RevenueCat, and are never included in any purchase transaction. RevenueCat's handling of the data above is governed by RevenueCat's Privacy Policy. RevenueCat also serves the subscription screen you see in the app, which is why its design and pricing can change without an app update.

You can view, manage, or cancel a subscription at any time in iOS Settings → your name → Subscriptions, or from Manage subscription at the bottom of the FinSteps settings screen.

Where your data is stored

Everything FinSteps knows — your aquarium, your fish, your daily step history, your goal, and your settings — is stored locally on your device in the app's own private storage container, which is shared only with the FinSteps widget so it can draw your progress. This data is protected by iOS file encryption and is not readable by other apps.

If you have iPhone backups turned on, your device backup may include this local app data, in the same way it includes data from your other apps. Those backups are governed by Apple's terms and encryption, not ours. FinSteps does not sync your data to iCloud, and it does not store health information in iCloud.

Notifications

If you allow notifications, FinSteps schedules reminders locally on your device — for example, a nudge when your fish need feeding. These are generated on-device by iOS. No push server is involved and no notification content is sent anywhere.

How long we keep data, and how to delete it

Your aquarium, step history, goal and settings live only on your device. We never hold a copy, so there is nothing for us to retain — they stay on your phone for as long as the app is installed.

To delete all of that, delete the FinSteps app from your device. That removes the app's local storage, including your aquarium and your step history, permanently. Deleting FinSteps does not remove step data from Apple Health, which is Apple's own store and remains under your control in the Health app.

Your subscription record and setup answers held by RevenueCat are the exception: those sit on RevenueCat's servers and are not removed by deleting the app. They are kept for as long as the subscription record is useful for support and accounting. To have them erased, email finsteps@proton.me and we'll delete the record — see Your rights below.

To withdraw your consent for Health access without deleting the app, use iOS Settings → Health → Data Access & Devices → FinSteps. To turn off notifications, use iOS Settings → Notifications → FinSteps.

Children

FinSteps is a general-audience app and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. The only information that leaves the device is the subscription record described above, which contains no name, email, or contact detail for anyone.

Your rights

Privacy laws such as the GDPR and CCPA give you rights to access, correct, export, and delete personal data a company holds about you.

For everything on your device — your aquarium, step history, health data, and the names you typed — you already have complete control, using the steps above. None of it ever reaches us.

For the subscription record and setup answers held by RevenueCat, email finsteps@proton.me and we will access, correct, export, or delete them for you. We don't need identity documents; the anonymous identifier shown under Manage subscription in the app is enough to find your record.

We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined under the CCPA, and we do not use any of this for advertising.

Changes to this policy

If FinSteps changes in a way that affects your privacy — for example, if a future version adds features that send more off the device, or if we change what the subscription system receives — we will update this page and change the date at the top before that version ships. Continued use of the app after an update means you accept the revised policy.

Contact

Questions about this policy or about privacy in FinSteps: finsteps@proton.me.