The short version
- Your screen time never leaves your phone. Not to us, and not to your friends.
- The waitlist keeps your email, one answer, your country and when you joined.
- We count visits to the home page with Google Analytics. In the EU, the UK and Switzerland it only runs if you say yes.
- We never sell anything, and there are no ads.
The waitlist
When you join, we store:
- your email address
- your answer to “how many friends would do this with you”, if you give one
- the country your connection comes from, which our hosting provider works out for us. We don't store your IP address.
- when you signed up
We use these to tell you when Phone Escape is ready, to keep your free-for-life place, and to decide where to launch first. You'll get a confirmation when you join and one email when it's ready. Nothing else, and every email has a link that takes you off the list. Our emails carry no images and no tracking, so we never know whether you opened one. We don't sell or share the list.
Keeping bots out
The signup form runs a quick check to tell people from bots. It looks at signals from your browser and connection, and most people never see it. Our hosting provider runs the check, and all we get back is a yes or a no.
Counting visits
The home page uses Google Analytics to count visits: how many people come, where they arrived from, their country and their kind of device. It sets cookies to tell a new visitor from a returning one, and it counts each signup, without ever seeing the email. We switched off Google's advertising features, and Google Analytics doesn't store IP addresses. Google handles this data under its own terms, and keeps the detailed records for two months.
- In the EU, the UK and Switzerland it only runs if you say yes.
- Anyone can switch it off with “Cookie choices” at the bottom of the home page. We remember your choice in your browser.
- Invite pages and this page don't use it.
The app
On iPhone, Phone Escape uses the iPhone's own Screen Time controls to shield the apps you choose. On Android, it uses an accessibility service, which notices which app is in front (never what's on the screen) so it can cover the apps you chose. What it notices never leaves your phone.
Stays on your phone
Which apps you pick, when you open them, how long you use them, your sessions, passes and daily budget, and each time you tap Go back on the block screen. The app keeps two weeks of this, to show you “Your week”. We never receive any of it, and neither do your friends. The apps you pick and the last two weeks of sessions are also kept in your iPhone's keychain, or on Android by Google Play services (Block Store), still only on your phone, so deleting and reinstalling the app doesn't reset them.
Goes to our server, only if you start or join a pledge
A random ID and sign-in code our server makes the first time you start or join a pledge (there's no sign-up and no password), when you last used the app (to the hour), the first name you type, and for each pledge, its title, its terms, and when people joined or left. If you ask your pledge for extra minutes: how many, the note you write, and who said yes. If you allow notifications: the address your phone gives us for them, so friends' asks and answers can reach you. If you pick an avatar: which emoji. If you check in: the days you tapped “Pledge Kept Today”. If you cheer a friend on: who cheered whom, and when. If you report something someone wrote: what it said, who wrote it, and who reported it. If you block someone: that you did. If a friend asks for another round of a pledge and you say not now: that you did. While you're in a pledge: whether anything is shielded on your phone right now, a yes or no, never which apps. On Android, also a scrambled code made from your phone's ID for this app, so reinstalling the app on the same phone can get your account back when Google Backup is off. The ID itself never leaves your phone.
Who sees what
Others in the same pledge see your first name and avatar, when you joined, whether you're still in, and the days you checked in, plus any ask you send: the minutes, your note, and who said yes. A cheer is seen only by the friend you cheered. If nothing is shielded on your phone while you're in a pledge, the others are told that, and see it beside your name: only that, never which apps you chose or how many. Never your screen time. If someone asks for another round of a pledge you finished, they and the friends it asks see who said yes or not now. Anyone holding an invite code or link can see that pledge's title and terms and the first name of whoever started it, but not who else is in it. Nobody is told who reported or blocked them.
The server has nowhere to store anything about how you use your phone, so it can't leak what it never had.
Who handles data for us
- Our hosting provider runs the website and the bot check, and stores the waitlist and pledges.
- An email service sends our emails.
- Notifications reach your phone through the notification service built into iPhone, or on Android, Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging. An ask's notification carries the minutes, your note and first names. The one saying someone joined a pledge carries their first name and the pledge's title. The ones saying it has started, or that someone left, rejoined or deleted the app, carry the pledge: its title, terms and invite code, and for each person in it their first name, avatar, when they joined or left, and whether nothing is shielded on their phone. A cheer's notification carries who cheered you, and the one saying someone has nothing shielded carries their first name and the pledge's title. An ask for another round carries who asked, the pledge, and what changed in its terms; an answer to it carries the friend's first name. A silent daily check carries nothing at all. None of them carry anything about your screen time.
- Our own inbox gets a short note, with your address, whenever someone joins the waitlist, and one with the words reported whenever someone reports something.
- Google Analytics counts visits to the home page.
- On your phone, the blocking is done by the phone itself: by iOS on iPhone, and on Android by the app's own accessibility service, which keeps what it notices on the phone.
That's the whole list. Each service that handles data from the app protects it at least as well as this policy does. Apart from Google Analytics, the site sets no cookies.
How long we keep it
- The waitlist: for as long as we're using it, which includes honoring everyone's free-for-life place, or until you take yourself off it. If our email to you can't be delivered, or you mark it as spam, your address is deleted automatically.
- Pledges: for as long as the pledge exists. Leaving is recorded rather than erased, and the others get a notification that you left. If you want your name gone entirely, use Delete my data in the app's settings.
- Asks for extra minutes: a week, then they're deleted automatically.
- Check-ins: two weeks. Cheers: a week. Not-now answers to another round: 30 days. Then they're deleted automatically.
- Reports: 30 days, then they're deleted automatically. Blocks: until you unblock someone or delete your data.
- Your phone's notification address: until Apple or Google tell us the app is no longer on it, then a month more, marked as gone, and then it's deleted automatically. While you're in a pledge, the server sends your phone a silent check about once a day that shows nothing. If every phone you used for the pledge no longer has Phone Escape, and you haven't used the app since and for a day, you're taken out of the pledge, as if you'd left, and the others are told you deleted the app.
- When you last used the app: until you delete your data.
- On Android, the code for getting your account back: until you delete your data.
- Visit statistics: Google keeps the detailed records for two months.
Your choices
- To leave the waitlist, use the link at the bottom of any email from us. Your address is deleted straight away.
- To see, correct or delete what we have about you, all of it or only some, email hello@phoneescape.com. For the waitlist, write from the address you signed up with. For the app, give the first name you use in it and the name of your pledge. We'll do it within 30 days, and deleting only some of your app data keeps your account. The support page says how.
- Leave a pledge from the app at any time.
- Delete your data from the app: Settings › Delete my data. Your account, your name and avatar, when you last used the app, your asks, check-ins, cheers and answers to another round, your phone's notification address and, on Android, its code for getting your account back are deleted from our server at once, and so is any pledge nobody else was in. A pledge you started that friends are still in stays for them, without your name, and so does a yes you gave to a friend's ask, until that ask is deleted. If you're in a pledge, you leave it, and as with leaving, the others are told and your limits stay on for 24 hours, or until the pledge ends if that's sooner.
- Deleting the app removes its files and its access to Screen Time. The key that signs your phone in, the apps you picked, the last two weeks of sessions and, until the wait after leaving is over, a pledge you left or deleted stay in your iPhone's keychain, or on Android with Google Play services while Google Backup is on, so reinstalling picks up where you left off. The Android copy isn't sent to Google's cloud.
- Switch off visit counting with “Cookie choices” on the home page.
Children
Phone Escape isn't meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information. If you think a child has signed up, email us and we'll delete it.
Changes
If we change what we collect, this page changes first and the date at the top moves.