Privacy Policy

1. Scope of this policy

This Privacy Policy describes how the iOS application Sober: Sobriety Counter (the “App”), published by MD Shahariar Nazim Joy, an individual developer operating as a sole proprietor (“the Developer,” “we,” “us”), handles information. It also covers this website, which exists solely to publish the App’s marketing, legal, and support pages.

This policy does not cover Apple Inc.’s own handling of your information. When you download the App or make a purchase, you are transacting with Apple, and Apple’s privacy policy governs that relationship. You can read it at apple.com/legal/privacy.

2. Information we collect

We collect no information. This is not a stylistic flourish; it is a description of the App’s architecture. The App has no user account system, performs no registration, issues no user identifier, and transmits no personal data to the Developer or to any third party. Specifically, the Developer does not collect, receive, store, or have any access to:

• Your name, email address, phone number, postal address, or any other contact information.
• Your quit date or dates, sobriety streaks, counters, or milestone history.
• Your journal entries or any other free text you write in the App.
• Your money-saved figures, spending inputs, or calorie estimates.
• Device identifiers, advertising identifiers (IDFA), or the IDFV.
• Your IP address, approximate or precise location, or any location-derived data.
• Usage analytics, event logs, crash telemetry, session recordings, or heatmaps.
• Contacts, photos, camera or microphone data, health data, or any HealthKit data.

The App requests no permissions other than notifications, and even that permission is optional (see Section 5). The App does not request access to your camera, contacts, location, photo library, microphone, or health data, because it does not use them.

3. On-device storage

Everything you create in the App is stored locally on your device using Apple SwiftData, Apple’s on-device persistence framework. This includes your counters and quit dates, your journal entries, your milestone and badge progress, your money and calorie settings, and your app preferences.

This data lives in the App’s private sandbox on your device, an area that iOS isolates from other applications. It is not uploaded to the Developer, because the Developer operates no servers to upload it to. If your device is configured to back up to iCloud or to a computer, your device backup may include the App’s data as part of that backup. That backup is created and encrypted by Apple under your Apple Account and your control; the Developer has no access to it and cannot read it. You can review Apple’s description of device backups at support.apple.com/en-us/HT207428.

4. Purchases via Apple

The App requires a Sober Pro purchase to use, and offers auto-renewing subscriptions and a one-time lifetime purchase. All purchases are processed by Apple through the App Store and Apple’s StoreKit framework. This is the only circumstance in which the App communicates over the network at all.

When you buy or restore a purchase, the App asks StoreKit whether you hold a valid entitlement, and StoreKit answers. The Developer never sees, receives, or stores your payment details — not your credit or debit card number, not your billing address, and not your Apple Account credentials. Apple handles the payment, the receipt, and the entitlement. Apple’s handling of that transaction is governed by Apple’s privacy policy, not this one.

The Developer receives from Apple only aggregate, anonymized sales and payout reporting through App Store Connect — for example, the number of units sold in a territory. This reporting is prepared by Apple, contains no information that identifies you, and cannot be linked back to you by the Developer.

5. Notifications

The App can send you optional daily motivational reminders. These are local notifications, scheduled on your device with Apple’s UNUserNotificationCenter (the UserNotifications framework). They are composed and delivered entirely by iOS on your device.

There is no push notification server. The App does not register for remote push notifications, does not obtain a push token, and sends nothing to any notification service. No third party is told that you received, opened, or ignored a reminder.

Notifications are entirely optional. You may decline the permission prompt, and the App will continue to work. You may turn notifications off at any time in iOS Settings > Notifications > Sober, or within the App’s own settings.

6. No analytics, no advertising, no third-party trackers

The App contains:

• No analytics SDK. There is no Firebase Analytics, no Google Analytics, no Mixpanel, no Amplitude, no Segment, and no equivalent. The Developer does not measure how you use the App.
• No advertising SDK. There are no ads in the App, no ad network, no ad mediation, and no advertising identifier is read or used.
• No third-party trackers. No attribution SDK, no crash-reporting SDK that transmits off-device, no social login SDK, no marketing pixel, and no fingerprinting of any kind.
• No sale or sharing of personal information. We have no personal information to sell or share, and we do not sell or share any.

For the purposes of Apple’s App Privacy questionnaire on the App Store product page, the App’s declaration is “Data Not Collected”, meaning the developer does not collect any data from this app. This website is served as static pages by GitHub Pages and sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and loads no external scripts, fonts, or images.

7. Children’s privacy

The App is rated 17+ because it contains references to alcohol and substance use. It is not directed to children and is not intended for use by anyone under the age of 13. The Developer does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 — and, as set out above, does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone at all.

If you are a parent or guardian and you believe a child has used the App, be assured that no data left the device. You may delete the App and its data at any time (see Section 8). If you have any concerns, please contact us at dmjks120@gmail.com. This approach is intended to be consistent with the United States Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and Article 8 of the GDPR.

8. Data retention and deletion

Because the Developer never receives your data, the Developer retains none of it. Retention is entirely a matter of what is on your device, and it is entirely under your control.

• To delete a single counter and its associated data: delete that counter inside the App. Its record, streak, and related entries are removed from your device.
• To delete everything: delete the App from your device. Removing an iOS app removes its sandbox, which permanently erases all data the App stored, including all counters, journal entries, and milestones.
• Device backups: if you have previously backed up your device, a copy of the App data may persist inside that backup until the backup is deleted or overwritten. Backups are managed by Apple under your Apple Account, and you can manage or delete them in iOS Settings.

Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone by the Developer, who has no copy of your data and therefore cannot restore it.

9. Your rights (GDPR and CCPA/CPRA)

Privacy laws such as the European Union and United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the CPRA (CCPA) give you rights over personal information that a business collects about you. These typically include the right to access your data, to correct it, to delete it, to port it, to restrict or object to its processing, to withdraw consent, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information — and the right not to be discriminated against for exercising those rights.

Since the App collects no personal data and transmits none to the Developer, there is nothing for you to request, correct, port, or have deleted by us. We hold no file on you. We have no profile to disclose, no personal information to sell or share (and we do not sell or share any), and no data subject record to erase. In effect, you exercise the substance of these rights directly and immediately: your data is in your hands, on your device, and you can delete it at any time as described in Section 8.

You nevertheless retain the right to contact us and to ask any question about this policy or about how the App works. Write to dmjks120@gmail.com and we will respond, ordinarily within two business days and in any event within the time limits required by applicable law. If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you also retain the right to lodge a complaint with your national data protection supervisory authority.

10. International users

The App is available in the territories in which Apple distributes it and functions identically in all of them. Because your data never leaves your device, there is no international transfer of your personal data by the Developer — no cross-border transfer, no onward transfer, and no reliance on Standard Contractual Clauses or any other transfer mechanism, because no transfer occurs.

The Developer is based in Bangladesh. Purchases are transacted with Apple, and Apple determines the relevant contracting entity and the treatment of that transaction based on your App Store territory. This website is hosted on GitHub Pages, and simply requesting a page from it may, as with any website, be logged by the host as part of normal service operation; the Developer does not access, analyze, or retain such logs.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time, for example to reflect a change in the App’s functionality or a change in applicable law. When we do, we will revise the effective date at the top of this page and post the updated policy here, at this same URL.

If a change is material — in particular, if the App ever begins to collect personal data, which it does not do today — we will make that change prominent within the App and obtain your consent where the law requires it. Your continued use of the App after an update takes effect constitutes your acceptance of the revised policy.

12. Contact

If you have any question, concern, or complaint about this Privacy Policy or about privacy in the App, please contact the Developer directly. We aim to respond within two business days.

See also our Terms of Use, our Support page, and our Medical Disclaimer.