Privacy policy

In short

Your diary stays on your iPhone. Shade has no account and no server, and I never receive anything you log. The only thing that leaves your iPhone because of Shade is your approximate location, which goes to Apple Weather so the app can show the air pressure and the forecast.

What the app stores

Everything you put into Shade is saved on your iPhone, in the app’s own storage: your attacks and symptom days with their times, how bad they were, the medication you took and when, symptoms, possible triggers, where it hurt, how you felt afterwards, your notes, your list of medications and your settings. For each attack Shade also stores the day before: the change in air pressure, the warmest temperature, whether it was humid, how long you slept and your cycle day.

Like the data of any app, the diary is part of your iPhone’s backups (iCloud Backup or a computer), which Apple or your computer keep under your control. Shade doesn’t use iCloud for anything else.

Health data

What you log in Shade is health data under the GDPR. It is kept only as described above and is never sent to me or to anyone else. If you allow it, Shade reads two kinds of data from Apple Health on your iPhone: sleep analysis (how long you slept) and cycle tracking (the days of a period). It uses them to show last night’s sleep and your cycle day and to record them with each attack. Shade never writes to Apple Health. You can change what Shade may read at any time in the Health app under Sharing, Apps, Shade.

Speech

If you tap the microphone in Say it, Shade turns what you say into text with Apple’s speech recognition on your iPhone. It always uses the recognition on the device, so neither the audio nor the text leaves your iPhone. Shade doesn’t keep the audio. The text is saved in the entry’s notes, in your diary on your iPhone.

Location and weather

If you allow it, Shade uses your approximate location (not your exact position) to ask Apple’s WeatherKit service for the air pressure, the temperature and the forecast, and to record the weather before an attack. Apple receives that location with the request, under Apple’s privacy policy. Shade keeps the last approximate place, rounded to about a kilometre, on your iPhone so that pressure alerts can check the forecast in the background. Weather data: Apple Weather (data sources).

Purchases

Apple handles payment for Shade Pro. Shade checks whether Pro is active with Apple’s StoreKit on your iPhone; no other company is involved, and I don’t receive your name, email or payment details.

Notifications

Pressure alerts (Pro) are only sent if you turn them on. Your iPhone checks the forecast for the last approximate place a few times a day and shows the notice itself; nothing passes through a server of mine.

Sharing and export

The report for your doctor, the CSV export and backups are made on your iPhone and handed to the share sheet, so you decide where they go. The files are not encrypted; keep them somewhere private. Until you share them they never leave your iPhone.

No tracking

Shade has no analytics, no ads and no tracking SDKs, and doesn’t use the advertising identifier. If you have chosen to share analytics with app developers in iOS Settings, Apple shows me anonymous, combined figures such as installs and crash reports, never anything you logged.

Legal bases

Shade processes your data on your device to provide the diary you asked for (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). Health data you enter or allow Shade to read from Apple Health is processed with your explicit consent, which you give by entering it or by allowing access, and can withdraw at any time (Art. 9(2)(a) GDPR). Your approximate location is sent to Apple Weather only with your consent in the iOS prompt (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR); you can withdraw it in the iPhone’s Settings under Privacy & Security, Location Services, Shade.

Deleting your data

Delete single entries in the app, or delete everything in Settings under Your diary. Deleting the app removes the diary from your iPhone. Copies in backups you made or files you exported stay where you put them.

Children

Shade isn’t aimed at children and doesn’t collect personal information from anyone, children included.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can access, correct and delete your personal data, take a copy of it, restrict or object to its use, withdraw consent, and complain to a data protection authority, for example the Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen. Because Shade keeps your data on your iPhone, you can do most of this yourself: edit it, export it or delete it in the app. For purchase records, which Apple holds, write to me and I’ll help.

This website

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Contact

The controller responsible for Shade is Alex Galkin, Tristanstr. 2, 45473 Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. Write to alex.galkin.dev@gmail.com. If this policy changes, the new version will be posted on this page with a new date.