Privacy Policy

The short version

What Nudge stores

• Profile: your display name, optional bio, optional avatar photo or emoji, and accent color. Your profile is visible to other Nudge users you interact with (for example, members of a shared countdown and your Nudge Mates). If you add your birthday, it stays in your private data and is not part of your public profile.
• Countdowns and their content: titles, dates, notes, categories, locations you attach, photos, nudges (taps and short messages), replies, emoji reactions, photo pings, and surprises (photos or messages that unlock on the day). For shared countdowns this content is visible to every member of that countdown. Personal countdowns, and secret countdowns you haven't shared, are not shared with anyone. In a shared countdown (not a secret one), Nudge also keeps, for each member, when they last looked at its nudges (as the time of the newest nudge from others when they last opened it), so the app can show how many of your nudges your friends opened; members of that countdown can therefore tell roughly when you last looked.
• App activity signals: the approximate time you last opened the app, your device's time zone identifier, the app version you run, and a running total of your countdowns (secret ones included, as a number only; countdowns deleted before you updated to Nudge 1.1.1 are not in it), which your profile panel shows when it is higher than the Countdowns number there. Starting with the next app update, the app also shares an aggregate count of the ordinary Nudge Mates known on your device, excluding blocked people, sample contacts and people known only through secret countdowns. This count contains no contact identities. These signals are stored on your profile record, which other Nudge users' apps download along with your profile, although the app does not show the signals to them. We use them to operate the service and to understand how Nudge is used (for example, to know which app versions are still active and how many countdowns people make). They are never used for advertising or profiling.
• Safety data: if you block someone, a hashed record of that block is added to your public profile so their app can hide your photo, emoji, bio and new activity from them. The record is hashed, but someone who knows both user identifiers, such as a member of a countdown you share, could check it. If you report someone, the report is stored so we can review it: the reason you chose, your optional details, your and their user identifiers, their display name, their bio and a copy of their recent nudges and replies (up to ten of each), including when each was sent and the title of the countdown it was posted in (secret countdowns included; a message that has already expired in a self-deleting countdown is left out).
• Invites and notifications: when you invite a Nudge Mate, an invite with your name, the countdown's join code and (unless the countdown is secret) its title is stored for them. To deliver alerts such as nudges, replies, joins and invites, a small record with the sender's name and the alert text is written for each recipient and delivered through Apple's push notification service.

Where it lives

Nudge keeps your data on your device and in Apple's iCloud CloudKit service, in Apple's data centers and under Apple's security measures. Nudge's content remains stored in Apple CloudKit. We use a protected Vercel-hosted administration backend to fetch shared database records when needed to run the service, review reports, handle support and manage account bans. The dashboard does not keep a separate content database. Vercel processes these requests and normal hosting logs on our behalf; we do not send user content to third-party analytics or advertising services. At most once a day, Nudge also asks Apple's App Store whether a newer version of the app exists; that request contains only the app's identifier and your App Store country, plus what any web request carries, such as your IP address.

• Your private iCloud database holds your countdowns (secret ones included), settings and Nudge Mates, and your iCloud key-value storage keeps the list of shared countdowns you're in so they can be restored after a reinstall, and a short code for each countdown you have had so that none is counted twice in your countdown total. We cannot read either.
• Nudge's shared (public) CloudKit database holds what other people's devices need to reach: shared countdowns and everything posted in them, profiles, invites, notification records and reports. As the developer we can access these shared records through Apple's CloudKit tools and our protected administration dashboard. We do so only to run and improve the service, review reports and handle support or deletion requests. The dashboard can change an account's ban flag; other record fields are read-only there.

Device permissions

• Notifications: requested the first time Nudge needs them (for example when you save a countdown with reminders, or share or join one), so Nudge can show your reminders and alerts such as nudges, replies and invites. Reminders are scheduled on your device.
• Calendar: only when you tap Suggest from Calendar or add a countdown to Calendar. Nudge reads your upcoming events on your device so you can pick one, and only removes calendar events it added itself.
• Location: only for "Remind me when I'm nearby". iOS detects your arrival on your device; your location is never uploaded.
• Camera: only to scan a join QR code. Nothing is recorded or stored.
• Photos: photos you pick are added to your countdown or profile; saving a share image adds it to your photo library.
• Maps: place search and maps use Apple Maps. Choosing Google Maps under Open in Maps opens the place in Google Maps.

What we never do

• No advertising, and no data shared with advertisers.
• No third-party analytics, tracking SDKs, or fingerprinting.
• No selling, renting, or trading of your information to anyone, ever.
• No reading of your private (non-shared) countdowns.

Sharing and visibility

When you join or create a shared countdown, its members can see the countdown's content and your activity in it (nudges, replies, reactions, photo pings, photos and surprises), along with your profile. Any member can edit a shared countdown's details and photos. Leaving a countdown, or being removed from one, ends your participation, but what you already posted there stays visible to the remaining members. If you are removed, Nudge 1.1 or later deletes your copy of the countdown and its history from your devices and your private iCloud the next time it syncs, normally without telling you (if the countdown's creator still uses an older version of Nudge, you may see that it ended instead). If you leave, your own copy stays as a personal countdown, as long as all your devices run Nudge 1.1 or later. You can report or block anyone from their profile; the Terms of Use explain exactly what blocking hides and its limits. Accounts that post objectionable content or abuse others can be permanently banned.

Retention and deletion

• Deleting a shared countdown you created removes it from Nudge's shared database, together with its nudges, replies, photos and surprises, and each member's app removes it from their device and private iCloud when it next syncs. Deleting a countdown you joined only takes you out of it: what you posted there stays visible to the remaining members.
• Single nudges, replies and surprises can't be deleted one by one in the app. The exception is a self-deleting secret countdown, an option when you create a countdown inside the secret space: there, nudges, replies, reactions and photo pings are deleted an hour after they are sent, on every device running Nudge 1.1 or later, and the countdown itself is deleted a day after its date. Photos added to it are not on that clock. A report filed before a message expires keeps a copy of it for review. Photo pings stop showing after 24 hours; expired pings are cleared from iCloud the next time someone pings a photo in that countdown, or when the countdown is deleted.
• “Erase all data” in Settings deletes all your countdowns, ends the shared countdowns you created, takes you out of the ones you joined, and resets your public profile (name, photo, emoji, bio and color). It does not remove your Nudge Mates list (their names, photos and bios stay in your private iCloud), what you posted in countdowns you joined, notification records with your name in other people's inboxes, reports you sent or that concern you, the app activity signals (your countdown total and aggregate mate count included) and hashed block list on your profile record, or the countdown codes in your iCloud key-value storage.
• To request deletion of your profile record and any remaining data in Nudge's shared database, email us (address below). We will honor the request within 30 days. Copies already downloaded to other members' devices and their private iCloud go away when the countdown they belong to is deleted or when that member is removed from it; a member who left keeps their copy.

Children

Nudge is not directed to children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your region), and we do not knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child has provided data through Nudge, contact us and we will delete what Nudge's shared database holds about them.

Your rights

Depending on where you live (for example under GDPR in Europe), you may have rights to access, correct, export, or delete your personal data. In the app you can edit or clear your profile, delete your countdowns and use Erase all data; see Retention and deletion for what those do not remove. For anything else, including data held in Nudge's shared database, email us and we will help.

Changes

If this policy changes materially, we will update this page and the effective date above.

Support & contact