Privacy policy
Draft. This will be reviewed by a lawyer and completed before FirstHour launches. The company name, contact details and a few other details are still to come.
Short answerFirstHour reads your pictures on your iPhone. It doesn't upload them, doesn't sell anything about you, and has no ads or analytics code. One optional feature, Theft Lock, uses a server, and it's explained below.
What stays on your iPhone
- Your pictures, and what's found in them. The check runs on your iPhone. FirstHour doesn't send them to us or anyone else.
- Everything in the Vault. Photos, videos, files and notes are encrypted on your iPhone and left out of iCloud and computer backups. We can't read them. To show a file other than a PDF, or to save or share a file or note, FirstHour makes one temporary unlocked copy and removes it afterwards. A file sent from another app waits as a temporary unlocked copy until the Vault opens, and it's removed when the Vault locks. Search reads your notes only while you search, in memory, and saves no list. What iPhone's Quick Look keeps while showing a file is outside FirstHour's control. A backup you save goes wherever you put it, still encrypted.
- Your pattern, PIN and recovery phrase. We never receive them, so we can't look them up or reset them. Here's how the Vault works.
- Your Plan B. We never receive the providers you tick, the numbers you add, or your IMEI and serial number. They're kept on your iPhone. The providers and numbers are ordinary app settings, so they're included if your iPhone backs up to iCloud or a computer. If you share, email or print your plan, that copy goes where you send it.
What we don't do
- No ads, and no analytics code in the app.
- We don't sell your data, and we don't track you across other apps or websites.
- We never ask for your account passwords or one-time codes.
Permissions FirstHour asks for
iPhone asks you first, and you can change any of these later in Settings.
| Permission | Why |
|---|---|
| Photos | To sort your pictures and point out ones that show a card, an ID or bank details, on your iPhone. If you ask it to, FirstHour also uses this to hide a picture, move one into the Vault, save one back, or delete one, and iPhone asks before anything is deleted. If you use iCloud Photos, your iPhone may download a picture from your own iCloud so it can be read. |
| Camera | Only for taking photos and videos straight into the Vault. |
| Microphone | Only to record sound with a video you're taking in the Vault. |
| Face ID | For the app lock, which is always on once you've finished the welcome pages. If you don't allow Face ID, your iPhone passcode works instead. Apple handles Face ID on your iPhone, and FirstHour never receives your face data. |
| Location | Only if you turn on Recovery location, part of Theft Lock. iPhone first asks to allow it while using FirstHour, so places are noted when you open it. Only if you also tap "Also in the background", iPhone asks to allow it Always, and then notes a place when the phone moves a fair distance, even if FirstHour isn't open. See below. |
Theft Lock, the one optional feature that uses a server
Theft Lock isn't in the app today. We plan to include it when FirstHour launches, once it can be turned off and its account deleted. It would be off unless you turned it on. It lets you mark your iPhone as lost from another device, so FirstHour locks itself on that phone. If you turn it on:
- We keep: an account for this copy of FirstHour; your iPhone's model and that it's an iPhone; whether it's been marked lost; when it was added and last checked in; scrambled sign-in records; and a dated record of security events, such as being marked lost, sign-ins to the recovery page and wrong recovery codes. We don't store your account recovery code, only a scrambled fingerprint of it that lets us recognize it. Our server doesn't save your internet address or browser details. [hosting provider's logs to be confirmed]
- How long: the account and security record stay after you delete the app. FirstHour has no way yet to turn Theft Lock off or delete the account. [to be built before Theft Lock launches]
- If you also turn on Recovery location: we keep the places your iPhone noted, how accurate they are, what prompted each one, the times and a rough battery level. Each place is deleted after 24 hours, or 72 if you choose that. Turning off Recovery location deletes them from your iPhone and our server, as long as your iPhone can reach it. A phone marked lost keeps sending places until you remove it for good.
- We never receive: your pictures, the Vault, or anything FirstHour finds.
Who else may be involved
- Apple runs the App Store, iCloud, and the iPhone's own features such as dictation. Apple's own privacy policy applies to those.
- Other websites, only if you tap a provider's or Apple's link.
- Apple Maps, only if you tap Map on the recovery page, which sends that place to Apple.
- Your check-in contact, if you set up the phone check-in. Apple's Shortcuts sends them your location and photos when they text your code. FirstHour doesn't receive any of it.
- Our hosting provider would store Theft Lock's data for us, once it's available. [provider to be added]
This website
To learn which pages help people, this website counts visits with a privacy-friendly counter. It sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device. [the counter's name, and where its data is kept and for how long, to be added once chosen]
- We count: which pages are visited, the website that sent you here, such as a search engine, your country, the kind of device and browser, and taps on the App Store button.
- We don't collect: your name, email or any account; your exact location; anything about your pictures; or a profile that follows you from visit to visit or across other websites. Visits aren't recorded or replayed.
- No ads: this website shows no ads and uses no advertising trackers.
- The free tools don't load the counter, so once a tool page opens, nothing is contacted.
- In your browser, this website remembers only your light or dark choice, if you make one. Theft Lock's recovery page, once available, sets a 30-minute sign-in cookie.
- The app is different: FirstHour itself has no analytics code. Counting happens on this website only.
[hosting logs to be confirmed before launch]
Your choices
- Turn any permission off in your iPhone's Settings.
- Delete FirstHour to remove the Vault and most of what it keeps on your iPhone. iPhone may keep a few small items in its secure storage, the Keychain, even after an app is deleted: your Vault's locked key record, the IMEI and serial number you typed, and Theft Lock's sign-in. They can't open anything, because the Vault's contents are gone. Deleting the app doesn't touch copies you saved to Files or Photos, or a Theft Lock account on our server. Read this first, because the Vault can't be brought back without a backup.
- Your rights may depend on where you live, including asking us for a copy of, or to delete, data we hold about you. [how to ask, to be added]
Children
FirstHour isn't aimed at children. [minimum age to be confirmed]
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, we'll update the date at the top. [company name and contact to be added]