Privacy Policy

Kindling, the habit tracker by Hearthside Apps. Last updated 29 August 2026.

Who we are

Kindling is made by Hearthside Apps, operated from the United Kingdom by a sole trader who is the data controller for the personal data described here. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), registration reference ZC218132. Contact for anything in this policy: hello@hearthsideapps.com.

What Kindling keeps on your phone

• Your habits: each one's name, colour, schedule (every day, or a number of times a week), reminder time if you set one, and the date you created it.
• The days you marked each habit done.
• Your settings: grid direction, the day your week starts, whether you have seen the welcome, and a note of when the last cloud backup ran.

All of this is stored in the app's private storage on your phone. It is not sent anywhere by the app on its own. Uninstalling the app deletes it, which is exactly why the two backup roads below exist.

Reminders

Reminders are scheduled on your phone by the app itself. No server is involved, and nothing about your reminders leaves the phone. To keep them arriving, the app may ask for permission to show notifications and to set exact-time alarms, and it may point you to Android's battery settings for Kindling; it never changes those settings itself.

Your own backup file (free)

Export to file writes a single file containing your habits, marked days and settings, and lets you choose where to save it: your phone's Downloads folder, a cloud drive you already use, anywhere. That file is yours. We never see it, and wherever you put it is governed by that service's own privacy policy, not ours. Import from file reads one back and replaces what is on the phone.

Cloud backup (Premium)

Signing in with Google

Cloud backup needs an account that survives an uninstall or a new phone, so it uses your Google account through Google's sign-in and Firebase Authentication, a Google service. When you sign in, we receive your Google account's email address, name and profile picture link, and Google's identifier for the account. We use the email address to show you which account you are signed in with; the identifier is the key your backup is stored under. Google's sign-in and Firebase Authentication process this under Google's privacy policy; Firebase Authentication runs from data centres in the United States and keeps the IP address used at sign-in for a few weeks for abuse prevention. Sign-in requests also carry a technical "user agent" (the app and SDK version) that Google keeps to maintain Firebase.

What is stored in the cloud

A backup is a copy of what is on your phone: your habits (name, colour, schedule, reminder time, creation date), the days marked done, your grid and week-start settings, and a header recording when the backup was taken, the app version that took it, and how many habits and marked days it holds. Nothing else: no location, no contacts, no device details beyond what Firebase records technically, which we describe below.

Where it lives, and who can see it

Backups are stored in Cloud Firestore, a Google database, in Google's London region (europe-west2), encrypted at rest and in transit. The database's access rules allow only the signed-in owner of an account to read or write that account's backup. We do not read your backup in the ordinary course of running the service; the app reads it back to you when you restore, and shows you the header's date and counts so you know what the cloud holds. Firestore also records a technical "user agent" (app and SDK version) that Google uses to measure platform adoption; Google states it is never linked to a user.

Automatic backups

With Premium, and only while you are signed in, the app quietly backs up when it starts and when you leave it, if something has changed since the last backup and at least thirty minutes have passed. Back up now does the same on demand. Signing out stops automatic backups; your habits stay on the phone.

Restoring

Restore from cloud replaces everything on the phone with the backup. Restore is open to any signed-in account that has a backup, including a lapsed Premium subscriber: your own history is never held hostage.

Premium subscriptions

Kindling Premium is a subscription bought through Google Play. Google processes the payment; we never see your card or billing details. To know whether your subscription is active, the app uses RevenueCat, a subscription management service, which receives from Google Play your purchase history for Kindling (what was bought, when, whether it is active, trial or cancelled) together with an anonymous identifier RevenueCat creates for the app installation and basic app and device metadata such as the app version and platform. RevenueCat does not receive your name or email address from us. It keeps purchase records to manage your entitlement and for its legitimate business purposes under its own privacy policy. You can ask us to have your RevenueCat record deleted; see Your rights below.

What we never do

• We do not sell your data, share it for marketing, or use it for advertising or profiling.
• The app contains no advertising, no analytics and no crash-reporting service. It does not use the advertising ID.
• The app does not read your contacts, location, photos, or anything outside its own storage, apart from the single backup file you choose to import.
• This website runs no analytics or tracking scripts, loads nothing from third parties, and sets no cookies.

Permissions the app asks for

• Notifications, so reminders can show.
• Exact alarms, so reminders land on the minute rather than drifting. Refusing it does not stop reminders; they may arrive a little late.
• Start at boot, so reminders are re-scheduled after the phone restarts.
• Internet, used only for cloud backup and for checking your subscription. A free user who never signs in sends nothing but the subscription check that Google Play and RevenueCat need.

Our lawful bases

Under UK data protection law (UK GDPR): we process your habits and settings on your phone, your subscription status, and your cloud backup to provide the app and the services you asked for (performance of a contract). Cloud backup exists only if you sign in and switch it on, which you can undo at any time by signing out or deleting the account (consent). Sign-in security checks made by Google rest on our legitimate interest in keeping accounts safe.

Where your data lives

• Your habits: on your phone.
• Cloud backups: Google's London region (United Kingdom).
• Sign-in records: Google's Firebase Authentication, United States, under Google's standard data-transfer safeguards.
• Subscription records: RevenueCat, United States, under its standard safeguards.
• This website is served through a content delivery network that may keep standard security logs of requests.

How long we keep things

• On your phone: until you delete a habit, import a backup, or uninstall the app.
• Cloud backup: until you delete it. Each backup replaces the previous one; we keep no history of old backups.
• Your account: until you delete it. Google removes deleted authentication data from its live and backup systems within 180 days.
• Subscription records: for as long as needed to manage your subscription and to meet tax and accounting obligations.

Deleting your account and data

Inside the app: Settings, then Backup, then Delete cloud backup and account. This erases your backup from the cloud and deletes the account itself. What is on your phone stays, and you can keep using Kindling without an account.

Outside the app: email hello@hearthsideapps.com from the Google account's address, or see hearthsideapps.com/delete-account. We will delete the backup and the account within 7 days. A subscription is cancelled separately, in Google Play, and deleting your account does not cancel it.

Your rights

You have the rights UK GDPR gives you: to access the personal data we hold about you, to correct it, to have it deleted, to restrict or object to processing, and to data portability (Export to file gives you a full copy at any time). Ask at hello@hearthsideapps.com and we will verify you control the Google account concerned. Deletion requests are honoured within 7 days; anything else within one month.

Children

Kindling is a general-audience app and is not directed at children. Cloud backup requires a Google account, which has its own minimum age. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 13; if you believe that has happened, tell us and we will delete it.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, tell us first and we will try to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the UK's supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner's Office, at ico.org.uk.

Changes to this policy

The date at the top shows the current version. Material changes will be noted in the app's release notes on Google Play.