Rutba privacy policy

• Your name. If you make a design for a couple, your partner's name too.
• Your photo. The app keeps one small copy of the photo you choose. It sees only the photo you pick, not the rest of your gallery.

The app also keeps a few things on the phone to do its work:

• the language you chose,
• the designs it has downloaded,
• small notes of its own, such as how many times it was opened and when it last showed an ad.

Asking for new designs

When you open the app, it asks our server whether there are new designs, and downloads them if there are.

The server gets your phone's internet address (IP address), the phone's model, and its Android version and build number, as every website does. The app sends no name and no number that marks you or your phone.

Who gets it: Cloudflare, the company that runs this server for us. We do not use this to find out who you are.

Checking that the internet works

Each time you come to the app, it asks a Google address whether the internet is working. If that one does not answer, it asks a second Google address. It asks again while the no-internet screen is showing.

Google gets the same things: the internet address, the phone's model, and its Android version and build number. Nothing else.

Who gets it: Google.

Ads

Rutba is free and shows ads. The ads come from AdMob, which is Google's ad service. Google's ad software is inside the app. By itself it collects these and sends them to Google:

• Your phone's internet address (IP address). Google says it may use this to estimate the general location of the phone.
• The phone's advertising ID. This is a number Android gives your phone for ads. Also the app set ID and, in Google's words, other identifiers related to signed-in accounts on the device.
• What you do in the app and with its ads. Google's examples are opening the app, taps, and watching video ads.
• How well the app runs. Google's examples are how long it takes to open, how often it hangs, and how much battery it uses.

Google says it uses these for advertising, for analytics and to prevent fraud. So Google may use them to choose which ads you see. All of it is sent over an encrypted connection.

The app never gives your name or your photo to the ad software.

Who gets it: Google. It handles this under its own privacy policy.

Counting how the app is used

To make the app better, we count how it is used. We do this with Google Analytics for Firebase, a counting service from Google. We count:

• when the app is opened, which screens are looked at, and for how long,
• which designs, kinds of designs and special-day pages are opened, saved and shared, which app they are shared to, and when a save or a share fails,
• that the photo step and the name step were finished, whether there is a photo, and whether the name was typed or spoken. Not the photo, and not the name,
• presses of the speaker, the mic, the language button and the privacy policy button,
• the language the app is in, and when it is changed,
• how many ads were asked for, shown, missed, pressed or closed, how long they took to load, and how much money an ad paid us,
• when new designs arrived, and when the no-internet screen showed,
• how many times you have opened the app, saved and shared, roughly, such as "2 to 4 times", and the size of the letters and of the screen on your phone.

Google's counting software is inside the app. By itself it also notes: the time, the phone's make and model, its Android version, its screen size, the phone's own language, the app's version, when the app was first opened, updated and removed, and, if Google Play knows it, which link or ad brought you to the app.

Your city and state. Google works out your country, state and city from your phone's internet address (IP address). Google says it does not keep the address itself. The app does not read your phone's GPS, so the place is only rough.

All of this is kept with a random number that Google's software makes on your phone. The random number is not your mobile number and not the advertising ID. It is not joined to your name. If you remove the app and install it again, a new one is made.

Your name, your partner's name, your photo, and anything you type or say are never in these counts.

The counts go to Google and are kept on Google's servers. These servers can be in other countries, so the counts can leave India.

We use the counts to improve the app and to see how the ads do. We do not sell them. We have set the counting so that it does not read the advertising ID, and we have told Google not to use these counts to choose ads for you. Google's ad software is in the same app, and it also adds to these counts when an ad is asked for, shown or pressed.

Who gets it: Google. It keeps the counts for us, under its own rules for this service.

The mic and the speaker

If you press the mic and say a name, your voice goes to your phone's own speech service. On many Android phones this is Google's. It turns your voice into words and gives the words to the app. Rutba does not record your voice and does not keep it.

The speaker button reads the app's help lines aloud with your phone's own voice. It never reads your name.

Who gets it: your phone's speech service, and only when you press the mic.

Saving and sharing

When you save a design, the picture goes to your phone's gallery, in a folder named Rutba. Other apps on your phone that are allowed to see your photos, such as a backup app, can see it there.

When you share a design, the picture goes to the app you choose, such as WhatsApp. The picture has your name and photo on it, because that is the design you made. What happens to it after that depends on that app and on the people you send it to.

Who gets it: the app you choose, and the people you send it to.

Ads chosen for you

Open your phone's Settings, then Privacy, then Ads. There you can delete or reset the advertising ID. On some older phones the same place has a switch named "Opt out of Ads Personalization". The names differ a little from phone to phone.

You will still see ads in Rutba.

The counting

The app has no switch for this. Removing the app stops it.

The mic

Do not press the mic. Type the name.

Everything

Remove the app. Then it sends nothing more. Your name, your photo and everything else it kept are deleted from the phone.

Pictures you saved to the gallery stay until you delete them yourself.

On your phone

Your name and photo stay until you change them in the app, clear the app's data in your phone's Settings, or remove the app.

To share a picture, the app first makes a copy for itself. It deletes copies that are more than one day old the next time you use it.

With us

We have no account for you and no copy of your name or photo. So we hold nothing of yours to delete.

The counts

Google keeps the counts that carry the random number for up to 14 months. Totals made from them, which carry no number, are kept longer. The app does not show you that number. So today we cannot pick out one person's counts to show them or delete them.

With Google

What Google's ad software collects is kept by Google, under Google's own privacy policy.

• Everything the app sends goes over an encrypted connection (HTTPS).
• Your name and photo are kept in the app's own private space on the phone. Other apps cannot read it.
• We do not have your name, your photo, your mobile number or your email. What we do not have cannot leak from us.

• Google: how it uses information from apps that use its services
• Google Analytics: how it keeps the counts safe
• Cloudflare: privacy policy