The short version
We do not collect your personal information. The app keeps what it needs on your phone and nowhere else. We cannot see your sessions, your ratings, or which apps you chose to block — not because we promise not to look, but because that information never reaches us.
The exception worth reading: if your phone backs itself up to iCloud, Apple's backup includes the app's own storage. That is a copy of your block history and your settings held by Apple under Apple's terms, not by us. No record of a session is in it, because none is kept — the one thing a session can leave is the timing of a block, which is part of that block history. See Device backups.
Who we are
Paddle Past is published by Focus Pocus LLC ("we", "us"). You can reach a person at support@paddlepast.com.
What the app stores, and where
No record of a session is kept. What you rated, which exercises ran, how long they took, how it ended: none of it is written down. When a session finishes, it is gone. The app used to keep a record of every session; it never showed it to you and nothing read it, so the app stopped writing one. If you installed a test build before that change, whatever it wrote is still in the app's storage — the app can no longer read it or remove it. Deleting the app clears it from the phone, with the same caveat about backups as everything else here: see Device backups.
The one trace a session can leave is in the block history below, and only if you used blocking: the time a block started and the time it ended. It is not linked to a session and says nothing about what happened in one.
The first three below stay in the app's private storage area on your device, encrypted, with the encryption key held in the iOS Keychain. The fourth lives somewhere else, described under it:
- Block history — the times blocks started and ended.
- Your settings — the preferences you have changed.
- A set-aside copy, only if something was damaged — if either of the two above ever becomes unreadable, the app usually moves the damaged copy aside rather than overwriting it, so it is still there rather than lost. Not always: if a damaged copy is already set aside and the new one is smaller, the older one is kept instead. It sits in the same encrypted storage and goes when the app does.
- Block state and your app selection — kept in a container the app shares with its own Screen Time extensions, so they can read it. It holds whether a block is running and when it ends, the times blocks have started and ended, the opaque token iOS gave the app for the apps you picked, how many things that token covers, and the app's own settings for how the shield looks. This container is not encrypted by us — it is protected by iOS — and note that block timing therefore exists in both places: in the encrypted store as your block history, and here. Nothing in it names an app you blocked, and nothing in it names you; the token is opaque, as described below.
The app never asks what the urge is about. There is no field for it, so there is nothing about the behaviour itself to store.
What we do not collect
- No name, email address, phone number or date of birth.
- No advertising identifier, and no advertising.
- No analytics, crash reporting, or usage telemetry of any kind.
- No location, contacts, photos, microphone or camera access.
- No third-party trackers or marketing SDKs.
Blocking apps, and why we cannot see your choices
If you use the blocking feature, iOS asks your permission through Apple's Screen Time system. When you pick apps to block, you are picking them inside a screen that Apple draws, not one we draw. iOS hands the app an opaque token for your selection, and that token cannot be turned back into app names — we cannot tell which apps you chose. That is a property of how Apple built the framework, not a policy we apply on top of it.
The app can see how many things you picked, because iOS reports a count, and whether they were apps, whole categories or websites. It uses that for one purpose: checking that the block it is about to claim actually covers what you selected, so it never tells you apps are held when they are not. Those counts stay on your phone with everything else.
That selection stays on your device. Revoking Screen Time permission in iOS Settings makes it unusable.
Device backups
iOS includes app storage in iCloud and encrypted local backups by default. Paddle Past's storage goes with it. This means a copy of your block history and your settings can exist in your iCloud account, governed by Apple's privacy policy rather than this one. We never receive it and cannot read it.
If you would rather that did not happen, you can turn off iCloud Backup for Paddle Past in Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Manage Storage → Backups. Turning it off costs you nothing. The encryption key is stored so that it never leaves the phone it was made on, so the backed-up copy of the app's own encrypted storage cannot be opened on a new device — your block history and settings do not survive a phone move. The shared Screen Time container described above is protected by iOS rather than encrypted by us, so we cannot make you the same promise about it.
If you email us
Emailing support@paddlepast.com means we receive your email address and whatever you write. That is the only route by which we learn anything about you, and it exists because someone whose block has just failed needs a way to reach a person.
We use it to answer you and for nothing else. We do not add you to a mailing list, and we do not sell, rent or share it. We keep support correspondence for up to 24 months and then delete it. If you would like it deleted sooner, ask.
The website
paddlepast.com is a set of static pages. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics and embeds no third-party scripts. Our hosting provider keeps standard server access logs, including IP addresses, for a short period for security and reliability. We do not use them to build a profile of you.
Security
The app's own storage — the first three things in the list above — is encrypted with AES-256, and the key is held in the iOS Keychain marked so that it never leaves the device it was created on. The fourth — block state and your app selection — lives in the shared container instead, which iOS protects rather than we do. Some of it is written by the app's own Screen Time extensions, which run third-party code we did not write, so we do not control every value that ends up there; what we can tell you is that nothing in it names an app you blocked, and nothing in it names you. There is no account to break into, no password to steal, and no server of ours holding your sessions — so the usual way this kind of data leaks does not exist here.
No security is absolute. A device someone else can unlock is a device they can open the app on, and the app does not ask for a passcode of its own.
How long we keep things
On your device: for as long as you keep the app. We set no expiry and run no clean-up. Deleting the app removes everything it stored on the phone — but not a copy already in an iCloud backup, which is the next item.
Support email: up to 24 months, then deleted. Ask sooner and we will do it sooner.
Website access logs: our hosting provider keeps them for a short period, as described under The website. We do not control that retention and do not read the logs to build a profile.
iCloud backup: for as long as Apple keeps your backup, under Apple's retention rather than ours. We cannot see it, cannot read it and cannot delete it for you — Device backups explains how to stop it being made.
There is nothing else. We hold no copy of anything the app stores.
Legal basis, for people in the EEA and the UK
The GDPR asks us to name a lawful basis for each thing we do with personal data. There are two, and both are small:
- Answering your email — our legitimate interests in responding to someone who has contacted us, and, where your message is about a purchase, performance of our agreement with you.
- Website access logs, including IP addresses, kept by our host — our legitimate interests in keeping the site up and secure.
For everything the app stores, there is no basis for us to name, because we do no processing of it — none of it reaches us, so we are not in a position to do anything with it, lawfully or otherwise. Where a copy exists in an iCloud backup, Apple is the one handling it, under Apple's terms and its own lawful basis rather than ours.
International transfers
What the app stores does not cross a border, because it does not leave your phone. Three other things can:
- A support email you send us reaches us in the United States.
- Visiting paddlepast.com sends your IP address to our host, which may be outside your country.
- iCloud backup, described above — Apple moving your data under Apple's own terms and safeguards rather than ours.
Children
Paddle Past is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. The App Store age rating on the listing reflects the subject matter the app addresses.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete or export your personal information, and to object to its processing — under the GDPR, the UK GDPR, the CCPA/CPRA and similar laws.
For data in the app, the position is simple: it is on your device and we never had a copy, so there is nothing for us to hand over, correct or delete. Deleting the app removes everything the app stored. There is nothing to view, export or delete session by session, because no session record is kept. Deleting the app removes all four of the stores listed above.
For support correspondence, write to support@paddlepast.com and we will act on the request. We do not sell personal information and have never done so, under any definition of "sell" or "share" in those laws.
California residents
The CCPA and CPRA give California residents rights to know, delete, correct and opt out. Two of them are worth stating precisely here:
- We have never sold or shared your personal information, under any definition those laws use, and we have no plans to. There is no advertising, no analytics and no data broker in this product.
- We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for any purpose that would give you a right to limit it. The app records when you blocked apps, in a product about habits — how strong an urge felt is not written down at all — but none of it reaches us, so there is nothing for us to use or disclose. If you write to us and your email says something about your health, we use it to answer you and for nothing else, which is a purpose the right to limit does not reach.
You will not be treated differently for exercising any of these rights. Write to support@paddlepast.com.
Changes
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of this page. If a change means we start collecting something we do not collect today, we will say so plainly in the app before it takes effect, rather than only here.
Contact
Focus Pocus LLC · support@paddlepast.com · 418 Broadway STE N, Albany, NY 12207, USA