Privacy
Playful Bonds is a small app with a small appetite for your data. Here is all of it, in plain language.
Effective 30 July 2026
What we store
Your name and avatar
The display name and character you pick during setup. Your friends see both.
Your invite code
A short code so a friend can add you.
An account identifier
An opaque ID that Apple gives the app for your iCloud account. It is not your Apple Account email, and we never see your Apple Account details.
Who your friends are
A record linking you and each person you've added, with their name and avatar so your Watch can show them.
Signals you send and receive
Who it was from, who it was for, which of the three signals it was, and when. There is no message content, because signals have none.
Where it lives
In your iCloud, not our server
Everything above is stored in Apple's iCloud (CloudKit). Playful Bonds has no server of its own, and your data is never sent anywhere else.
Readable by other users of the app
It is stored in CloudKit's shared database, which means another Playful Bonds user could in principle read profiles and signal records — including who sent what to whom, and when. Not the open web, and not searchable, but not private between two people either. Never put anything sensitive in your display name.
Bluetooth
Only a hashed tag
Your phone broadcasts an eight-character tag derived from a one-way hash of your account identifier. It contains no name and cannot be reversed into who you are.
Only nearness, never location
Your Watch listens for that tag so it can notice a friend is close. The app does not use GPS, does not know where you are, and does not record anywhere you've been.
Motion
Stays on your Watch
Tilt and shake are read from the Watch's motion sensors to make the character sway and react. That data is used as it arrives and never stored, never sent, and never seen by us.
What we don't do
No analytics, no tracking
There is no analytics SDK, no advertising identifier, no third-party code of any kind in this app.
No selling, no sharing
Your data is not sold, rented, shared, or used to build a profile of you. There is nobody to share it with.
Nothing else collected
No contacts, no photos, no location, no health data, no microphone, no camera.
Your control
Change your details
Edit your name or avatar at any time from the Friends list. Friends see the change.
Remove a friend
Swipe to remove. That deletes the link you created, and they leave your list. If they were the one who added you, that record belongs to them — you'll drop off their list only when they remove you too.
Who can signal you
Anyone holding your invite code can add you and send you signals; there's no approval step, and removing someone doesn't block them. Share your code only with people you want to hear from.
Delete everything
Deleting the app leaves your records in iCloud. To have them erased, contact us at the address below and we'll delete your profile, your friendships, and your signals.
Children
Not directed at children
Playful Bonds isn't aimed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has set up a profile, contact us and we'll remove it.
Contact
Questions or deletion requests
If this policy changes, the effective date above changes with it, and the version inside the app is updated at the same time as the published one.