Effective date: September 7, 2026 Service: AppSquach ("AppSquach", "we", "us") Contact: privacy — privacy@appsquach.com · support — support@appsquach.com · web — https://appsquach.com/
This policy describes what AppSquach (the "app") does with information on your device. It reflects how the app is actually built. Where this document and the app's behaviour ever disagree, that is a bug — please tell us.
To do its job, AppSquach examines the applications installed on your phone. For each app it looks at: the package name and display name, version, when it was installed and last updated, which app installed it (for example, an app store or a file manager), the list of permissions the app declares, whether it has a normal launcher icon, and whether it is part of the system image. It also reads whether other apps hold certain powerful Android capabilities — an enabled accessibility service, notification access, device-administrator control, the "appear over other apps" permission, or a battery-optimisation exemption — using the standard Android settings and app-operations APIs.
This information is analysed on your device by AppSquach's built-in rules. It is stored locally in the app's private database so the app can show you results and notice changes between scans (for example, "this app just gained accessibility access"). It is not uploaded anywhere for scoring.
AppSquach has an optional "an ad just popped up — help me find the source" feature. If you enable it, you grant Android's Usage Access permission to AppSquach in your phone's Settings, after AppSquach shows you a plain-language explanation. When you press the button, AppSquach reads roughly the last 90 seconds of app foreground/background transitions from Android's usage-events API, converts them into a short internal list of "which app came forward when", and immediately discards the raw events. This window is never stored, never transmitted, and never written to logs. Normal scanning works without this permission; you can revoke Usage Access at any time in Android Settings.
On first run AppSquach generates a pair of cryptographic keys used to sign and encrypt messages to a paired family helper. The private keys never leave your device and are stored in EncryptedSharedPreferences, whose contents are encrypted with a key held in the Android Keystore (hardware-backed on devices that support it). Only the public halves are shared, and only with a device you deliberately pair with.
If you pair a family helper's phone (by scanning a QR code and both of you confirming the same short code), AppSquach stores that helper's public keys, the display name you type for them, and an opaque routing identifier used to address messages. No contact list, email, or phone number is involved in pairing.
To pass encrypted messages between paired phones, AppSquach registers once with a relay service and stores a random account id, device id, opaque routing id, and a session token. These contain no personal information.
If you use the Maps shortcut, the Weather screen, or turn on "include my location" in the Help settings, AppSquach obtains your device's approximate current or last-known location using Android's location permission.
open-meteo.com) in the request for local weather. Open-Meteo is a free service that requires no account and states it does not track users. AppSquach sends only the coordinates needed for the forecast, once per refresh, and keeps no location history. If you never open the Weather screen, nothing is sent.Location is off unless you grant the permission and, for Help, enable the toggle (which is off by default). Nothing requests precise location.
AppSquach does not read your phone's contact list. "Family contacts" are entries you type into the app; they are stored in the app's private database. Calling and texting use Android's own dialer/messaging apps through system intents — AppSquach holds no CALL_PHONE, SEND_SMS, or READ_CONTACTS permission. Reminders are text you enter, stored locally and delivered by a local alarm.
None. AppSquach contains no analytics SDK, no crash-reporting SDK, no advertising SDK, and no attribution/marketing SDK. It does not use an advertising ID.
| Information | Used for |
|---|---|
| Installed-app facts and special-access states | Producing the safety review — flagging apps installed from outside a store, apps holding powerful capabilities, rogue-launcher / rogue-keyboard behaviour, and clusters of advertising SDK components — and noticing changes since the last scan |
| Recent on-screen activity (optional) | Ranking which recently-foregrounded app most likely produced a pop-up you just saw |
| Device security keys, pairing info, relay session | Establishing and using the end-to-end encrypted channel to a family helper you paired |
| Location (optional) | Centring the Maps shortcut, or attaching your location to a Help alert you send |
| Family contacts, reminders | Providing call/message shortcuts and local reminders you or a helper set up |
AppSquach does not transmit your installed-app inventory. The only things that leave your device are:
REVIEW or HIGH_REVIEW, each with its signal names (e.g. OVERLAY_ENABLED, SIDELOADED) — not the app's full permission list — plus recent safety changes;allowBackup=false plus explicit data-extraction rules).EncryptedSharedPreferences protected by an Android Keystore key.The relay stores, in a database, metadata only: message id, recipient routing id, size, created/expiry timestamps, delivered flag; a device display name; a random routing id; a hashed session token; and a coarse abuse-prevention log. The encrypted message blobs are held in a short-lived store with a time-to-live of at most 14 days; once a recipient acknowledges delivery, the blob is dropped early. Security does not depend on this deletion — the ciphertext is safe even if a copy persists.
The relay is operated as part of the AppSquach service and is reached over HTTPS at relay.appsquach.com. It only ever holds end-to-end-encrypted blobs and the minimal delivery metadata listed above; it has no access to plaintext content, keys, or the data inside a message.
AppSquach uses no third-party advertising, analytics, attribution, or crash-reporting services. The external services it can contact are:
open-meteo.com) — only if you open the Weather screen; it receives your approximate coordinates in the forecast request and nothing else (no account, no identifier).The QR-code scanner used during family pairing is provided by Google Play services and runs on your device. Open-source libraries bundled in the app (listed in the app's Open-Source Licenses screen) run entirely on your device. This version uses no push messaging service.
AppSquach is a general-audience utility intended for adults. It is not directed to children and does not knowingly process information from children. Target-audience selection in Google Play is set accordingly (see docs/legal/PLAY_CONSOLE_DECLARATIONS.md). We do not claim COPPA/child-specific compliance features because the app does not implement them.
We use reasonable safeguards: on-device analysis, authenticated end-to-end encryption for family sharing, Keystore-protected keys, HTTPS-only networking with no certificate-validation bypass, no cleartext traffic in release builds, and a relay that never handles plaintext. No system is perfectly secure and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
If you use family sharing, encrypted blobs and the delivery metadata described in §5 are processed on the AppSquach relay infrastructure, which may be hosted in, or served through providers operating in, more than one country. The message content remains end-to-end encrypted throughout, regardless of where a blob is processed or stored, and the relay never holds the keys to read it.
We may update this policy. Material changes will be posted at https://appsquach.com/privacy with a new effective date, and, where appropriate, surfaced in the app.
Privacy questions: privacy@appsquach.com · General support: support@appsquach.com