Privacy Policy
This policy explains what the 5G Network & Device Check Android app (the “app”) does with data. It is written to be read, not to be skimmed past.
The short version: the app has no accounts and asks you for nothing. Everything it shows you — your network type, SIM status, device details, 5G capability — is read on your phone and stays on your phone. Three things do involve the internet: the advertising that keeps the app free, the anonymous crash and usage reports that keep it working, and a once-a-day download of the app's phone 5G list from our website, which sends nothing about you or your phone. All three are described in full below.
1. Who is responsible
The app is published by RANK9 LABS, which is the data controller for the purposes of the GDPR and equivalent laws.
Questions, requests or complaints: support@rank9labs.com — please mention the app name, “5G Network & Device Check”, so we know which of our apps you are writing about.
2. What stays on your device
The app's entire job is reading technical information from your own phone and showing it to you. All of the following is read on the device, displayed on the device, and never transmitted to us:
- Your current network type (5G/NR, LTE, 4G, 3G), voice network type, and mobile data status
- SIM status, carrier name and operator codes, roaming state, dual-SIM and eSIM details
- Device brand, model, Android version, and the hardware indicators used to judge 5G capability
- Your preferred network mode setting (read-only — the app never changes it)
- One remembered fact: whether the phone has ever been seen on a 5G network, stored so the app can give you a confident “supported” answer next time
Deleting the app deletes all of it. There is no copy elsewhere for us to return or erase.
2a. The optional Phone permission
Reading the live network type and SIM details requires Android's
Phone permission (READ_PHONE_STATE). The app asks for it once, on the
Network Info screen, and explains why before asking. It is optional: decline it and the app still
works, with those particular rows showing “Permission needed” instead of a value.
This permission does not give the app your phone number, call history, or the content of any call or message — and the app would not read them if it could. What it reads is used on-screen, on your device, and nowhere else.
2b. The phone 5G list
The “Is this phone 5G?” lookup uses a list of phone models and their 5G facts. A copy
ships inside the app, and about once a day the app asks our website
(rank9labs.com) whether a newer list is available, downloading it only if it has
changed. The request is an ordinary web request for a public file: it carries no identifier and
nothing about your phone, SIM, network or location — the app works out which entry matches your
phone on the device, after the download.
Like any web server, ours sees the IP address the request comes from and records it, with the time and the file requested, in its standard access log. We use that log only to keep the site running and secure, never to identify or track anyone.
| Permission | Why the app has it |
|---|---|
READ_PHONE_STATE (optional) | Show your live network type, SIM status and carrier details. Read on-device only. |
ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE | Tell whether you are connected, and over Wi-Fi or cellular. |
INTERNET | Load ads, send the anonymous crash and usage reports described below, and download the phone 5G list (section 2b). |
WAKE_LOCK | Used by the bundled Google services to finish short background work reliably. |
3. Advertising
The app is free and is funded by advertising, served by Google AdMob with Unity Ads as a mediation partner. It shows a banner, an occasional native ad inside long screens, an occasional full-screen ad between screens, and an occasional full-screen ad when you return to the app.
To serve and measure those ads, the ad SDKs collect data directly — it does not pass through us, and we never see it tied to you. Google describes this collection as including:
- Your device's advertising identifier (the resettable Android Advertising ID)
- IP address, and the approximate location it implies
- Device and app information — model, operating system version, language, and which app is showing the ad
- Ad interaction data — that an ad was shown, viewed or tapped
How the ad networks use this is governed by their policies, not ours:
- How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services
- Google Privacy Policy and AdMob and privacy
- Unity Privacy Policy
In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, the app shows a Google-certified consent form the first time you open it, and does not serve personalised ads unless you agree. You can decline and keep using the app — you will see non-personalised ads instead, and you can change your choice at any time from the app's privacy options.
Anywhere, you can turn off ad personalisation or reset your advertising identifier from your device's own settings — Settings → Google → Ads on Android. Resetting it disconnects future ad data from everything collected before.
3a. Crash reports and usage statistics
The app uses two Google Firebase services to keep itself working: Crashlytics, which reports crashes, and Google Analytics for Firebase, which counts basic usage events.
When the app crashes, Crashlytics sends a technical report — the state of the code at the moment of failure, your device model, operating system version, and how long the app had been running. It exists so that a bug which never happens on our test devices still gets found and fixed.
The analytics events are basic: which screens are opened and how the app is used in aggregate. They carry no name, no phone number, and nothing that identifies you. Neither service is used for ad personalisation by us. Both are operated by Google under the Firebase Privacy and Security terms.
4. Feedback emails
The feedback feature does not upload anything. It opens your own email app with a draft addressed to support@rank9labs.com. To save you typing, the draft is pre-filled with the app name and version and the technical details a bug report needs — device brand and model, the app's 5G verdict, your carrier name, and current network type.
You can read and edit every line of it before sending, and nothing is sent unless you press send. Emails you do send are used only to reply to you and to fix what you reported, are never shared, and are deleted when no longer needed — email us to have yours deleted sooner.
5. What the app does not do
- No account, sign-in, or registration of any kind
- No collection of your name, email, contacts, photos, files, or precise location
- No reading of your phone number, call history, or messages
- No changing of your network settings — the app can only open the settings screen for you
- No selling of personal information, and no server of ours holding any
6. Children
The app is a technical utility and is not directed at children under 13, or the equivalent minimum age where you live. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children; the ad SDKs are configured through Google's standard consent tooling described above.
7. Your rights
Depending on where you live — the GDPR in the EU and UK, the CCPA/CPRA in California, and similar laws elsewhere — you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or object to the processing of personal information.
Because we hold no personal data about you, most of these rights are best exercised with the services that do the collecting: Google (for AdMob, Crashlytics and Analytics) and Unity, through the links in section 3. For anything related to the app itself — including deleting a feedback email you sent us — write to support@rank9labs.com with the app name in the subject.
8. Data outside your country
The Google and Unity services above process data on infrastructure around the world. Their cross-border transfer safeguards are described in the policies linked in section 3.
9. Security
Everything the bundled services transmit is encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS). The app itself transmits no personal data of its own, and the most sensitive thing it ever handles — your network and SIM status — never leaves the screen you are looking at.
10. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes materially, the date at the top will be updated and the new version published at this address before the change takes effect. Continuing to use the app after that means you accept the revised policy.
11. Contact
RANK9 LABS
support@rank9labs.com