Privacy Policy
This policy explains what the Lockaway app does with data. It is written to be read, not to be skimmed past.
The short version: the app has no accounts, no servers of its own, and asks you for nothing. Your routines, your session history and every setting stay on your phone. Three things involve outside services — the advertising that keeps the app free, Google Play for the optional Premium subscription, and a small amount of crash and usage reporting that keeps it working — and 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
2. What stays on your device
The following is stored locally on your phone or tablet and is never transmitted anywhere. There is no account, no server of ours holding a copy, and no backup or sync feature:
- Your routines — the times, days, intent and commitment level of each one, and whether it has a wind-down and how long it lasts
- Your session history — when each session started and ended, its intent and commitment, and whether you left it early
- The display name you type, which is used only to say good evening to you
- Your default commitment, and the favourites, restart, welcome-back and healthy-ranges switches
- The length and firmness you chose for the home-screen widget and the Quick Settings tile, and your break-reminder settings
- If you turn on Usage Access (section 5): your phone-use "before" — one week's average daily screen time and number of unlocks, kept as two numbers — and, when break reminders are on, how many reminders were shown today and when the last one was
- Whether you are a Premium subscriber, as Google Play last reported it (section 7)
- How many Firm exits you have used this month, and any ad-free time you have earned
- Whether you have finished the setup screens
Deleting the app deletes all of it. There is no copy elsewhere for us to return or erase.
Nothing you type leaves the device. The display name is never sent anywhere — it is read back to you on the Today screen and nowhere else. You can clear it at any time in Settings, and the app works perfectly well without one.
3. Advertising
The app is free and is funded by advertising, served by Google AdMob, which may fill the banner and the pre-session video from Unity Ads through AdMob's mediation. It shows a banner at the foot of most screens, an ad card inside some screens, and a short video before a session begins. Occasionally it shows a full-screen ad: when you leave the summary after a session you kept, after you save a routine, and as the app opens when you come back to it after four hours or more — never more than three of the first two a day, and never two full-screen ads within half an hour. There are no ads at all while any session is running, and none for Premium subscribers.
To serve and measure those ads, the Google Mobile Ads SDK collects 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 Android Advertising ID)
- IP address, and the approximate location it implies
- Device and app information — model, operating system version, language, screen size, and which app is showing the ad
- Ad interaction data — that an ad was shown, viewed or tapped
When an ad comes from Unity Ads, the Unity Ads SDK collects the same categories for the same purposes, under Unity's own policy. Your consent choices reach it through the same consent form: the app never passes it anything itself.
How Google and Unity use this is governed by their own policies, not ours:
- How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services
- Google Privacy Policy
- AdMob and privacy
- Unity Ads — player and app user privacy policy
- Your choices about ads
- 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.
- Anywhere, you can turn off ad personalisation or reset your advertising identifier at any time from your device's own settings — Settings → Privacy → Ads. Resetting it disconnects future ad data from everything collected before.
Watching the optional video ad in Settings earns you an hour with no ads at all. That hour is recorded on your device as a timestamp and nowhere else.
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 a short list of events. Neither runs in development builds.
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 also carries one fact of our own: whether a session was running at the time, and how firm it was. A crash inside a Locked session is the one we most need to understand and the hardest to reproduce, because the phone is locked while it happens.
The analytics events are deliberately few. This is the complete list:
| Event | What it carries |
|---|---|
session_started | The intent (sleep, deep work, dinner, morning, custom) and the commitment (soft, firm, locked). |
session_ended | The same two, whether it ran to the end or was left early, and how long it lasted as a band — "3h–6h", never a clock time. |
routine_saved | The commitment, how many days a week it runs, and whether it has a wind-down. Not the times. |
reward_earned | That an optional video ad paid out, and which reward it bought. |
setup_finished | How many of the setup permissions were granted, out of how many were offered. |
What these events cannot contain. No display name — nothing you type ever leaves the device, and the analytics code has no way to reach it. No clock times: a session's length is reported in bands, because "8h, locked" is a useful fact about the app while "away 22:31–06:29 every night" is a diary. Every value is one of a fixed set, so no free text can be passed in by accident. These are not intentions; the build fails if any of them stops being true.
Alongside those five, Google Analytics records a few housekeeping events of its own that come with the service — that the app was opened for the first time, opened again, or updated, and how long a visit lasted — and, if you buy Premium, the purchase itself: which plan, its price and currency, and whether it is a trial or a renewal. Google Analytics records every Google Play purchase this way on its own; it does not carry your name, email address or payment details. Its automatic screen reporting is turned off, so it does not record which screens you use or how long you spend on them.
Analytics is configured so that none of it feeds ad personalisation — the advertising consents are set to denied in the app's own code, not left to a console setting. The advertising SDK logs its own measurement events; those belong to section 3. Both services are operated by Google under the Firebase Privacy and Security terms.
4. Device Admin, and what it is not
To lock the screen, Lockaway asks to be a device administrator. Android shows a strongly worded warning for this, so here is precisely what the app registers for and what it can therefore do:
| Policy requested | What it allows |
|---|---|
force-lock | Turning the screen off and bringing up your lock screen — the same thing your power button does. |
That is the entire list. The app does not request the policies that make device administration frightening: it cannot wipe your phone, cannot set or read your PIN, cannot change your password rules, cannot disable your camera, and cannot see anything on your screen. Your own lock screen is what keeps the phone shut — Lockaway only turns it on.
You can withdraw it whenever you like, from Settings → How to uninstall inside the app, or from Android's own Settings. Android will not let you uninstall an app that still holds device administration, which is why the app gives you a button that hands it back and starts the uninstall in one step.
5. The other permissions, and why
| Permission | Why the app needs it |
|---|---|
| Notifications | To show the countdown while a session runs, the wind-down reminder before a routine (10, 30 or 60 minutes ahead, as you choose), and break reminders if you turn them on. |
| Usage Access | Optional, and off until you turn it on in Android's settings. It powers "Your phone use" on the You screen and the break reminders. Android gives an app with this access a log of usage events; Lockaway keeps only three kinds — screen on, screen off and unlock — and discards everything else as it reads it, including which apps were used, without storing or sending it. From those moments it works out daily screen time, unlocks, and how long the screen has been on right now. The results stay on the phone. While break reminders are on, the app checks every 15 minutes; switch them off and the checks stop. You can withdraw access at any time in Settings → Apps → Special app access → Usage access. |
| Do Not Disturb access | To silence the phone for the length of a session and hand the quiet back afterwards. Optional — without it, sessions run and the phone stays as noisy as it was. |
| Exact alarms | So a routine starts at 22:30 rather than whenever the system gets round to it. |
| Run at startup | So a session that was running when you restarted the phone is still running afterwards. |
| Foreground service | To keep the countdown alive and the session honest while your phone is away. Android requires apps to declare why; ours is declared as specialUse, because the session is the feature. |
| Ignore battery optimisation | Offered, never forced. Some manufacturers kill background apps aggressively enough to end a session early. |
| Internet | Used by the advertising SDK, Google Play Billing and the crash and usage reporting in section 3a. The app has nothing of its own to send. |
| Home-screen widget and Quick Settings tile | No permission. If you add them, they show your next routine and whether a session is running, read from the app's own storage on the phone. |
6. What the app does not do
- Its reporting is the five events and the crash reports in section 3a. It does not count screens — Google's automatic screen reporting is switched off — time your taps, or record what you do inside a session.
- It never asks for your email address, phone number, date of birth or real identity.
- It does not read your contacts. The "favourites can call" setting works by asking Android to let starred contacts through Do Not Disturb — Android decides who they are, and never tells the app. The contacts permission was removed from the app entirely.
- It does not use an Accessibility service. Usage Access is optional and only ever used for screen-on, screen-off and unlock moments (section 5).
- It does not record which apps you open, block individual apps, or see anything on your screen.
- It does not request your photos, microphone, camera, files or location.
- It does not sell or share personal information for money, or for cross-context behavioural advertising outside the ad serving described in section 3.
7. Purchases
The app is free. Lockaway Premium is an optional subscription sold through Google Play: no ads, your full session history rather than the last seven days, and a one-tap start from the home-screen widget and the Quick Settings tile. The hour without ads in Settings is still earned by watching a video, not paid for.
Google Play handles the purchase end to end — the price, your payment method, renewals, cancellation and refunds. We never see your name, email address or card details. The app receives only what Google Play Billing reports to every app: which plan is active, whether it has been acknowledged, and a purchase token. It uses that to switch Premium on, keeps a "you are Premium" flag on your phone, and checks with Google Play again on each launch so that a cancelled or expired subscription stops counting. We have no server, so nothing about your purchase is sent to us. Manage or cancel the subscription in the Google Play Store under Payments & subscriptions; Google's own handling is described in the Google Privacy Policy.
8. Children
The app is not directed at children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age where you live), and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. It is rated for general audiences but carries advertising, so it is not enrolled in Google Play's Designed for Families programme. If you believe a child has provided personal information through the app, contact us and we will act on it.
9. Your rights
Because the app holds no account and no personal profile, most data-subject requests resolve directly on your device:
- Access and portability — everything the app stores about you is visible in its own Routines, You and Settings screens.
- Erasure — clearing the app's data, or uninstalling it, removes everything stored on the device. For the crash and usage reports in section 3a, email us and we will have them deleted; they carry no name, so tell us roughly when you used the app.
- Objecting to advertising — decline the consent form, or reset your advertising identifier in your device's settings, as described in section 3.
If you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, our legal basis for serving personalised ads is your consent, and for non-personalised ads it is the legitimate interest in funding the app. You may withdraw consent at any time. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data-protection authority.
If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what is collected, to delete it, and to opt out of its sale or sharing. We do not sell personal information. The advertising described in section 3 may qualify as "sharing" under the CPRA; opting out of ad personalisation in your device's settings, or declining consent where offered, exercises that right.
To make any request, email support@rank9labs.com. We will respond within 30 days. Since we hold nothing that identifies you, there is usually nothing for us to look up — which is the point.
10. Data outside your country
Google's advertising and Firebase infrastructure operates globally, so the data described in sections 3 and 3a may be processed on servers outside your country, including the United States. Google's transfer safeguards are described in the policies linked above. Nothing else the app holds ever leaves your device, so nothing else crosses a border.
11. Security
The app's data sits in its own private storage, which Android keeps from other apps, and it is encrypted with the rest of your device. No transport is perfectly secure — but what the app sends is the ad requests and the events in section 3a, which hold nothing about you that a stranger could use.
12. 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.
13. Contact
RANK9 LABS
support@rank9labs.com