toward balance · privacy

Quiet by design.

Effective 10 June 2026

  • Your data is yours. Your areas, activities, and logged occurrences are stored only so we can show them back to you, on your devices.
  • No analytics, no trackers, no ads. We don't sell or share your data, and there is exactly one cookie — the one that keeps you signed in.
  • You can leave anytime. Export everything as JSON, or delete your account — which permanently deletes all of your data, immediately.

Who we are

Toward Balance ("Balance", "we") is a personal-balance app for iOS and the web, available at towardbalance.app, built and operated by Cameron Dunn. Questions about this policy or your data: privacy@towardbalance.app.

What we collect, and why

Your account

Sign-in is handled by Clerk, our authentication provider. Clerk collects your email address and, optionally, your name and profile photo, and manages your sign-in codes, passwords, and sessions — none of which touch our servers. Our own database deliberately does not store your email address: it holds only an opaque link to your Clerk account, plus your app settings (such as reminder time and timezone).

Your content

The heart of the product: the names and emoji of your balance areas, the titles of your activities, and the timestamps of the occurrences you log. We store this so your devices can show it back to you, and for no other purpose. We keep it until you delete it — or delete your account.

Push notifications optional

If you enable notifications on iOS, we store the Apple push token for your device so our server can ask Apple to deliver reminders and updates. Notification payloads carry only wake-up hints — never your content. Tokens are deleted when you sign out of a device, when Apple reports them invalid, when you delete your account, and automatically after 30 days unused (e.g. if you uninstall the app).

Your calendar (iOS) optional

If you grant calendar access, Balance reads today's events on your device to suggest things you might want to log. Calendar data never leaves your device — it is not sent to our servers, ever.

Diagnostics & logs

Like every web service, our servers keep operational logs: your account ID, IP address, app version, and technical details of requests and errors. The apps also report technical errors (for example, "sync failed") with diagnostic context so we can fix bugs. These logs never include your areas, activities, or occurrences, and they are deleted automatically after 90 days.

What we don't do

Where your data lives

A small set of infrastructure providers process data on our behalf:

ServiceWhat it doesWhat it holdsWhere
ClerkSign-in & accountsEmail, optional name/photo, sessionsUnited States
Neon (on AWS)Our databaseYour content & settingsUnited States (Oregon)
Fly.ioRuns our serversData in transit, operational logsUnited States
Better StackLog storageOperational logs (90 days)European Union (Germany)
ApplePush delivery & TestFlightDevice push tokens; TestFlight install/crash statisticsPer Apple's policies

Depending on where you live, this means your data may be processed outside your country — including in the United States and the European Union. We rely on these providers' standard data-protection terms for those transfers.

How long we keep things

DataKept for
Your content & settingsUntil you delete it, or delete your account
Device push tokensUntil sign-out, Apple reports them invalid, account deletion, or 30 days unused
Operational logs & diagnostics90 days
Encrypted database backups7 days, then expire automatically

Your rights & controls

Where the GDPR applies, our legal bases are: performance of a contract (storing and syncing your content — the service you asked for) and legitimate interests (operational logs and diagnostics, for security and reliability).

Security

Everything in transit uses HTTPS/TLS. Our infrastructure providers encrypt data at rest. On iOS, your session and widget data are stored in the device Keychain. No system is perfect — if we ever learn of a breach affecting your data, we will tell you.

Children

Balance is not directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we'll delete it.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, we'll update this page and its effective date. For material changes we'll say so in the app.