1. Introduction
Beat The Urge ("we," "our," or "us") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our mobile application.
Please read this privacy policy carefully. By using Beat The Urge, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy.
2. Information We Collect
We collect the following types of information:
Account Information
- Sign In with Apple: We use Apple's secure authentication. We receive a unique identifier and, if you choose to share it, your email address and name.
- Profile Data: Display name, age (optional), and avatar preferences you choose to provide. Your display name is shown to other members, so we suggest a nickname rather than your real name. You can change it at any time.
Health and Recovery Data
Stored on our servers:
- Streak Information: Your current streak and the date it started. This is shown on your community profile.
- Onboarding Quiz Answers: Your answers to the starting quiz. These are private.
Stored only on your device, never sent to our servers:
- Daily Check-ins: Records of your daily progress check-ins.
- Relapse Events: If you choose to log them, including optional context such as triggers, mood, and time of day.
- Mood Entries: Mood logs including mood type, categories, and optional notes. If you choose to open a mood entry in a chat with Miles, that entry is sent as your first message.
- Pledges: Commitment records you create.
- Content Blocker Settings: If you turn on the content blocker, your on and off choices and the apps you pick stay on your device. The blocker uses Apple's Screen Time. We never see your browsing history or which apps you use.
Community Data
- Posts and Comments: Content you share in the community forum.
- Chat Messages: Messages sent in community chat.
- Interactions: Likes, upvotes, and friend connections.
- Feedback: Any feedback or feature requests you submit. If you include an email address, we use it only to reply to you, and it is removed from the feedback note once we receive it.
AI Therapist Data
- Conversations: Messages you send to our AI companion, Miles, are passed through our server to OpenAI to generate a reply. We do not store the text of your conversations. They are kept in the app's memory only while your session lasts.
- Usage Data: The time, size and cost of each request (not its text), for credit limits and rate limiting.
Technical Data
- Push Notifications: Device tokens for sending notifications (if you enable them).
- Device Information: App version and platform for troubleshooting.
3. How We Use Your Information
We use your information to:
- Provide, maintain, and improve the app's functionality
- Track your progress and display your streaks and statistics
- Enable community features (posts, comments, chat, friends)
- Provide AI-powered support through our AI companion
- Send push notifications (if enabled)
- Respond to your feedback and support requests
- Ensure fair usage through rate limiting
4. Third-Party Services
We use the following third-party services that may collect and process your data:
Firebase (Google)
- Firebase Authentication: Securely manages Sign In with Apple
- Cloud Firestore: Stores your profile, posts, and app data
- Cloud Storage: Stores profile images
- Cloud Functions: Processes server-side operations
- Cloud Messaging: Delivers push notifications
Firebase is operated by Google. For more information, see Firebase Privacy Policy.
OpenAI
Our AI companion, Miles, is powered by OpenAI's technology. Your messages are sent from our servers (Firebase Cloud Functions) to OpenAI without your name, email or account details attached. For more information, see OpenAI Privacy Policy.
Apple
Sign In with Apple is used for authentication. Apple provides a secure, privacy-focused way to sign in without exposing your email address. See Apple Privacy Policy.
When you submit feedback, a notification is emailed to our support inbox using Google Gmail and Proton Mail.
Beat The Urge contains no advertising, analytics or tracking software.
5. Data Sharing
We do not sell your personal data. Your data is shared only as follows:
- Community Content: Your posts, comments and chat messages, and your community profile (display name, avatar, profile photo if you add one, current streak and the date it started, and karma) are visible to other signed-in members.
- Private Data: Your email address, age and quiz answers are never shown to other members. They can be read only by you and, when needed for support or safety, by the app's administrator.
- On-Device Data: Your check-ins, relapse log, mood entries and pledges stay on your device.
- Service Providers: We share data with Firebase and OpenAI as described above to provide app functionality.
- Legal Requirements: We may disclose data if required by law or to protect our rights.
6. Data Retention
We retain your data as follows:
- Account Data: Retained until you delete your account.
- Recovery Data: Retained until you delete individual entries or your account.
- Community Content: Retained until you delete the content or your account.
- AI Conversations: Not stored on our servers. Usage logs (without message text) are retained for rate limiting until you delete your account.
7. Your Rights and Choices
You have the following rights regarding your data:
- Access: View your data within the app.
- Delete: Delete individual entries (check-ins, relapses, mood entries, messages) at any time.
- Account Deletion: Delete your entire account from Settings > Delete Account. This removes your profile, posts, comments, chat messages, feedback, images and usage logs from our servers.
- Notifications: Enable or disable push notifications in your device settings.
- Email: Contact us to request a copy of your data or ask questions about your data.
8. Data Security
We implement security measures to protect your data:
- Sign In with Apple is the only way to sign in. We never ask you to create a password.
- Firebase Security Rules restrict access to your private data
- Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and at rest by our cloud provider
- API keys stored securely on servers (never in the app)
While we strive to protect your data, no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure. Please use the app responsibly.
9. Children's Privacy
Beat The Urge is not intended for anyone under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe we have collected information from a minor, please contact us immediately.
10. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes by posting the new policy in the app or on our website. Your continued use of the app after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
11. Contact Us
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or your data, please contact us:
Email: upliftr@proton.me