Privacy Policy

What the app stores on your phone

In the app’s private storage on the device, and nowhere else:

• Your mood logs: the weather and the word you picked, the tags you added, and when.
• What you write: notes, reflections and your safety plan.
• Your harbour: the names and phone numbers of the people you add, typed in by you. Tarang never reads your contacts.
• Your WHO-5 answers and scores, the tiny things you ticked, and the sessions and music you played, with whether they left you calmer, the same or worse.
• Your settings: your name if you gave one, your turtle’s name, language, theme, reminder time and the other switches in Settings.

Sharing and exports

Nothing leaves Tarang unless you send it. An export or counsellor summary, a harbour note, or a message to someone in your harbour is handed to the app you choose — the share sheet, WhatsApp or SMS — with the text filled in, and is sent only when you press send there. From then on it is outside Tarang. Calling a helpline opens your phone’s own dialler; Tarang neither places the call nor sees it. Share Tarang hands only a link to the app to the share sheet, and Send feedback opens this website in your browser, where the feedback form is covered by the website’s own privacy policy.

Home-screen widgets show what you choose to add: the weather tiles, your turtle’s name and how many days you showed up, or music. The Quiet widget shows no name and no number. Widgets read the same storage on the phone; nothing is sent anywhere to draw them.

Voice, music and the reflection check

Guided sessions are read aloud by your phone’s own text-to-speech engine, which is part of your phone, under its maker’s terms. The music is generated and bundled with the app, so nothing is streamed. When a written reflection mentions self-harm, the check that points you to a helpline runs on the phone and is never logged or sent.

Reminders and permissions

The daily reminder is a local notification scheduled on your phone. No server of ours sends it.

• Notifications — only for the one daily reminder, and only if you turn it on. Discreet mode shows only “Your 9:00 pm nudge”, with your chosen time, on the lock screen.
• Background audio (iPhone) and a media notification (Android) — so music keeps playing with the screen off, with play and pause on the lock screen.
• Tarang asks for no microphone, camera, location, contacts or storage access.

How the app reports on itself

Tarang uses three Google Firebase services. None of them ever receives what you wrote, the word you picked, your tags, your name, your turtle’s name, your safety plan or anyone in your harbour.

• Analytics — switch it off in Settings → Anonymous usage stats; it is on until you do. It records Firebase’s automatic events (for example that the app was opened for the first time, and how long it was used) and which screens were opened — so it can show, for example, that the safety plan screen was visited, but never what is on it. It also records a few coarse actions: that setup was finished and the language chosen; that a mood was logged, with only which of the four weathers and how many tags; that a session or soundscape was finished, which one and for how long; that a built-in tiny thing was ticked (one you typed is reported only as “custom”); that a helpline was dialled, and which; that a WHO-5 check was finished, with only its band (high, low or very low); that an export was shared; that the app was shared or the feedback page opened; and that the language was changed.
• Crashlytics — switch it off in Settings → Crash reports; it is on until you do. When the app crashes or hits an error it sends what went wrong, where in the code, and the state of the device at the time.
• Remote Config fetches a small settings file: an up-to-date helpline list, whether the companion’s lines are shown, the minimum supported version, and whether ads are switched on (see Advertising below). Without a connection the app uses its built-in defaults.

What those reports contain

A Firebase installation identifier, your IP address, and basic information about the device and the app — the model, the operating system version, the app version, the language and the country worked out from the IP address. The identifier is specific to this installation of Tarang; it is not your Google or Apple account, and uninstalling the app ends it. Analytics does not collect your phone’s advertising identifier. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, Analytics starts with storage and advertising signals denied and follows the choices you make in Google’s consent form (see Advertising); turning off Anonymous usage stats stops Analytics altogether.

Google processes this on our behalf as a data processor, under its own terms at firebase.google.com/terms/data-processing-terms. Switching either setting off stops that collection on your phone from that moment.

Advertising

Tarang may show ads from Google AdMob, which is part of Google, to keep the app free. Ads are switched on and off through the app’s remote settings; while they are off, the AdMob SDK is not started and nothing is sent to AdMob.

When ads are on, there is a single banner above the tabs on the Today, Breathe and Journey screens only — never on Support or Harbour, in a session or a player, in the mood log or anywhere you write. Ads are limited to content rated for general audiences.

In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, Google’s consent form asks for your choice before any ad is requested, and you can change it at any time from Settings → Ad privacy choices. If the app cannot confirm your choice, it uses the one you made before and does not assume consent.

To select and measure an ad, AdMob receives your device’s advertising identifier, your IP address and coarse information about the device and app, along with whether an ad was shown, viewed or tapped. Google acts as an independent controller of that information under its own privacy policy, at policies.google.com/privacy. Nothing you logged or wrote is ever part of an ad request. You can reset or delete the advertising identifier in your phone’s settings.

What we do not do

• We do not ask you to create an account, and we do not ask for your email address or phone number.
• We do not upload, store or see your mood logs, notes, safety plan or harbour.
• We do not record audio — the app has no microphone permission — and we do not use your location, contacts or photos.
• We do not sell personal information, and we hold none to sell.
• We do not diagnose. Patterns in Journey are counts of what you logged, shown only to you.

Outside services

Find help near you opens an outside list of free and low-cost services in your browser, and helplines are run by their own organisations. Their privacy practices are their own.

Age

Tarang is for people aged 18 and over, and asks you to confirm that when you start. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, children included.

Your choices

Switch off Anonymous usage stats and Crash reports in Settings at any time. Where Google’s consent form applies, change your ad choices with Settings → Ad privacy choices. Leave the reminder off, or turn on Discreet mode. Export your data with Settings → Export my data. Settings → Delete everything erases everything Tarang has stored on your phone; uninstalling does the same.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in a way that affects you, the revised version will be published on this page with a new revision date. Continuing to use Tarang after that date means the revised policy applies.

Contact

Questions about privacy, or a request about your data, can be sent to tarang@makekk.com.