Swarlipi Privacy Policy

What Swarlipi stores, and where

Everything you make in Swarlipi — practice sessions, compositions and notation, voice notes, your streak, pitch-game progress, and settings — is stored on your device. If you are signed in to iCloud, that data also syncs through your own private iCloud database so it follows you across your devices.

That iCloud data belongs to your Apple Account, not to us. We have no server of our own, no copy of your data, and no way to read it. Deleting content in the app deletes it from your sync too, and you can remove the app's iCloud data entirely from your device's iCloud settings.

Microphone and voice notes

Swarlipi asks for microphone access when you record a voice note inside a practice session, or when the pitch game listens to you sing. Voice notes are saved with your session data — on your device and in your own iCloud — and are never sent to us or anyone else. The pitch game hears your voice only to measure its pitch as you sing; that sound is never saved or sent anywhere. You can decline the permission and use everything else in the app.

Anonymous usage measurement

Swarlipi sends a small, anonymous record to a server of ours so we can tell how many people are using the app and which versions are still running. That second part is what lets us know when an update is worth prompting for, and — in the rare case of a serious bug — when an old version needs to stop being used.

The record contains a random identifier generated on your device the first time the app runs, Apple's vendor identifier for this device, the app version and build, your iOS version, your device model (for example “iPhone15,2”), your language setting, and the country our server infers from your connection. Our own endpoint uses your IP address to work out that country and does not keep the address itself. It is sent at most once a day.

The random identifier is not your name, your Apple Account, or anything you have typed into the app. It is created fresh if you delete and reinstall Swarlipi, so it identifies an installation rather than a person. Apple's vendor identifier is shared across apps from this same developer and resets once you delete all of them from your device.

The app also records which screens you open and which features you use — for example opening a composition, starting a pitch-game round or finishing a lesson — along with when it is opened, installed or updated, and which of our in-app messages you were shown and whether you tapped them. This goes to PostHog, an analytics service acting on our behalf. Those events carry the same anonymous identifier, the app and device details listed above, and counts and durations such as how long a round took. They never carry the titles, names or notes you have written.

To see where the app is confusing or broken, PostHog also records the screen while Swarlipi is open, as a series of screenshots it plays back to us like a short video of the session, with the places you tapped. Anything you type into a text field — session titles, notes, teacher names — is blacked out on your device before the screenshot is sent, and teacher names are hidden wherever they appear. What you type into a search box, such as a raga name, is not blacked out, and notation you have written can be visible in a recording. Recordings capture this app’s screen only: never sound from your microphone, and nothing from other apps.

If the app crashes, a crash report — the technical record of which part of the app’s code failed — is sent the next time you open it, and the app also reports errors you would have noticed, such as a save that did not go through. These describe the app’s code, not anything you made.

PostHog receives the address your connection comes from, works out an approximate location from it — country, and often the region or city — and keeps both alongside the event. It is configured to store no user profiles. That location is attached to the anonymous installation identifier, not to a person: there is no account here to attach it to.

None of it is advertising. We do not use an advertising identifier, we run no ads, we work with no ad networks or data brokers, and we never combine any of this with data from other companies. Under Apple's definition, Swarlipi does not track you — which is why the app never asks for tracking permission.

All of this can be turned off with the “Share usage & screen recordings” switch in Settings ▸ Privacy (called “Share anonymous usage” in earlier versions). It is on unless you turn it off. Turning it off stops the usage events, screen recordings, crash reports and the daily install record straight away; announcements and update prompts keep working, because those are the app doing its job rather than measuring you. If you had already switched it off in an earlier version, it stays off.

Tips and purchases

Swarlipi offers optional one-time tips. Payment is handled entirely by Apple; we never see your name, email, card details, or billing address.

To recognise a tip and restore it on a new device, the app uses RevenueCat, a purchase-infrastructure service. RevenueCat receives an anonymous identifier and the transaction details Apple provides — nothing that identifies you personally. Their handling of that data is described in the RevenueCat privacy policy at revenuecat.com/privacy. If you have tipped, that same anonymous purchase identifier is included in the usage record described above, so a tip can still be recognised if accounts are ever added.

Notifications

If you turn on the daily practice reminder, it is scheduled locally on your device. We send no push notifications of any kind, and the only remote notifications involved are Apple’s silent iCloud-sync signals.

Swarlipi does occasionally show a message from us inside the app — an announcement, or a note that an update is available. Those are fetched when the app opens and shown on screen; they are not notifications, they do not reach you when the app is closed, and asking for one tells us nothing about you beyond the anonymous record described above.

What Swarlipi does not do

No accounts and no sign-up. No advertising, no ad networks, no advertising identifier. No tracking across other companies’ apps or websites, and nothing sold or shared with data brokers — the only data in our hands is the anonymous usage data, crash reports and screen recordings described above, and there is no way to turn those back into a person. Your compositions, sessions and voice notes are never uploaded to us; the only way your notation can be seen outside your own iCloud is on screen in a recording described above, and the switch in Settings turns those off.

The third parties involved in running the app are Apple (storage, sync, payment), RevenueCat (purchase validation), PostHog (usage analytics, screen recordings and crash reports) and Supabase and Vercel (which host the server that receives the usage record). Each acts on our behalf under its own agreement; none of them is given anything that identifies you.

Children

Swarlipi is not directed at children and asks no one their age, because it has no accounts and collects nothing personal from anyone. The anonymous usage record described above identifies an installation, not a person, and is the same whoever is holding the device. A parent who wants it to stop can delete the app; a fresh install starts a new identifier, and the old one simply stops appearing. Turning off the switch in Settings stops the collection, and deleting the app ends it for good.

Where we operate

Swarlipi is made in Montreal, Canada. Your practice data lives on your device and in your own iCloud, so where it is physically stored follows Apple’s iCloud arrangements for your account, not ours.

The anonymous usage record is handled by services in the United States: our own endpoint on Vercel, a Supabase database, and PostHog. Because that record contains nothing that identifies you, there is nothing in it to look up, export or erase on request — but if you would like the row for your installation removed, write to us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

If Swarlipi ever adds a feature that changes how data is handled, this page will be updated before that feature ships, and the effective date below will move. Continued use of the app after a change means the updated policy applies.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: [email protected].