Privacy Policy

English is the sole authoritative version of this policy. Any translation is provided for convenience only; if a translation conflicts with this text, this text prevails.

Seed (“the Service”) is built to keep your records yours. This policy explains what we collect, why, and what you can do about it.

1. Who we are

Service	Seed
Operator	AshStart Inc., a corporation incorporated in Ontario, Canada
Registered address	#201 – 20 Bruyeres Mews, Toronto, Ontario M5V 0G8, Canada
Privacy Officer	Daegil Pyo
Contact	daegil@ashstart.com

AshStart Inc. is accountable for the personal information under its control. The Privacy Officer named above is the individual designated as accountable for our compliance with this policy and with Canadian privacy law.

2. What we collect

2.1 Account data

You can use Seed without signing in. In that case we create only an anonymous account identifier (a Firebase UID). No name, email, or other identifying information is collected.

The following is collected only if you choose to link an account.

Sign-in method	Data collected
Anonymous (no sign-in)	Account identifier (UID)
Google	Email address, name, profile photo, account identifier
Apple	Email address or Apple’s private email relay address, name (once, at first sign-in), account identifier

If you choose Hide My Email with Sign in with Apple, we never receive your real email address — only the relay address Apple forwards through.

Email addresses are held in your Firebase Authentication account record and are not stored separately in the Service’s database.

Joining or creating a group requires a Google or Apple account (§2.7).

2.2 Data you enter

Area	Fields
Profile	Name (given, family), profile photo
Settings	Day start hour, language, theme, the group members you have blocked, and on the free plan, which habit stays active and when you chose it
Categories	Category names you create (or the key of a preset you selected)
Habits	Habit name, floor, target, unit, cue (time/place or preceding habit), schedule, replacement action, the periods it was paused on the free plan, and the groups it is connected to
Groups	For groups you create: name and colour. For groups you join: when you joined, the shared habits you do, whether you kept or rested each of them on each day, whether group notifications are on, and the invitation code you joined with (§2.7)
Notification token	Only for linked accounts: a token from Firebase Cloud Messaging that lets us deliver group notifications to this device, with the device’s language and platform and when it was saved
Logs	Local date, time logged, the time zone name at the moment of logging, value, whether the floor was met, whether it was backfilled, and for journal habits: title, note, place, photos

2.3 About time zone data

We store the time zone name (for example America/Toronto) alongside each log. We do not collect GPS or cell-tower location, but a time zone name can suggest the approximate region you are in.

It is collected for exactly one purpose. Seed treats a day as starting at an hour you choose (4 AM by default) rather than at midnight. To decide which day a past record belongs to — correctly, even after you travel or move — we need the time zone that was in effect when the record was made. Time zone data is not used for anything else and is never shared.

2.4 About photos

Seed cannot control what you photograph. A photo may contain faces, health-related details, or other sensitive information, so attaching one is always your choice. Photos are shown only to you. We do not analyse them and do not share them.

2.5 Diagnostics and usage data

Seed uses Google Firebase tools to find crashes and to understand whether the app actually helps people keep a habit. These collect data automatically — except that in the EEA and the UK, Analytics and Performance Monitoring run only if you agree to them (§11.3).

Tool	What it collects
Crashlytics	Crash and error reports: stack trace, device model, OS version, app version. Turned off in development builds.
Analytics	A per-installation identifier and usage events — automatic ones (first open, session start, screen views) and a small set we defined, such as habit created, habit checked, growth stage reached, notification opened, and habit archived
Performance Monitoring	App start time, screen rendering, network request timing
Remote Config	Nothing. It only receives configuration values from us

The content of your records is never sent to these tools. An event carries the shape of an action, not what it was about — that a habit was checked, whether it met its floor, whether it was backfilled — but never the habit’s name, your notes, your places, or your photos.

We do not attach your account to analytics. These tools see only a per-installation identifier, which is separate from your account and resets if you reinstall the app.

Raw analytics events are exported once a day to Google BigQuery, a data warehouse in the same Google Cloud account, so we can answer questions the standard reports cannot.

⚠️ Because these events are not linked to your account, deleting your account does not remove them. They remain in pseudonymous form, tied to an installation identifier rather than to you. Everything that is linked to your account is deleted — see §6.

2.6 What we do not collect

Seed uses no advertising identifier and contains no advertising. The Analytics SDK adds Android advertising-ID permissions by default; we removed them. Habit reminders are scheduled locally on your device. The only notifications we send from a server are group notifications (§2.7).

2.7 Groups — what other members see

Nothing you record is shown to anyone else unless you join a group. A group has up to 8 members, who join with an invitation code. In a group:

Who	What they see
Anyone signed in who has the group’s invitation code	The group’s name and colour, the owner’s name, its shared habits, and how many members it has
Every member	Your name, profile photo, and account identifier, when you joined, which shared habits you do, and for each of them whether you kept your floor or rested on each day, and when you checked it
Every member, if you choose	When you connect an existing habit to a group, the past days of that habit (kept or rested). The app asks before you share them
You, the owner, and admins	How many check-ins you have added to the group’s shared forest. The app shows your count to no other member
The owner and admins	The group’s activity history: who joined, left, or was removed (with the name of a member who has left), changes of owner or admin, new invitation codes, and shared habits added or removed
Members who turned on notifications	A notification with your first name and the shared habit’s name when you keep it, and with your name when you join

Members never see your values, notes, places, or log photos, or any habit you have not connected to the group.

Your name and photo in a group are copies of your profile, updated when you change it. Your profile photo is shared with members as a web address; anyone who is given that address can open the image without signing in.

Group notifications are sent from our server through Firebase Cloud Messaging and, for Apple devices, Apple Push Notification service. You can turn them off for each group.

If you block a member, the list of members you have blocked is saved in your account so that your screens and our server can leave them out. The blocked member is not told. If you report a member or a group, the app opens an email to us with the group’s and the member’s identifiers; we use it only to handle the report.

2.8 Purchases

Apple or Google takes the payment when you buy Seed+. We never receive your card number or other payment details.

We use RevenueCat to check purchases with the store and to know whether Seed+ is active for you. RevenueCat identifies you by your Seed account identifier (UID), so your purchase history is linked to your account. It receives from the store a record of each purchase — the plan, the store, purchase and expiry dates, whether it will renew, the price and currency, and the store’s transaction identifiers — and the technical data needed to reach its servers, such as device type, OS and app version, and IP address.

3. Why we process it, and your consent

We process your personal information for these purposes only:

• To store and display your habit records
• To restore your records on a new device or after reinstalling (when an account is linked)
• To decide which day a record belongs to, using the day boundary you set
• To run the groups you join: showing members what §2.7 lists, and sending group notifications
• To sell Seed+, check whether it is active, and restore purchases
• To find and fix crashes and performance problems
• To measure, in aggregate, whether the app helps people keep a habit, so we can improve it
• To respond to your enquiries

We do not use your data for marketing, profiling, or automated decision-making, and we do not sell it.

If you are in the European Economic Area (EEA) or the United Kingdom, the legal bases in §11 apply instead of this paragraph.

You consent to this processing by using the Service. You may withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal and contractual restrictions and reasonable notice, by deleting your account in the app or by contacting us. Withdrawing consent means we can no longer provide the Service to you.

4. Service providers

Provider	Purpose
Google LLC (Firebase)	Authentication, Cloud Firestore (data), Cloud Storage (files), Cloud Functions (server tasks for groups and account deletion), Cloud Messaging (group notifications)
Google LLC (Firebase)	Crashlytics, Analytics, Performance Monitoring, Remote Config (§2.5)
Google LLC (BigQuery)	Daily copy of raw analytics events (§2.5)
Google LLC (Places API)	Looking up a place name when you attach a place to a journal entry
RevenueCat, Inc.	Checking purchases with the stores and keeping track of whether Seed+ is active (§2.8)
Apple Inc. (Apple Push Notification service)	Delivering group notifications to Apple devices (§2.7)

These providers process personal information on our behalf and on our instructions only.

Apple (App Store) and Google (Google Play) process your payment as their own business, under their own privacy policies, not on our behalf.

Apart from these providers and the members of groups you join (§2.7), we do not share your data with any third party. We may disclose personal information where required by law, and we will not disclose more than the law requires.

5. Storage outside Canada

Your data is stored and processed in Google Cloud Platform data centres located in the United States, purchase records are processed by RevenueCat in the United States, and enquiries you send us may be handled from Canada.

While your personal information is outside Canada, it is subject to the laws of that country, and courts, law enforcement, and national security authorities there may be entitled to obtain access to it. We use providers that offer comparable protection by contract, but we cannot exclude this.

6. Retention and deletion

• We keep your data until you delete your account.
• When you use Delete account and data in the app, your account details, habits, logs, and photos are deleted without undue delay.
• Diagnostics and usage data (§2.5) is an exception. It is not linked to your account, so it is not removed when you delete your account. It is kept in pseudonymous form, tied to an installation identifier.
• Feedback you send us is also not linked to your account. A bug report or suggestion sent from Me → Send feedback does not carry your account identifier, so deleting your account does not remove it — the same as an email you have already sent us. It holds what you wrote, any screenshots you attached, and your app version, device platform, and language. If you asked for a reply and gave us an email address, we use it only to answer that report. Please do not put anything in a screenshot that you would not want us to keep, and contact us if you want a report deleted.
• Where law requires a longer retention period, that data is stored separately for that period and then destroyed.
• Groups. When you leave a group or are removed from it, your check-ins in that group are deleted; your own habits and records stay. The group’s activity history keeps that you left, with your name, until you delete your account. When you delete your account, your membership and check-ins in every group are deleted and your name is removed from activity histories. What stays in the group is activity history that refers to your former account identifier without a name, and the number of check-ins you added to its shared forest.
• Notification tokens are invalidated when you sign out on that device, and deleted with your account.
• Purchases. Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription — cancel it in the store. It also does not delete purchase records: Apple and Google keep theirs under their own policies, and RevenueCat keeps the record of your transactions tied to your former account identifier, which we need for accounting, tax, and refunds. Contact us if you want it deleted, and we will delete it where the law allows.
• If you use Seed without linking an account, deleting the app makes the account identifier unrecoverable, and that data can no longer be reached. Link an account if you want your records to survive.

7. Your rights

Right	How
Access — a copy of what we hold and how it has been used	View all your records in the app, or contact us
Correction	Edit your profile, habits, and logs in the app
Deletion	Undo a check, or Me → Delete account and data to erase everything linked to your account (see §6 for the exceptions)
Stop sharing with a group	Leave the group, or stop doing one of its shared habits, from the group’s screen
Withdraw consent	Delete your account, or contact us

On undoing a check: undoing marks that log as removed and it stops counting toward your records, but any journal text and photos attached to it remain in storage until you delete your account. Use Delete account and data to erase everything.

We answer access requests within 30 days, as Canadian law requires. There is no charge.

If you are not satisfied with how we handled your personal information, contact our Privacy Officer first. If we do not resolve it, you may file a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca).

If you are in the EEA or the UK, you have further rights, set out in §11.

8. Children

Seed is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If we learn that we hold data from a child under 13, we delete it without undue delay. In the EEA and the UK a higher age may apply (§11.7).

9. Security

• Encryption in transit (HTTPS/TLS)
• Per-user access control — database rules permit access only to your own data, and to group data only for that group’s members
• Encryption at rest (provided by Google Cloud)

No method of storage or transmission is completely secure. If a breach creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will notify you and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as the law requires. If you are in the EEA or the UK, we also notify the competent supervisory authority, and you where required, as the GDPR and the UK GDPR require.

10. Changes

We post changes and their effective date on this page. Changes that materially affect you are announced at least 7 days before they take effect, in the app or on this page.

11. If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom

This section applies if you are in the EEA or the UK. It explains how the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the UK GDPR apply to the processing described above. Where it differs from the rest of this policy, this section prevails for you.

11.1 Controller

AshStart Inc. (§1) is the controller of your personal data. You can contact us directly at daegil@ashstart.com.

11.2 Legal bases

What we do	Legal basis
Your account, and storing, showing, and syncing your records (§2.1–2.4)	Contract — it is what the Service is (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b))
Groups you join: showing members what §2.7 lists, and sending group notifications	Contract — you ask for it by joining
Looking up a place name with Google when you attach a place	Contract — you ask for it
Selling Seed+, checking whether it is active, and restoring purchases (§2.8)	Contract
Keeping purchase records for accounting and tax (§6)	Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c))
Crash reports (Crashlytics) (§2.5)	Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) — keeping the app working and secure. We collect no record content and do not link crash reports to your account
Receiving configuration values (Remote Config)	Legitimate interests — changing how the app behaves without a new release
Usage analytics (Analytics, and its daily export to BigQuery) and performance measurements (Performance Monitoring) (§2.5)	Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) — see §11.3
Answering enquiries, feedback, and reports about groups	Legitimate interests — answering you and keeping groups safe
Disclosures the law requires	Legal obligation

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed them against your interests and rights. You can object (§11.4).

11.3 Usage stats need your consent

In the EEA and the UK, the app does not collect usage analytics or performance measurements until you agree. It asks you once — when you first open the app, or after updating if you already use it. If you choose Don’t allow, the app sends neither and works exactly the same.

You can change your answer at any time with Me → About → Share usage stats. Your choice is saved on that device, so set it on each device you use. Turning it off stops further collection; it does not affect what was collected before, which is not linked to your account (§2.5).

11.4 Your rights

In addition to the rights in §7, you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you and receive a copy
• Rectify data that is inaccurate or incomplete
• Erase your data — Me → Delete account and data does this for everything linked to your account (§6)
• Data portability — receive the records you gave us in a structured, machine-readable format, or have them sent to another service where that is technically feasible. Email us; we send them as a JSON file
• Restrict processing while a question about your data is being settled
• Object to processing based on legitimate interests. We then stop unless we have compelling legitimate grounds, or need the data for legal claims
• Withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on it (§11.3)

To use these rights, email daegil@ashstart.com. We may need to confirm your identity first. We answer within one month; if a request is complex we may extend this by up to two further months and will tell you why. There is no charge.

We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing, including profiling, that have legal or similarly significant effects.

You may complain to a supervisory authority — in the EEA, the data protection authority of the country where you live, work, or where you think the problem happened; in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk). We would appreciate the chance to deal with your concern first.

11.5 Transfers outside the EEA and the UK

Your data is processed in the United States and Canada (§5).

• Canada: the European Commission and the UK have each found that Canada provides an adequate level of protection for data handled by commercial organisations.
• United States: where the recipient is certified under the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework (and, for UK data, its UK Extension), we rely on that certification. Otherwise we rely on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses and, for UK data, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, included in our agreements with Google and RevenueCat.

You can ask us for more information about these safeguards.

11.6 Where your data comes from, and whether you must give it

Almost everything we hold comes from you, or from Google or Apple when you sign in. Purchase records come from the App Store or Google Play through RevenueCat. If another group member’s app shows you something, it comes from what that member shares (§2.7).

Account and record data is needed to provide the Service — without it, the app cannot work. Photos, notes, places, and analytics are optional.

11.7 Children

In the EEA and the UK, you must be old enough to agree to online services on your own in your country — 13 in the UK and between 13 and 16 in EEA countries — or have your parent’s or guardian’s permission. If we learn that we hold data from a child below that age without that permission, we delete it without undue delay.

History

Effective	Change
2026-11-19	Rights and legal bases for the EEA and the UK (§11) · consent for analytics and performance measurements in the EEA and the UK (§2.5, §11.3) · breach notification for the EEA and the UK (§9)
2026-11-19	Groups, including blocking and reporting (§2.7), and purchases (§2.8) added · Apple, RevenueCat, Cloud Functions, and Cloud Messaging added as providers (§4) · retention for groups, notification tokens, and purchases (§6)
2026-09-28	Feedback sent from the app (§6) added
2026-09-06	Diagnostics and usage data (§2.5) added, before any public release
2026-09-06	First issued