Nudge privacy policy

Nudge is made by QAEM (“we”, “us”). This policy covers the Nudge app for iPhone and Android and the free Nudge companion for Windows (“the PC app”). It explains what data Nudge handles, where that data lives and who else sees it.

The short version

• No accounts. You never sign up or sign in to Nudge.
• No analytics, no ads, no tracking. Nudge contains no analytics, advertising or tracking SDKs.
• No Nudge cloud. Your phone and your PCs talk to each other directly over your home network, or over your own Tailscale network if you set one up. We don't run a server that your commands or settings pass through.
• Purchases of Nudge Pro are handled by Apple or Google. Our purchase provider, RevenueCat, checks the receipt using a random ID that isn't tied to your name or email.

What Nudge stores, and where

All of the following stays on your own devices. We don't receive a copy.

On your phone

• The PCs you've paired: their names, network addresses (local IP addresses and, if you use Tailscale, Tailscale addresses and names), network adapter hardware (MAC) addresses for Wake-on-LAN, and each PC's security certificate fingerprint.
• A secret access token for each PC, kept in the iOS Keychain or the Android Keystore.
• A copy of each PC's automations (for example “Turn on at 7:30 AM on weekdays”) and the PC's time zone, so the phone can turn the PC on at the right time.
• Your preferences: PC order, groups, week start and time format.
• Whether you've unlocked Nudge Pro.

On your PC

• The phones you've paired: the name each phone reports (such as “Maya's iPhone”), its platform (iOS or Android), when it was paired and last active, and whether it has Nudge Pro. Phone access tokens are stored only as one-way hashes.
• The PC's name, its automations, and the PC app's settings.
• This data is stored in a Windows folder that only the system and administrators can read. Uninstalling the PC app deletes it unless you choose to keep your pairings.

How your devices communicate

• Finding your PC. The phone looks for the PC app on your local network using standard local discovery (mDNS/Bonjour, with a local broadcast as a fallback).
• Pairing. You approve each phone on the PC, or scan a QR code the PC shows. Pairing only works on your local network.
• Commands (shut down, restart, sleep, hibernate, lock, automations, rename) go from the phone to the PC over an encrypted HTTPS connection. The phone checks the PC's certificate so it only talks to the PC it paired with.
• Wake uses a standard Wake-on-LAN “magic packet” sent on your local network. It contains only the PC's MAC address.
• Remote access (optional, Pro). If you install Tailscale on your phone and PC yourself, Nudge can reach the PC through your Tailscale network. Nudge doesn't bundle, configure or sign you in to Tailscale. Tailscale is a separate service with its own privacy policy, and your use of it is between you and Tailscale. Nudge sends the same encrypted commands over it.

Purchases (RevenueCat, Apple and Google)

Nudge Pro is a one-time in-app purchase.

• Apple (App Store) or Google (Google Play) processes the payment. We never see your card or payment details. Their privacy policies apply to the payment.
• RevenueCat, Inc. is the third-party service we use to verify purchases and restore them on your other devices. When you buy or restore Nudge Pro, or when the app checks whether Pro is unlocked, the app sends RevenueCat:
  • a random, anonymous app user ID created by the app (not linked to your name, email or Apple/Google account on our side);
  • the store receipt or purchase token and the purchase details (product, price, currency, date, store country);
  • basic technical details needed for the request, such as the app version, the operating system version and your IP address as part of the connection.
• We use this only to unlock and restore Pro, and to see aggregate sales figures in RevenueCat's dashboard. We don't use it for advertising, and we don't combine it with any other data. RevenueCat processes it on our behalf. See RevenueCat's privacy policy.

If you never open the purchase screen or tap Restore, the app still checks with RevenueCat in the background whether this device has Pro, using the same anonymous ID.

Permissions Nudge asks for

The PC app runs as a Windows service so it can respond while no one is signed in. It also adds Windows Firewall rules that allow the phone to reach it on private networks (and, for remote access, only from Tailscale addresses).

What we don't do

• We don't sell, rent or share your personal information.
• We don't collect your location, contacts, photos, files, browsing or usage history.
• We don't use advertising IDs, and we don't track you across other apps or websites.

Children

Nudge isn't directed at children under 13 (or the minimum age in your country), and we don't knowingly collect personal information from children.

Keeping and deleting your data

Because your data lives on your devices, you control it:

• Remove a PC in the phone app, or remove a phone in the PC app, to delete that pairing.
• Delete the phone app to remove everything it stored.
• Uninstall the PC app, leaving “Also delete pairings and settings” ticked, to remove everything it stored.
• RevenueCat keeps purchase records for as long as needed to verify and restore purchases and meet legal and tax obligations. To ask for your purchase record to be deleted, contact us with your purchase receipt or order number, because the anonymous ID means we can't look you up by name. Note that deleting it may stop Restore Purchase from working.

Your rights

Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR in the EU/UK or the CCPA in California), you may have the right to access, correct, delete or move your personal data, and to object to or restrict its processing. Since we hold almost no data about you, most requests are answered by the controls above. For anything else, contact us. You may also complain to your local data protection authority.

For purchase verification, our legal basis is performing our contract with you (delivering Pro), and our legitimate interest in preventing fraud. Data processed by RevenueCat may be transferred to and processed in the United States under appropriate safeguards.

Security

Connections between your phone and PC are encrypted (TLS) and pinned to the PC's certificate. Access tokens are stored in the phone's secure storage and only as hashes on the PC. No system is perfectly secure, so keep your devices and your Tailscale account protected.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll update it on this page and change the effective date above. If a change is significant, we'll also note it in the app's release notes.

Contact

QAEM, qaemdev.com
Email: [email protected]

See also the Nudge terms of use and Nudge support.