Privacy Policy

smol friends · last updated 5 November 2026

This policy explains what smol friends, our iPhone app with a little character that lives on your phone, does with your information. The short version: there is no account, no ads and no tracking, we never sell anything about you, and almost everything stays on your phone.

What stays on your phone

• Your character, the name and pronouns you give it, its moods, hearts and your settings.
• Your battery level and charging state, which the app reads to make the character react.
• Your phone's tilt and shakes, read only while the character's home is on screen so it can react.

If iCloud is on, which character you picked, its name, pronouns and look (a Pet Twin's colours too), its food, hearts, outfits, notebook and memories (including when it ate and your battery level then) are copied to your own iCloud, so a new phone gets them back. We can't see your iCloud. Your photos and your city are not part of that copy. Like any app's storage, what the app keeps on your phone can also be part of your phone's own backup, if you use one.

Photos and camera

Photos and the camera are the only things the app asks iOS for permission to use, and only when you use the feature that needs them. It never asks for your location, contacts or microphone. The app never sends a photo, a screenshot or a camera picture anywhere.

• Pet Twin: you pick a photo of your pet or take one with the camera. The camera opens only when you tap it. The app looks at the photo on your phone to find your pet's colours and markings and keeps only those, not the photo.
• Wallpaper: you pick a photo in Apple's photo picker, and the app sees only that photo. It keeps a smaller copy of up to 8 recent photos on your phone so you can use them again. If you pick a screenshot of your Lock Screen, the app can clean it up, on your phone, so the old clock doesn't show.
• Your Photos library: to save your wallpaper pictures, the app asks for access to Photos. With Full Access it keeps them in one album named after the app, so Photo Shuffle can use them. With Limited Access it just saves the pictures. Saving a picture straight from the wallpaper page asks only to add to Photos. The app opens only that album and the pictures it made, not the rest of your library. When a new set is made, the old set leaves the album and stays in your library until you delete it. If your plan changes, a new set may be made the next time you open the app (Full Access only).
• See-through widget: if you choose it, you pick a screenshot of your Home Screen. The app checks it on your phone and keeps only the piece behind the widget.

Weather (only if you type a city)

If you type a city, Apple's map service turns the name into map coordinates (Apple's privacy policy covers that step). The app rounds them to about 1 km and asks our small weather server for today's forecast. Along with that rounded spot, the app sends your phone's offset from UTC in minutes (for example -240), so the server knows which day is "today" for you; like the spot, it is not logged. Our server asks MET Norway (the Norwegian Meteorological Institute) for that rounded spot. Our server keeps no logs and only holds each rounded spot's forecast for up to about 6 hours so it doesn't ask twice. Nothing here is linked to you. Weather data from MET Norway (CC BY 4.0).

Purchases

Purchases are handled by Apple; we never see your payment details. To unlock what you bought, the app uses RevenueCat, which receives a random app ID and your purchase record, never your name or email.

Usage numbers and crash reports

To find and fix problems, smol friends sends anonymous usage numbers to PostHog: when the app is installed, updated, opened or closed, which setup steps were done, which friend was picked, whether a Pet Twin was started or made (and whether it is a cat or a dog), when the Plus screen opens and from where, whether a purchase started, finished or failed, when Feed is used, and once a day how many widgets are placed, in which sizes, with which friends and how many days it has been since setup. It sends no names, photos, pet names, city or email. Our usage tool (PostHog) sees your phone's time zone setting (like America/Toronto), never your location. When the app crashes or freezes, it sends a report to Sentry with the device model, iOS version and where in the app it stopped. Problems, in the app or a widget, are reported when they happen, plus one daily health check: counts, timings and which screen, widget or character was showing. Crash and health reports (Sentry) say whether your phone was charging or in Low Power Mode when something went wrong, so we can fix charging bugs. They never include your battery percentage, your location, your photos or your name. Both use a random ID made on your phone that is not linked to you, and neither is used for ads or tracking. There is no screen recording. You can turn both off any time in the app: swipe up on your friend's home and scroll to the bottom for Share anonymous usage (on a friend's page with a gear, it's under the gear), or the same switch at the bottom of the sleep screen.

Service providers

Our weather server and this website run on Cloudflare. Like any web service, Cloudflare, RevenueCat, PostHog and Sentry see the connection's network address when something arrives; we don't use it to identify you. Apple, MET Norway, RevenueCat, PostHog and Sentry each follow their own privacy policies.

Security

Everything the app sends goes over encrypted connections (HTTPS). What the app keeps on your phone sits in its own storage, which iOS keeps away from other apps.

Children

The app is not made for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from anyone.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted on this page with a new date.

Contact

Questions? Email support@scoutkit.io.