App Privacy Policy
- By default, Linger collects nothing and sends nothing off your device. Your settings, the apps you categorize, your goals, your usage numbers, and your stats live only on your phone.
- Analytics is strictly opt-in. Nothing is transmitted unless you turn on "Help improve Linger" in Settings. You can turn it off anytime.
- If you opt in, Linger sends anonymous product-usage data, including the names of apps you use and how long you use them, and anonymous session replays of your interactions inside Linger. It never includes the text of your goals.
- We never sell your data and never use it for advertising.
1. What Linger does and why it needs access
Linger helps you spend less time in apps you label as time-wasters. To do that it watches which app is in the foreground and whether a short-video feed is on screen, then shows a small floating timer and occasional gentle redirects. The permissions below exist only for that.
| Access | Why | What it does NOT do |
|---|---|---|
| A permanent notification | Keeps Linger's own service running so it can tell which app is in front and show the overlay at the right moment. | Cannot be dismissed while Linger is on, because dismissing it would stop the counter. Carries no personal data. |
| Usage access | Read per-app foreground time for the dashboard. | Read locally; transmitted only if you opt in. |
| Display over other apps | Show the timer and redirect screens. | — |
| Notifications | Show the ongoing time-tracker notification. | — |
| Query installed apps | List your apps so you can pick which to monitor. | Only apps you actually use are ever transmitted, and only if you opt in. |
2. When you have NOT opted in
No analytics and no identifiers leave your device. Linger is fully functional in this state.
Crash reports (Google Firebase Crashlytics) are part of the same switch, and like everything else they are off until you turn it on. If you do, and Linger then crashes or an internal step fails, a technical report leaves the device with what failed, your phone model and OS version, and the app version. It contains no account, no usage data, no names of other apps, and nothing you typed. Turning the switch off stops it again, under Tune → Help improve Linger.
3. When you DO opt in
Linger sends anonymous product-usage data via Google Firebase Analytics and PostHog (hosted in the EU), and anonymous session replays via Microsoft Clarity. There is no account, name, email, or phone number attached. Specifically:
- App activity: the package names of apps you open and how you've categorized them (waste / neutral / value), and the weekly and daily minutes you spend in your most-used apps; when you open, interrupt, or leave a monitored app and for how long; which nudges you saw and whether you accepted them; counts of the redirects and wheel-of-life scores you created (never the text).
- Session replays (Microsoft Clarity): anonymized recordings of interactions inside Linger's own screens, to diagnose usability issues.
- App diagnostics + a pseudonymous analytics identifier (not tied to your real identity).
Used only to understand whether Linger reduces time in time-waster apps and to fix problems. Not for advertising. Never sold.
4. What we never collect
- The text of your goals / redirects (only counts, and only if you opt in).
- Your passwords, messages, keystrokes, or the on-screen content of other apps.
- Any real-world identity: no name, phone number, contacts, location, photos, or files. One exception, and only if you choose it: see the research email below.
The one email we may hold, if you give it
When you turn on Help improve Linger you can leave an email address. It is optional: the switch works perfectly well with the field left blank, and leaving it blank means we hold no email for you at all.
If you do leave one, we use it for one thing: to contact you about research, meaning questions about how Linger is working for you. It is not a newsletter, it is not a marketing list, and it is never sold or shared for anyone else's purposes.
We keep it for 24 months, or until the research programme closes, whichever comes first, and then it is deleted. You can ask us to delete it sooner at any time by writing to [email protected], and you do not have to give a reason.
One thing worth being plain about: an email address identifies you, so for as long as we hold yours, the anonymous usage data from your device can be connected to it. If you ask us to delete your email, that connection goes with it.
5. Third parties
Google Firebase / Analytics (product analytics, opt-in), PostHog (product analytics, EU-hosted, opt-in), Microsoft Clarity (anonymous session replay, opt-in), and Google Play Billing (the one-time purchase). Payments are handled entirely by Google Play; Linger never sees or stores card details.
6. Retention and your choices
- Turn it off anytime in Settings, transmission stops immediately.
- On-device data is removed by clearing app data or uninstalling.
- Deletion requests: email [email protected].
7. Children
Linger is for adults managing their own screen time and is not directed at children under 13 (or the equivalent local age).
8. Changes
We'll update this policy when data practices change and revise the effective date above.