Privacy policy | crocial

The short version

crocial counts how many minutes you spend in the social apps you pick. It can’t see what’s on your screen or what you type in them.
The AI coach is Claude, a model from Anthropic, which processes your messages to reply and doesn’t use them to train its models. crocial deletes the text after 30 days.
We never see what you read, watch or write inside those apps.
We don’t sell your information or use it for advertising.
crocial is for adults, 18 and over.
You can delete your account and data at any time, in the app or from this website.

Who we are

crocial is run by Conor Joseph Thomas Farrington, 59 Garden Walk, Cambridge, CB4 3EW, UK. We decide how your personal information is used, which makes us the responsible party under South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) the data controller under Kenya’s Data Protection Act, and the data fiduciary under India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act if you join the waitlist from India. Contact us at privacy@crocial.app.

What the app collects

Your account: your email address (or the name and email address Google shares if you sign in with Google), your confirmation that you’re 18 or older, your time zone (to work out your local day), your country and your language.
Screen time: which of the social apps you chose to track, and how many minutes a day you spend in each, read from Android’s usage data on your phone. When you set up crocial, it also reads the days your phone has already kept (about 10 on most phones) for those apps only, so it can show your real starting point.
Your settings: your daily limits, free hours, gentle, strict or Steady mode, when apps were locked or skipped, and, if you turn limits off and choose to tell us why, the reason you pick.
Goals and goal sessions: the goals you write, your messages with the coach and its replies, the wins you save, and when sessions start and end.
Groups: your display name, the groups you’re in, your weekly time taken back, and the cheers and wins you share, which other members of your groups can see. If you pick your campus, your minutes count towards a campus total that never shows names.
Weekly receipts: a picture of your week and the numbers on it (minutes taken back, best day, streak, group rank) with a private link. Anyone who has the link to a receipt you share can see the picture and the minutes; it never shows your name.
Invite links: your own invite link for each group, and how many people opened it, installed crocial and joined.
Daily check-in: once a day the app reports whether Usage access, the accessibility service and notifications are still on, so it can tell you if something was switched off.
Technical data: your phone model, Android version and app version. Our rate limiter keeps only a scrambled form of your IP address, for up to a day.
Purchases: whether you have Pro, from Google Play and RevenueCat. We never see your card details.
Rewards: the points you earn and spend. If you claim a data reward, the mobile number to send it to. We delete the number once the data is sent and keep only a scrambled code that stops the same number claiming twice.
Diagnostics: crash reports and app events (for example "goal session started"), linked only to your user ID and country.

What crocial never collects

What’s on your screen or what you type in your social apps. crocial’s accessibility service only notices which app is open, so it can lock it at your limit. It never reads the screen.
Your contacts, photos, camera, microphone or location.

This website and the waitlist

If you join the waitlist, we store your email address, your country (worked out from your connection; we don’t store your IP address), your language, the code of the friend who invited you, if any, and your own private waitlist code. We use Cloudflare Turnstile to check that you’re a person; it processes your IP address and browser details for that check. We count visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which doesn’t use cookies or follow you to other websites.

How we use it

To run crocial: count minutes, lock apps at your limit, run goal sessions, and show groups and weekly receipts. This is needed to provide the service you signed up for.
To keep you safe: every message to the coach is checked first. If it suggests you may be in crisis, the coach stops and shows helplines for your country.
To fix and improve crocial, using app events and crash reports.
To email you about your account and, if you joined the waitlist, once crocial opens in your country. You agreed to this when you joined. We also send one short thank-you email right after you join; every email from the list has a link to remove yourself.

Research comparison: about one in five new users are chosen at random to just track their minutes for 14 days, with no limits or lock screens, so we can learn what really helps. You still see your minutes and your minutes taken back, and then get the full app. We don’t make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects by automated means.

We don’t sell your personal information, use it for advertising, or let other companies use it for their own purposes.

The AI coach

For now the coach is Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. Your messages go to Anthropic’s servers, mainly in the United States, to write each reply. Under its terms for businesses, Anthropic doesn’t use them to train its models. crocial plans to move the coach to an open model on servers it runs itself, and this page will change when it does. crocial deletes message text after 30 days; we keep counts (how many messages, how long a session lasted) without the text.

The coach can be wrong. It is not a doctor, counsellor, lawyer or financial adviser, and it is not an emergency service.

Connecting ChatGPT, Claude or another assistant

If you choose to connect an assistant, you approve what it can do: see your goal, your week and how many sessions you have left, start and end goal sessions, and change your daily limit when you ask. It can’t see your messages with the coach. What the assistant does with the information is covered by its own terms and privacy policy. You can disconnect at any time, and deleting your crocial account disconnects every assistant.

Why we may use it

Under POPIA, Kenya’s Data Protection Act, India’s DPDP Act and the GDPR where it applies, we rely on:

providing the service you asked for: your account, measuring, limits, the coach, groups, receipts and Pro;
your consent: the Usage access and accessibility permissions, which you can withdraw in Android settings at any time, and optional things you switch on;
our legitimate interests: security, preventing abuse, fixing errors, and understanding how crocial is used through app events tied to your user ID;
legal duties, where the law requires us to keep or share something.

Who else handles your information

These companies process information for us under contract, and only to provide their service to crocial:

Supabase: database, sign-in, file storage and our server functions (EU region).
Anthropic: the AI coach (the United States).
Google Play and RevenueCat: subscriptions and payments.
PostHog: app analytics, tied to your user ID and country only (EU region).
Sentry: crash reports with personal data removed (EU region).
Cloudflare: this website, the waitlist and bot checks.
Resend: sign-in codes, the waitlist thank-you email and the launch email.

We may also share information when the law requires it.

Where it’s stored and sent

Mainly in the European Union. Some providers may process information in other countries, including the United States. When they do, we rely on contracts with the safeguards the law requires, such as standard contractual clauses. Data is encrypted in transit, each person can only reach their own rows, and our server functions check who is calling and limit how fast they can be called. No system is perfectly secure; if something goes wrong that affects you, we’ll tell you and the regulator as the law requires.

How long we keep it

Coach message text: 30 days.
Daily screen-time minutes: 13 months.
Your account, goals, wins and groups: until you delete your account, or until you delete a win yourself.
Points: 6 months after you earn them.
A mobile number for a data reward: until the data is sent.
The waitlist: until 6 months after we email you that crocial has opened in your country, or until you leave the list.
Crash reports: up to 90 days. App events: up to 12 months.
Rate-limit records: up to one day.

When you delete your account it closes straight away, and we delete your information within 30 days, except records the law requires us to keep, such as purchase records.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you can ask to see, correct or delete your information, object to how we use it, withdraw consent, or get a copy. Email privacy@crocial.app and we’ll reply within 30 days.

South Africa: you can complain to the Information Regulator (inforegulator.org.za).
Kenya: you can complain to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (odpc.go.ke).
India: you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India.
United Kingdom: you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk).
United States: if your state has a privacy law (for example California, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, Utah or Virginia), you can ask us to confirm whether we hold your information, to give you a copy, to correct it, to delete it, and to opt out of its sale, of targeted advertising and of profiling. We don’t sell your personal information, we don’t share it for advertising, and we don’t use it for targeted advertising or for decisions with legal effects. We treat a browser signal such as Global Privacy Control as an opt-out request, although the website sets no advertising cookies. We don’t discriminate against you for using these rights. If we say no to a request, you can appeal by replying to our answer, and if you are still not satisfied you can contact your state attorney general.

crocial doesn’t ask for health information and makes no health claims. It measures time in apps. It isn’t a medical device, and it isn’t treatment, therapy or a diagnosis of any condition.

Adults only

crocial is for people 18 and over. If we learn that someone under 18 has an account, we delete it.

Delete your account

You can delete your account in the app (Settings, Delete my account), export everything as one file first (Settings, Export my data), or ask us to delete it without the app. Here’s how.

Changes

We’ll update this page when things change, and tell you in the app or by email about important changes.

Contact

Conor Joseph Thomas Farrington, 59 Garden Walk, Cambridge, CB4 3EW, UK. Email privacy@crocial.app.