Skip to content
Fold’em Try for free
Privacy

Privacy Policy

Fold'em is a gambling self exclusion app. Its job is to help you block gambling apps and websites on your iPhone until you choose to end it. We collect the minimum needed to make that lock work, and nothing more.

Fold'em · last updated 16 October 2026

What we collect

Everything in this list is stored with your account, except the usage counts, which are not linked to you.

  • Account. When you sign in with Apple we receive a user identifier and, if you share them, your name and email address. If you choose a character, we keep which of the twelve you chose.
  • Your exclusion. When your protection started and, if you end it, when it ended, the first name you type to sign it, and how many things you blocked (e.g. "12 apps, 2 categories, 10 websites"). The actual list of apps you selected never leaves your device, and neither does any site or app name behind an attempt. Apple's Screen Time technology keeps it opaque even to us.
  • Your keyholder and supporters. They take part through their own Fold'em account in the app, and each of you is shown the first name on the other's account and the character the other chose. If someone you invited before Fold'em 3.0 takes part by email, we keep the first name you typed for them and the email address they confirmed, to send them updates. A phone number you save for one of them stays on your phone. We never send it anywhere or dial it for you.
  • Names in a handover. If you hand the key from one person to another, each of them is told the other's first name, because a handover neither of them can see is not a handover they can consent to.
  • Protection status. Periodic readings from your device saying whether blocking is still on, whether the web shield is working, whether your subscription is active, which version of the app is running, and when it last confirmed. This is what lets the people in your circle see if protection is turned off.
  • Deletion delay. If you turn the optional delay on, whether it is on, and if you ask to turn it off, that request and when it was made. There is no reason to give and no free text on that path. If someone holds your key, they can see that you asked, and how it ended.
  • Requests to end protection. If you ask to end protection, the request and your keyholder's decision.
  • Lockdown end requests. If someone holds your key and you ask them to end a Lockdown sooner, the request, when the Lockdown would end on its own, any note you write with it (up to 280 characters), and their answer. Your keyholder reads the note. A Lockdown you start, extend or let run out is not stored with your account and is shown to nobody.
  • Notifications. The push token Apple and Firebase give your phone, so we can send you notifications. It is deleted with your account.
  • Crash reports. If the app crashes, a report goes to Firebase Crashlytics with your account identifier: where in the app it stopped, your device model and iOS version. We use it only to find and fix the fault.
  • Invite codes. If you share your invite code or redeem someone else's, we keep the code, the first name shown with it, which account redeemed it and whether that led to a subscription, so the reward can be given.
  • Problem reports (optional). If you send a report from Settings or the setup pulse, we receive the category you chose, what you wrote, the app version and device model, and, only while the switch is on, a diagnostics bundle: your protection's state as counts and case names, and the last lines the app logged with addresses and long numbers masked. You can read every line before you send. A screenshot and a reply address are attached only if you add them. Reports are kept for 180 days and deleted with your account. They go to us only; a keyholder or supporter never sees one.
  • Usage counts. Anonymous counts from the app, such as which setup screens were reached and whether a purchase went through, as counts and case names only, never linked to your account and never with your name, email or anything you typed. PostHog works out the country from the connection and does not keep your IP address. To tell one install from another, the app keeps a random ID on your phone, which is not linked to your account either. The counts are on by default and kept by PostHog in the EU, and you can turn them off in the app under Settings, Preferences, Share usage counts.

What stays on your device

  • The exact apps and categories you blocked (as opaque tokens Apple issues, which do not tell us which apps they are).
  • Your check ins, your goal, and the cravings you rode out in SOS.
  • The spending baseline you report yourself, and your money kept figures.
  • Your Lockdown schedule.

The web shield

If you turn on the web shield in iOS Settings, your iPhone sends every address lookup it makes, in any app and not only for gambling sites, to our resolver at dns.foldem.app over an encrypted connection. The resolver runs on Fly.io in Ashburn, Virginia, in the United States. It answers a gambling address with nothing and passes every other lookup on to Fly.io's own resolver. It sees the names your phone looks up, never the pages you open or anything you send.

The resolver is not given your IP address and keeps no record of the names it answers. Like any server it writes a service log of starts, restarts and errors, and a line about a lookup that failed can include that one name, with nothing that ties it to you. Fly.io keeps that log for 7 days.

What we never do

  • No advertising, no advertising trackers, no analytics brokers.
  • No selling or sharing data for marketing, to anyone, ever.
  • No reading your browsing history. The web shield answers address lookups and keeps no history of them.

Payments

Subscriptions are processed by Apple. We never see your payment details. Apple tells us whether your subscription is active, when it ends, and whether a payment was refunded, so the app and the people in your circle can be told when protection is about to lapse.

Service providers

We run on Google Firebase (sign in, database, hosting, notifications and crash reports; Google Cloud, US/EU regions) and Fly.io (the web shield's resolver, United States). We use Resend (EU region) to deliver supporter emails and to forward your problem reports to us, PostHog (EU region) to keep the anonymous usage counts, and Cloudflare to run the foldem.app domain and to route email you send to support@foldem.app. Each acts only on our instructions. Apple provides Sign in with Apple, subscriptions and the delivery of notifications.

Your supporter's data

A keyholder or supporter takes part through their own Fold'em account in the iOS app, or by email if they joined that way. They can decline or step away at any time, which stops further notifications. If your keyholder or a supporter has added the Fold’em card to Apple Wallet, we keep the identifier Apple gives their phone for that card, the card’s push token and the token the card uses to fetch its updates, so the card can stay current; a phone’s entry is deleted when they remove the card from Wallet, and the rest is deleted 90 days after your Fold’em account is deleted.

What a keyholder sees about you

Eleven things, and this is all of them.

  1. The character you chose for yourself, and your first name. Never your full name.
  2. Whether protection is on, as one of the five words their card can carry: Protection on, Not confirmed yet, Protection at risk, Protection off or Protection ended.
  3. A count of days from the day your protection started, and its milestone days, while the Gambling free run switch in Sharing is on.
  4. If someone holds your key: that a request to end protection is open, the date they must answer by, and how it ends, whether they agreed and you confirmed it, they declined, you withdrew it, or it closed unanswered.
  5. If someone holds your key: that you started the 72 hour wait to turn off Deletion delay, when, and whether Deletion delay stayed on or turned off.
  6. A handover: that one is running and the first name of the person taking over, shown to your keyholder and to that person and to nobody else.
  7. Asked for support, when you ask for it.
  8. If your subscription ends while protection is on: that your protection is ending, shown as Protection at risk, and a Remind button that sends you a reminder about the payment.
  9. The nudges between you, as a kind and a time, never as words.
  10. If someone holds your key: a notice, once, if you close your account.
  11. If someone holds your key: that you asked them to end a Lockdown sooner, when it would end on its own, and the note you wrote with the ask, if you wrote one.

Never your check ins, your goal, Money kept, that you gambled, how many attempts were blocked, which apps or sites you blocked, anything you browse, or anything else you typed. Nobody is told when a Lockdown starts, is extended or ends on its own.

A supporter without the key sees the same list less the four things that travel with the key, the request to end protection, the Deletion delay wait, the handover and a Lockdown end request, and less the once notice if you close your account. They see your card change state, never the request behind it, and they never hold the code that agrees to one.

Retention & deletion

Your data is kept while your account exists, unless a shorter time is named here: a problem report is kept for 180 days at most, Crashlytics keeps a crash report for 90 days, and Fly.io keeps the resolver's service log for 7 days. You can delete your account and its data from inside the app (Settings); deletion while protection is on follows the same safeguards as ending protection, so the lock can't be bypassed by deleting the account. Crash reports already sent expire on their own, and the usage counts are not linked to you, so neither can be found by your account. You can also email us to exercise deletion or access rights.

Age

Fold'em is for adults (17+). It is not directed at children.

Contact

support@foldem.app

Changes

We'll post any changes here with a new date. Material changes will be flagged in the app.