Privacy Policy

Fold'em · last updated 23 August 2026

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

What we collect

• Account. When you sign in with Apple we receive a user identifier and, if you share them, your name and email address.
• Your exclusion. The term you chose, its start and end dates, how many things you blocked (e.g. "12 apps, 2 categories, 10 websites"), and how many blocked attempts happened, as hourly counts. 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.
• Accountability partner. If you invite a partner, the first name you enter for them. The email address is theirs: they type it themselves on the page where they accept and confirm it with a code, and it is used only to send them invites, exit requests, and protection alerts. On that same page they may leave a phone number. It is optional, it is stored with their invite, and it is shown only to you inside the app so you can reach them. We never send it anywhere or dial it for you.
• Your partner's name, shown to another partner. 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 check ins from your device saying whether blocking is still active ("verified", "switched off", "not heard from", "subscription lapsed", or "ended"). This is what lets your partner be told if protection is turned off.
• App deletion lock. If you turn the optional lock on, whether it is on, and if you start turning it off, the reason you pick from a fixed list of three: freeing up space, changing phones, or other. There is no free text on that path, and your keyholder sees the reason.
• Exit requests. If you ask to end your term early, the request and your partner's decision.

What stays on your device

• The exact apps and categories you blocked (Apple-opaque tokens).
• Craving logs and "win" entries from the SOS flow.
• Your self-reported spending baseline and money-kept figures.

What we never do

• No advertising, no trackers, no analytics brokers.
• No selling or sharing data for marketing, to anyone, ever.
• No reading your browsing history. Blocking happens on-device.

Payments

Subscriptions are processed by Apple. We never see your payment details, only whether a subscription is active.

Service providers

We run on Google Firebase (authentication, database, hosting; Google Cloud, US/EU regions) and use Resend (EU region) to deliver partner emails. Both act only on our instructions.

Your partner's data

Partners interact through tokened web links. No account, no app, and no cookies beyond what the page needs to work. A partner can decline or step away at any time, which stops further notifications.

What a keyholder sees about you

Eleven things, and this is all of them.

1. Your first name. Never your full name.
2. Whether protection is on, and which status word the pass is carrying.
3. How far through the term you are, and the end date when the term has one.
4. A count of blocked attempts, and a note when that count runs higher than usual.
5. Milestone days you reached, and a term you extended with its new end date.
6. Whether an early exit request is open, and a note when you withdraw one.
7. Which alert categories you muted, by name.
8. A lapsed subscription, and the date protection would end if renewal stays off.
9. The app deletion lock turned off or kept, and which of three reasons you gave: freeing up space, changing phones, or other.
10. A handover: that one is running, the first name of the person taking over, and the date it takes effect.
11. A notice if you close your account, if you stop having a keyholder, or if you remove them.

Not which apps or sites, not anything you browse, no amount of money, and nothing you typed. The money you keep is worked out on your phone and never leaves it.

A witness sees less: items 1 to 5 and 7, and nothing else.

Retention & deletion

Your data is kept while your account exists. You can delete your account and its data from inside the app (Settings); deletion during an active exclusion term follows the same safeguards as ending the term, so the lock can't be bypassed by deleting the 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.