Privacy policy
Last updated 14 October 2026
Draft. This policy describes how the app works today and is waiting for legal review. Details in [square brackets] are still to be filled in.
The short version
- We keep what the app needs to run your home: your account, your rooms and tasks, and who does what.
- We never sell your data. Ads only appear inside cleaning guides, and only after you've made your choice about personalised ads.
- Usage statistics are off until you say yes, and never collected for children.
- You can download everything or delete your account from Settings at any time.
Who we are
Dustly is run by [legal entity name], [registered address] ("we", "us"). We decide how your personal data is used, which makes us the data controller. Questions or requests: [email protected].
What we collect and why
| What | Why | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Name, email address, password (stored only as a secure hash), or your Apple or Google sign-in | Your account, signing in, keeping your homes on all your devices | Contract |
| Your homes: rooms, tasks, schedules, what was done and when, routines, seasonal jobs, the rota, swaps, time away, notes | The service itself, and sharing it with the people you live with | Contract |
| Household members and their roles (owner, admin, adult, child), invite codes | Sharing a home and deciding who can do what | Contract |
| Notification settings and a push token for each device | Reminders and household news | Contract |
| Anonymous usage statistics: which features are used, whether people come back. A random id per installation; no name, email, rooms or tasks; no location | Making the app better | Consent (off until you say yes) |
| Crash and error reports: what went wrong, the app version, the kind of device. No account details, request contents or screenshots | Finding and fixing bugs | Legitimate interest in a working app |
| Clicks on shop links and sponsored content, counted per day without saying who clicked | Getting paid by shops and sponsors, and telling them how a campaign did | Legitimate interest |
| Advertising data handled by Google AdMob inside guides (see below) | Showing ads that pay for the free app | Consent where the law requires it |
| Server logs (IP address, time, request), kept briefly | Security and keeping the service running | Legitimate interest |
If you use Dustly as a guest, your home stays on your phone and we receive nothing about it until you create an account.
Children
Parents and carers can add children to a home. A child's account is set up and managed by an adult in the home. Children see only the jobs given to them. We never show children ads, shop links or sponsored content, never ask them about usage statistics, and never collect advertising or device identifiers for them. A parent can download or delete a child's data by contacting us.
Who we share it with
The people in your home see what you share in that home. Beyond that we use a small number of providers, under contracts that only let them use the data to provide their service to us:
- Hosting: [hosting provider, country]. Our database, files and backups run on servers we manage there.
- Google Firebase Cloud Messaging and Apple Push Notification service: to deliver notifications.
- Apple and Google sign-in, if you choose them.
- Google AdMob: ads inside guides, for adults only. Google acts under its own privacy policy; you choose personalised or non-personalised ads in the consent form, and on iPhone Apple's tracking prompt applies.
- PostHog (servers in the EU): usage statistics, only if you agree.
- Sentry: crash and error reports.
We don't sell personal data, and we don't share it with shops or sponsors: they only receive totals such as how many people clicked.
International transfers
Where a provider processes data outside the UK or EEA, we rely on adequacy decisions or standard contractual clauses. [Confirm per provider.]
How long we keep it
- Your account and homes: while you have an account. When you delete it, it is removed at once; homes you owned pass to the longest-standing adult, or are deleted if no one else is left.
- Backups: overwritten within [7] days.
- Crash reports: [90] days. Usage statistics: [as configured in PostHog, e.g. 12 months].
- Server logs: [14] days.
Your rights and choices
- Download your data: Settings › Download my data.
- Delete your account: Settings › Delete my account.
- Usage statistics: Settings › Share anonymous usage.
- Ads: Settings › Privacy choices for ads, where the law requires it, and your phone's tracking settings.
- Notifications: Settings, or your phone's settings.
You can also ask us to access, correct, restrict or object to how we use your data. Email [email protected]; we reply within a month. You can complain to your data protection authority; in the UK that's the ICO.
Security
Connections are encrypted, passwords are stored as one-way hashes, access tokens are short-lived, and every request is checked against the home it belongs to.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll tell you in the app before it takes effect.