Privacy Policy

Data Stored on Your Device

All of your personal journal data is stored locally on your device. This includes:

• Text entries you write
• Photos you add
• Your preferences and settings
• AI-generated poems, prompts, and meditation content

Your journal data is stored locally on your device and synced via your authenticated account. This data stays on your device unless you use features that require server processing.

User Accounts

Pause uses Firebase Authentication to manage your account. Your email address or Apple ID is used for sign-in and account recovery. Account data is stored securely by Google Firebase.

Data Processed by AI Services

Certain features use AI services hosted on our backend:

• Voice transcription: Where supported, Pause can transcribe voice entries on device. If cloud transcription is used, voice audio is sent to our server for transcription and deleted immediately after processing.
• Poem and prompt generation: When generating poems or reflective prompts, the text of your entries is sent to our server.
• Meditation content: When generating guided meditations, text and audio are processed through our server.

This data is processed temporarily to provide the feature. Voice recordings are deleted immediately after processing and are not kept for support, analytics, or model training.

Third-Party Services

Pause uses the following third-party services to provide its features:

• Google Cloud (Vertex AI / Gemini): Poem generation, insights classification, reflective prompts, and meditation bridge text generation.
• Google Cloud Speech-to-Text: Voice transcription.
• Google Cloud Text-to-Speech (Chirp): Meditation audio synthesis.
• AWS Bedrock (Claude / Anthropic): Alternative AI text generation.
• InWorld AI: Text-to-speech for meditation and onboarding voiceover audio.
• RevenueCat: Subscription management. Purchase history and entitlement data is processed by RevenueCat to manage your subscription status.
• Firebase Crashlytics: Optional crash diagnostics to help us improve app stability. You can turn diagnostics on or off in Settings. Crash diagnostics do not include journal entries, poems, voice recordings, transcripts, or AI prompts.
• Firebase Authentication: Account management and sign-in.
• Apple iCloud: Optional backup of your journal data on iOS. Backed-up data is stored in your personal iCloud container and is not accessible to us.

Each provider's use of your data is governed by their own privacy policy.

Legal Basis for Processing

We process your data on the following legal bases:

• Consent: AI-powered features such as poem generation, voice transcription, and guided meditation. You provide consent when you enable these features.
• Legitimate interest: App reliability and security, to maintain and improve the quality of Pause.
• Contract performance: Subscription management, to fulfil the service you have subscribed to.

Data Retention

• Local data: Retained on your device until you delete it or uninstall the app.
• Server-processed data (AI): Transient. Your data is processed in real time. Voice recordings are deleted immediately after processing.
• Firebase Auth data: Retained while your account exists. You can delete your account at any time.
• Crashlytics data: Optional crash diagnostics are controlled by your Settings choice and retained according to Firebase Crashlytics retention periods.

International Data Transfers

Your data may be processed in the United States and the European Union by our service providers, including Google, AWS, and InWorld. These transfers are necessary to provide the features described above.

Your Rights Under GDPR

If you are located in the UK, European Economic Area, or another region with equivalent privacy rights, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right of access: You can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to rectification: You can ask us to correct inaccurate data.
• Right to erasure: You can ask us to delete your personal data.
• Right to restriction of processing: You can ask us to limit how we use your data.
• Right to data portability: You can request your data in a portable format.
• Right to object: You can object to certain types of processing.
• Right to withdraw consent: You can withdraw your consent for AI features at any time in Settings.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at info.pause@mindful-echo.com.

CCPA Rights (California Residents)

If you are a California resident, you have the following rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act:

• Right to know: You can request details about the personal information we collect and how it is used.
• Right to delete: You can request deletion of your personal information.
• Right to opt-out of sale: We do not sell your personal information.

Children's Privacy

Pause is distributed through the Apple App Store and relies on the App Store age gate as the primary distribution control. Younger users should use AI-powered features with parent or guardian involvement. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data in a way that should be removed, please contact us so we can take appropriate action.

Analytics

You can choose whether to share crash diagnostics in Settings. Crash diagnostics help us understand app crashes, device and OS issues, and reliability problems. They do not include your journal entries, poems, voice recordings, transcripts, or AI prompts.

No Advertising or Tracking

Pause does not include advertising. We do not sell or share your data with third parties for marketing purposes.

Your Control

Since your data is stored locally on your device, you have full control over it. Uninstalling the app will remove all locally stored data.

Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy or need support, please contact us at:

info.pause@mindful-echo.com

This policy is also available at: https://mindful-echo.com/pause/privacy/