Many couple apps call themselves private. It sounds like it's just you and your partner. But your data lives on their server, and they decide what to do with it.
When I was building Warmth with privacy in mind, I wanted to know if other "private" apps were really private. So I did some research.
Here's what I found.
Between
In 2022, Between posted a notice that it would give users' chat messages to its parent company to build chatbots and AI. According to Money Today Network, that included past chats and media, not only new ones. The notice was hard to find, and a lot of users never knew.
Your chats are stored on Between's server. Its current privacy policy lists them as:
Chat data (Chat time, contents (sticker, image, video, voice, etc.))
It says it uses your information to:
Analyze, develop, and improve the Services and new products and services.
The policy doesn't say what a "new product" could be. In 2022, it was a chatbot.
Waffle
Waffle is a shared journal app. Its privacy policy says that if you turn on its AI feature, third-party AI providers "may receive details about your journal entries". Then:
Keep in mind, any information you provide on Waffle will be shared with third party LLM providers, and there is no need to share sensitive personal information on Waffle.
Isn't what people write in a journal sensitive personal information?
Privacy issues like this were part of why I removed third-party AI from Warmth.
Paired
Paired asks you and your partner daily questions, some about your sex life. Its privacy policy says "Paired may access your responses, answers and photos in an anonymised way". Its service providers include companies for "analysing data including via artificial intelligence and machine learning". And:
We may combine your data with data we receive from our advertising partners to send you personalised marketing communications
The questions are for you and your partner. The policy adds Paired, its AI providers, and its advertising partners.
"Private" is subjective
How an app defines "private" isn't on the App Store page. It's in a privacy policy that says what a company is allowed to do with your data.
So "private" ends up meaning "trust us".
Warmth
Warmth doesn't have a server with your stuff on it. Your entries stay on your phone and sync to your partner through a shared iCloud space. iCloud is run by Apple, which has a strong track record on privacy.
iCloud does give developers some logs to help them improve their apps. Here's one from Apple's CloudKit console, from me opening Warmth on my own iPhone and fetching a record:
That's it. My iPhone fetched something from my private space, and it worked. The user ID is a random string, not a name or an Apple ID. I can't see who wrote an entry, or what they wrote.
There's nothing for me to sell, because I don't have it.