Privacy Policy

Overview

MyLife is built so that your personal data stays with you. The app has no user account, shows no ads and doesn't track you. The developer does not receive or sell your entries or anything else you add. MyLife sends anonymous crash reports and usage statistics – without an identifier, never with your entries, and you can switch them off; see “Crash reports and usage statistics”. Only when you share with people does MyLife leave something in its public iCloud database – see “Sharing with people”.

Who is responsible

MyLife is developed by LaCodea – Luca Efinger, Friedrich-Ebert-Ring 16, 97072 Würzburg, Germany. For privacy questions, write to contact@mylifeapp.app.

Data you add

Everything you enter – entries, dates, notes, places, people, tags, photos and documents – is only stored on your device and in your private iCloud. This data never reaches the developer's servers.

Storage and iCloud

If you are signed in to iCloud, MyLife syncs your data through Apple's CloudKit into the private database of your Apple Account. It belongs to your Apple Account – the developer has no access to it. Apple stores iCloud data encrypted, and Apple's privacy policy applies to iCloud.

Sharing with people

Nothing is shared unless you invite someone. You invite people with a link that you make and send yourself; it shows your name from MyLife, so they know who it is from. MyLife copies the entries you share with a person – with their photos, made smaller, but without documents – and your name, birthday and picture into a separate area of your iCloud that only people who joined can read. A link works once – for the first person who opens it within 15 minutes; afterwards MyLife no longer joins with it, and anyone else who gets in with it anyway is removed again. To take the link's one use, MyLife leaves a record in the public iCloud database – with nothing but the time and the random code iCloud gives you in MyLife. You can protect a link with a password: the share then keeps a check made from it, from which the password can't be read back, and MyLife only joins with the right one. For each person who joined you decide whether they can view or edit; what someone who may edit changes goes into your entries – photos they add in original quality. When you join someone's share, MyLife leaves your name from MyLife for them in the public iCloud database – encrypted with a key only they and those who joined have, under codes only the two of you know – and removes it when you stop receiving. Under “Manage sharing” you see who joined, with that name, and can remove them. Private entries stay only with you. When you stop sharing or remove the last person, the area with your entries is deleted. Once you are connected with someone, later invitations between you wait in MyLife's public iCloud database until they are accepted or you stop sharing – with nothing but the link and the random codes iCloud gives you both in MyLife. The developer never sees your entries, your name or your picture. Entries others share with you are kept on your device only; if they let you edit them, what you change goes to them. Shared copies count towards your iCloud storage.

Photos

MyLife uses the system photo picker. The app only receives the photos you select and stores them in original quality with your entry. It has no access to the rest of your photo library. Text in your photos is recognized on your device, so the search can find it – nothing is sent anywhere for this.

Documents and scans

Documents are only added when you pick a file or scan a paper. For scanning, the camera is used through the system document scanner, and only after you allow it. The files are stored with your entry in their original format. Their text – from PDFs, text files, scans and images – is read on your device, so the search can find it.

Contacts

When you link a person to a contact, the system contact picker is used. MyLife only receives the one contact you pick – its name, photo, birthday, phone numbers and email addresses – and keeps them with the person. Only if you open a linked contact from MyLife does the app ask for access to your contacts; it then reads just the contacts you linked, to show them and keep their phone numbers and addresses up to date. MyLife never uploads your contacts anywhere.

Place search

When you search for a place, your search text is sent to Apple Maps to find matching places. If you choose “Current location”, your device determines its position once – only after you allow it – and Apple Maps turns it into an address. MyLife only keeps the place you pick with your entry and never tracks your location. So that saved places show in the language of the app, MyLife asks Apple Maps now and then for their names in it – with the place's name and position, nothing else from your entries.

Notifications

Reminders are created and scheduled on your device. No push server is used and no data is sent anywhere.

App lock

The optional app lock uses Face ID, Touch ID or your device passcode or password. The check is done by the system – MyLife only learns whether it succeeded and never receives biometric data. You choose whether it locks right away or after a while, and whether widgets, notifications and the Apple Watch show your entries while it is on.

Backups

Backups are files that stay under your control: in your iCloud Drive, on your device or wherever you export them. They contain all your entries, photos and documents. You can protect them with a password: they are then encrypted with AES-256, with a key made from your password on your device. Without the password nobody can read them – not even the developer, who can't recover a forgotten password either. For automatic backups, only that key is kept, in your keychain. Keep backups without a password safe.

Purchases

MyLife Pro is sold through the App Store. Payments are processed entirely by Apple. The developer receives no payment or personal data, only anonymous sales reports from Apple.

Feedback and support

“Feedback and support” in the app opens the contact page of mylifeapp.app. If you write to us by email, we use your address and message only to answer you. iOS gives MyLife reports about crashes, hangs and launch times now and then; they are kept on your device, and you can share them with us yourself (“Share diagnostics” in the settings) – they contain technical data about the app, not your entries, and we use them only to fix errors. Crashes and hangs also reach us anonymously, see “Crash reports and usage statistics”.

Crash reports and usage statistics

So that we can find errors quickly and improve MyLife, the app sends anonymous crash reports and usage statistics to Atriya, our own analytics service. It sends: reports about crashes and hangs that iOS, iPadOS or macOS gives the app – the place in the program, the app and system version and the device model; when MyLife is opened and how long it is in the foreground; which screens are opened and which functions are used, such as “entry created” or “report created”. Every transmission carries the app and system version, the device type and the device model. Your entries, titles, notes, dates, people, places, photos and documents are never sent.

MyLife stores nothing on your device for this, not even an identifier – only your objection, if you object. When it sends, your IP address and the technical details of the request are necessarily transmitted, such as the app's user agent and your language setting. Our server derives only the country from the IP address and forms from it, the user agent, the operating system, the system version and the device model an identifier that holds for one day: a hash with a random key of the day. The server deletes the key of the day after two days at the latest; in its nightly backups it stays for up to 14 days. After that, the identifier can no longer be linked to an IP address. We don't store the IP address, the user agent or the language setting themselves. So we see how many devices use MyLife on a day – we can't recognize you or follow you across days.

The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a stable, error-free app and in knowing which functions are used (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). You can object at any time: in the app, switch off “Send crash reports and statistics” under Settings → Privacy – then MyLife sends nothing more. Your choice applies on all your devices with the same iCloud account and stays even after “Delete all data”.

We run Atriya ourselves. Its server is hosted by IONOS SE, Elgendorfer Straße 57, 56410 Montabaur, Germany, in a data center in Spain; IONOS processes the data on our behalf (Art. 28 GDPR). Once the key of the day is deleted everywhere, what remains can't be related to you or your device; we keep these anonymous figures for our statistics.

This website

The privacy policy, the imprint and the contact page open on mylifeapp.app – from the app as well. This website sets no cookies, doesn't track you and has no forms. It is delivered through Cloudflare (Cloudflare, Inc., USA). As with every website, your IP address and technical details of the request – such as the time, the page and the browser – are processed to deliver the pages and to protect them against attacks. The basis is our legitimate interest in a secure and reliable website (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Cloudflare is certified under the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework.

So that we know how many people visit the website and where they come from, it counts visits anonymously with Atriya, our own analytics service (see “Crash reports and usage statistics”). Your browser loads a small script from our server intern.atriya.io for this. It stores nothing on your device and sends: which page you open (without anything after “?”), the page you came from, campaign details in the address (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign), how far you scroll, which links to other websites you follow, how fast the page loads and errors in the script. When it sends, your IP address is necessarily transmitted. Our server derives the country, region and city from it and the browser, system and device type from your browser's identifier (user agent); from IP address and user agent it forms an identifier that holds for one day – a hash with a random key of the day, which it deletes after two days at the latest. Visits with the same identifier less than 30 minutes apart count as one visit. We don't store the IP address or the user agent themselves. If you have switched on “Do Not Track” or “Global Privacy Control” in your browser, the website sends nothing. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in knowing how the website is used (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR); you can object at any time, for example with one of these settings. Once the key of the day is deleted, what remains can't be related to anyone; we keep these anonymous figures for our statistics.

Deleting your data

You can delete all data at any time in Settings → Privacy → Delete all data. This removes it from this device and from iCloud. Deleting the app removes the data stored on the device.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict and transfer your data and to object to its processing. You can also file a complaint with a data protection authority. As MyLife stores your data only with you, you can exercise most of these rights directly in the app.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the updated version is published on this page. The date at the top shows the latest update.