The short version
Chalk keeps your counters on your device. There is no account to make and no server behind the app, because I do not run one. If you are signed in to iCloud, your counters sync between your own devices through your own private iCloud database, which Apple encrypts and which I cannot see. Chalk has no analytics, no crash reporting, no tracking, and no advertising. Sign out of iCloud and Chalk keeps working, on that device alone.
The sections below say the same thing in the more careful language a store listing and a reviewer expect.
1. Who this policy is from
Chalk is made by Sepehr Mohammadi, an independent developer. You can reach me at [email protected].
This policy covers the Chalk iPhone app, the Chalk Apple Watch app, and their home-screen, lock-screen, and watch-face widgets. They are one product and they share the same on-device storage.
2. What Chalk collects
Nothing.
Chalk does not collect, transmit, sell, share, or receive any personal information. To be specific, Chalk does not collect:
- your name, email address, phone number, or any other contact detail
- any account, login, or user identifier (there are no accounts)
- your location, at any level of precision
- your contacts, calendars, photos, health data, or microphone or camera input
- your device identifiers, advertising identifier, or IP address
- usage analytics, session data, screen views, taps, or feature usage
- crash reports or diagnostic logs
- any identifier used for tracking you across apps or websites
Chalk asks for no system permissions at all. It sends no notifications, so it never asks to. There is no field anywhere in Chalk that asks who you are.
3. Chalk has no server
Chalk contains no networking code of its own. It does not call any web service, and it does not contact me. There is no server behind Chalk to contact, no database of mine with your counters in it, and no way for me to look at your data even if I wanted to.
Chalk contains no third-party software development kits (SDKs) of any kind. There is no analytics library, no crash reporter, no advertising or attribution framework, and no remote configuration service. The shared logic package the apps are built on declares zero external dependencies.
One Apple service does carry data, and it is described below: iCloud, which syncs your counters between your own devices.
4. What is stored on your device
Everything Chalk knows lives in your device’s own storage, inside the app’s sandbox, protected by iOS. Specifically:
Your counters. A SwiftData database holding what you count. For each counter: the name you typed, its emoji and colour, the unit you gave it (session, match, cup), its price per tick and currency, whether it is archived, and where it sits in your list. For each tick: the moment you tapped and the price that applied at that moment. For each settled cycle: what it totalled, how many ticks it held, the dates it ran, and the note you wrote when you settled. This database lives in a shared app-group container (group.dev.3ep.app.chalk) so the watch app and the widgets read the same data as the iPhone app.
Your preference. A single flag in UserDefaults recording that the example counter has already been created once, so a fresh install gets one and a returning one does not.
That is the complete list. Chalk writes nothing else, and it schedules nothing with iOS.
5. iCloud sync
Chalk syncs your counters across your own Apple devices using CloudKit, in your private database, inside the container iCloud.dev.3ep.app.chalk.
What that means in practice:
- The data goes to your iCloud account, not to me. A private CloudKit database belongs to the signed-in Apple Account. Apple stores it, Apple encrypts it, and the app developer has no access to it. I cannot read, browse, export, or recover your counters, and there is no admin view where they would appear.
- Apple, not I, is the processor here. Apple’s handling of your iCloud data is governed by Apple’s Privacy Policy and your iCloud terms, and it is separate from this policy.
- It is entirely optional. If you are not signed in to iCloud, or you turn iCloud Drive off for Chalk in iOS Settings, Chalk stores everything locally and works exactly the same on that device. Nothing is lost and no feature is withheld.
- What syncs is only what you made. Counters, ticks, settled cycles, and their notes. Nothing about your device or about you travels with them.
- Between your iPhone and your Apple Watch, Chalk also passes changes directly over the paired-device connection Apple provides (WatchConnectivity), so a tick on your wrist shows up on your phone without waiting for iCloud. That connection is between your two devices and does not pass through me.
To stop syncing, sign out of iCloud or turn Chalk off in iCloud settings. To remove what is already there, delete the app’s data in iCloud settings, which removes the copy Apple holds for you.
6. Exports you make yourself
Chalk can export everything you have counted as a CSV file.
Export writes the file into the app’s temporary folder and hands it to the standard iOS share sheet. Where it goes next is entirely your choice: Files, AirDrop, a message to yourself, iCloud Drive, a spreadsheet on your Mac, wherever. Chalk does not upload it and does not know where you put it. If you choose a destination that syncs to a cloud service, that service’s own privacy policy applies to the copy you put there.
7. Third parties
There is exactly one, and it is Apple.
Apple, as the App Store. You get Chalk from the App Store, so Apple handles your download and your updates. Apple’s own privacy policy covers everything in that relationship. See Apple’s Privacy Policy.
Apple, as iCloud. Sync runs on Apple’s infrastructure, in your private database, as described in section 5.
Apple, for aggregate reports. If you have turned on sharing analytics or diagnostics with developers in your iOS settings, Apple may show me anonymous, aggregated reports (install counts, crash counts, and similar) in App Store Connect. That is an Apple feature, controlled by you in iOS Settings, not something Chalk does. Chalk contains no analytics or crash-reporting code, and those reports do not identify you and never contain your counters.
Bundled open data. Chalk suggests an emoji from the name you type, using a keyword list built from Unicode CLDR annotation data (via the emojibase project) and licensed for this use. It is a static file compiled into the app, it is read offline, and it sends nothing anywhere.
Nobody else is involved. There are no advertisers, no data brokers, no processors, and no partners.
8. Money
There is none to describe. Chalk is free, it has no in-app purchases and no subscription, and every feature is available to everyone. Nothing in the app asks for payment, so no payment details pass through it, and I receive nothing from Apple beyond the usual anonymized download counts for a free app.
9. Children
Chalk is suitable for all ages, and there is no age gate, because there is nothing to gate. The app collects no data from anyone, of any age.
Chalk is not directed to children under 13 for the purpose of collecting personal information, and it does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, or from anyone else. There is no sign-up, no profile, no messaging, no user-generated content shared with anyone, no advertising, and no third-party tracking. Since no data is collected, there is nothing for a parent or guardian to review, correct, or ask me to delete. If you have a question about this anyway, please write to me at [email protected].
10. Data retention and deletion
I retain nothing, because I receive nothing. There is no database anywhere of mine with your counters in it.
Your data lives on your device, and in your own iCloud if you use it, for exactly as long as you want it to:
- Settle a counter. Settling files the current cycle and resets the count. It is the opposite of deletion, and it is the point of the app.
- Archive a counter. Archiving takes it off the board and keeps its history.
- Delete a counter. Swipe it away and it goes, with its ticks and its settled cycles, on this device and on every device you sync with. It is not recoverable.
- Delete the app. Deleting Chalk removes its containers, which removes the local copy of everything. To remove the iCloud copy as well, use iOS Settings, then your name, then iCloud, and manage storage for Chalk.
- Keep a copy first if you want one. Chalk can export a CSV before you delete anything.
One honest note: if you have exported a CSV and saved it somewhere yourself, that copy is yours to look after. Deleting the app does not reach into wherever you put it.
11. Your rights
Privacy laws in many places, including the EU and UK GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act, give you rights to access, correct, port, and delete the personal data a company holds about you, and to know whether it is sold or shared.
Chalk’s answer to all of them is the same. I hold no personal data about you, so there is nothing to access, correct, port, or delete, and nothing that could be sold or shared. Chalk does not sell or share personal information, and it does not process it for targeted advertising or profiling.
You can exercise all of these yourself, immediately, without asking me: your data is on your device and in your own iCloud account, you can read it, change it, export it as CSV, or delete it, at any time. If you would like to ask me a question about this anyway, you are welcome to.
12. International users
Chalk is available in the App Store storefronts Apple offers, and it works the same everywhere.
Chalk itself performs no international transfer of personal data, because it sends nothing to me. Where your iCloud data physically sits, and how Apple moves it, is determined by Apple and by the account you sign in with, and it is covered by Apple’s Privacy Policy rather than by this one. The same is true of your App Store account.
13. Security
Your counters sit inside the app’s sandbox on your device, covered by iOS’s own file protections and by your device passcode, Face ID, or Touch ID. The synced copy sits in your private CloudKit database, protected by Apple’s encryption and by the security of your Apple Account, which is worth protecting with two-factor authentication.
Because I hold nothing on a server, there is no server-side breach of mine that could expose your data.
14. Changes to this policy
If Chalk ever changes what it does with data, this policy changes first, and the “Last updated” date at the top changes with it. Any new version is posted at the privacy policy link on Chalk’s App Store page.
Two promises about how that will go. If a future version of Chalk ever collects or transmits anything to me, I will say so plainly here and in the release notes, and I will not make a change like that quietly. And if a change is significant, the app itself will tell you the next time you open it, rather than leaving it to you to notice.
Your continued use of Chalk after an update means the current version of this policy applies.
15. Contact
Questions, corrections, or anything at all:
Sepehr Mohammadi [email protected]
It is one person reading that inbox, so a reply may take a few days. It will come.