🔐 Privacy Policy – Family Tree
This policy explains how the Family Tree Maker & Builder mobile app ("the App"), developed by Sogepps, handles data.
In short
- The app has no account or sign-in and no server of ours; as the developer we cannot access your own content. It shows ads through Google AdMob, offers one optional one-time purchase ("Remove ads") and needs an internet connection; Google processes the ad data (see section 5).
- Your trees, people, dates, notes, photos, reminders and settings are stored only on your phone and are never sent to us.
- You export the poster (PNG or PDF), the people list (CSV), GEDCOM files and backup files yourself; they go only to the app or folder you choose in Android's share menu.
- The app does not use the camera and does not ask for location, microphone, contacts or storage permissions. It uses the notification permission only to remind you of family birthdays (optional); you pick photos for people from your gallery or file picker.
- Uninstalling the app or clearing its data deletes all your trees. In case you lose your phone, share a backup file now and then.
1. We don't collect personal data
We (Sogepps), the developer of Family Tree, do not collect your personal data, do not store it on our own servers and do not share it with anyone. The app has no account or sign-in and no analytics of our own. Ads are shown by Google AdMob and the optional purchase is handled by Google Play; Google handles data for those under its own policies (see section 5).
2. Information that stays on your device
The people you add (names, maiden names, dates and places of birth and death, occupations, notes, the photos you choose), the family links between them, your trees, reminder settings and app settings are stored only on your phone, in the app's local storage. Photos are shrunk and kept inside the app. This information is never sent to us. Every day the app makes an automatic backup copy on your phone (the last 14 days are kept); these copies also stay in the app's own folder. Family data can include details about people who are not you, such as relatives; please enter only what you are comfortable keeping on your phone.
If Android's device backup is turned on on your phone, Android may back up the app's data to your Google account under its own rules. Android does this, not us; we cannot access that backup and we do not see your data.
3. Files you export
You export the family tree poster (PNG or PDF), the people list (CSV), GEDCOM files and backup files (optionally with photos) yourself. They go only to the app or folder you choose in Android's share menu (for example a messaging, email or file app). A poster, a GEDCOM file or a backup contains the names and details of the people in your tree, so check what you share and with whom. How the apps you share with handle your data depends on their own privacy policies.
When you restore a backup, import a GEDCOM file or pick a photo from the gallery, only the file you choose is opened by the app.
4. Permissions
Notifications: optional, used only to remind you of family birthdays and, if you turn it on, anniversaries of a passing; the app keeps working if you decline. To show notifications on time and to reschedule them when the phone restarts, the app also uses Android's alarm scheduling, boot-completed, wake-lock and vibration permissions. The app does not use the camera and does not ask for location, microphone, contacts or storage permissions; photos are chosen through Android's own picker. The manifest also lists the internet and network-state permissions (to load ads and check the connection), the advertising ID permission (com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID) and the Google Play Billing permission (com.android.vending.BILLING).
5. Ads and purchases
The app shows interstitial (full-screen) ads through Google AdMob (Google Mobile Ads SDK), only at natural breaks (after sharing or exporting a file, or closing a screen) and at most about once every 3 minutes. In the EEA, UK and Switzerland, Google's consent message (UMP, User Messaging Platform) asks for your consent first; you can change that choice under "Ad privacy options" in the app's Settings. Google/AdMob may collect and process your advertising ID, device and app information, IP address (and the approximate location derived from it), ad interactions and crash/diagnostic data to deliver, measure and personalise ads and prevent fraud, under <a href="https://policies.google.com/privacy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google's Privacy Policy</a> and <a href="https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google's partner-sites page</a>. You can reset or delete your advertising ID in Android settings. The app also offers one optional one-time in-app purchase, "Remove ads", through Google Play Billing. Google processes the payment; we (Sogepps) never receive your card or payment details, and the app only checks with Google Play whether the purchase is owned.
6. Internet access
The app needs an internet connection, to load ads and to check the connection (it checks that www.gstatic.com and sogepps.tr can be reached). Without a connection it shows a "connection required" screen. We run no server of our own that receives your content; your own content stays on your phone. Ad requests are made by Google's SDK as described in section 5.
7. Children
Family Tree is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children.
8. Data deletion
All of your data stays on your device. You can delete your records permanently by uninstalling the app, by clearing the app's data in your Android settings, or with "Erase all data" in the app's More tab; single people, links and whole trees can also be deleted in the app. There is no data on our servers to delete. Backups and files you exported earlier are outside the app, so you must delete them yourself; for a copy kept in an Android backup, use your Google account's backup settings.
9. Changes to this policy
When this policy is updated, the new text is published on this page.