Privacy policy

Effective date: 10 August 2026
Last updated: 26 August 2026
Applies to: the LockIn iOS app, its home-screen and lock-screen widgets, its Screen Time extensions, and the pages at applockin.vercel.app.

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1. The short version

LockIn is a focus and app-blocking app. It works without an account — you never give us a name, an email address, or a password.

• Everything you create in LockIn lives on your device. Your launchers, focuses, session history, streaks, and settings are stored in your iPhone's local database. We cannot read them.
• We cannot see which apps you block. Apple's Screen Time framework hands the app sealed tokens instead of app names. Even we don't know what's in your block list — the operating system won't tell us.
• We collect anonymous product analytics. Counts and events like "a session started" or "the paywall was shown", tied to a random identifier generated on your device, not to you.
• We never sell your data, never run ads, and never use a tracking or advertising identifier.

The rest of this document is the precise version.

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2. Who we are

LockIn is published and operated by HONGSIN AING ("LockIn", "we", "us", "our"), based in the Kingdom of Cambodia. Our full registered details are available on request to anyone who needs them to exercise a legal right.

For questions about this policy, or to exercise any right described in Section 11, contact hongsinaing2@gmail.com.

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3. Data that stays on your device

The following never leaves your iPhone unless you personally turn on one of the iCloud features in Section 8. It is written to a local database inside the app's shared container so that the app, its widgets, and its Screen Time extensions can all read it:

You can erase all of it at any time by deleting the app. Deleting the app removes the local database and every preference along with it.

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4. Screen Time and app blocking

LockIn asks for Screen Time permission through Apple's Family Controls framework, using individual authorisation — you authorise it for your own device, not for someone else's.

This is worth spelling out because it is the most sensitive-sounding permission the app requests:

• When you pick apps to block, Apple's system picker returns opaque tokens, not app names, bundle identifiers, or icons. LockIn stores those tokens and hands them back to the operating system to apply a shield. The app cannot decode them, so we cannot determine — and therefore cannot transmit — which apps you have chosen to block.
• LockIn does not receive your device usage statistics, your browsing history, your notifications, or the content of any app.
• The usage report inside LockIn is rendered by an Apple system extension that runs in a sandbox Apple deliberately prevents from sending data anywhere, including to us.
• Screen Time permission can be withdrawn at any time in iOS Settings → Screen Time. Withdrawing it stops blocking from working; it does not delete anything you have created in LockIn.

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5. Analytics

LockIn uses a third-party product analytics service to understand how the app is used so we can decide what to build and fix.

There is no account, so there is no name attached to any of this. Events are grouped under a random identifier that the app generates the first time it runs (an "install ID"). It is not your Apple ID, not your device's serial number, and not an advertising identifier — it is a fresh random value that exists only inside LockIn's container and disappears when you delete the app.

5.1 What is attached to an event

Your install ID, the app version, and a small set of state flags — whether you have Pro, whether Screen Time and notifications are authorised, whether onboarding is complete, and how many focuses and launchers you have. Standard technical context such as your iOS version, device model, locale, and time zone is recorded alongside it.

5.2 What we record

Anonymous counts and events describing how the app is used, in these categories:

• Onboarding — progress through the introduction, and the outcome of the permission prompts.
• Focuses and sessions — that a focus was created, changed, or removed, and that a session started or ended, with its length and whether it was strict.
• Launchers — that a launcher was created, changed, or opened, and that an app launch succeeded or failed.
• Purchases — that the paywall was shown, and that a purchase, restore, or trial started, succeeded, or failed.
• Settings and features — that a preference or feature was changed or used.
• Navigation and lifecycle — which screen you opened, and that the app was installed, opened, or backgrounded.

5.3 What analytics never contains

The names of your focuses or launchers, the text of an early-exit reason, the apps you have blocked, your location, your weather, or anything you type into the app.

5.4 Opting out

The current release does not have an in-app analytics switch. Email hongsinaing2@gmail.com with a request to opt out and we will delete the analytics profile for your install and suppress future collection. Deleting the app also stops all collection; a reinstall generates a new, unlinked install ID.

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6. Data sent to our backend

We run a small backend with a third-party cloud hosting provider. It receives data in exactly three situations.

6.1 When you report a launcher problem

LockIn opens other apps using URL schemes, which app vendors change without notice. When a launch fails you can report it. Submitting a report sends:

your install ID; the identifier and display name of the app that failed; the URL LockIn tried; the working URL you suggest, if you provide one; the category of problem and where you reported it from; your free-text note, if you write one; and the app version, iOS version, device model, and locale.

Only send a note you are comfortable sharing — it is free text and we read it. Reports are deleted automatically within a year of submission.

6.2 When you turn on the daily quote notification

The app registers one record keyed by your install ID, containing the hour you chose and your quote category. It exists so the server can skip sending a quote when nobody is listening at a given hour. It is refreshed each time you open the app, deleted when you turn the notification off, and expires automatically after a few months of inactivity.

Quote delivery uses broadcast topics — everyone subscribed to a given hour and category receives the same message. We do not send push notifications to you individually and we do not maintain a list linking you to a device token. Apple's push token is passed to our messaging provider so topic delivery can work.

Quotes themselves are fetched by our server from a third-party quotes service, not by your phone, so that service never sees anything about you.

6.3 Abuse prevention

Requests to our backend carry a token, issued by Apple, that proves the request came from a genuine copy of LockIn rather than a script. It does not identify you or your device to us. We also apply per-install limits to stop the backend being flooded; those limits hold no content from your requests.

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7. Purchases

LockIn Pro is sold through the App Store. Apple processes the payment. We never see your card number, billing address, or Apple ID.

We use a third-party subscription-validation service to check whether a purchase is valid and whether your subscription is still active. It receives the App Store transaction data for your purchase and issues its own anonymous identifier for the install. It does not receive your name or email address from us.

Apple's own handling of your purchase is governed by Apple's privacy policy.

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8. Location, weather, and iCloud

Each of these is optional and off unless you turn it on.

8.1 Location and weather

If you allow location access ("While Using the App"), LockIn reads your coordinates and sends them to Apple WeatherKit to fetch the forecast shown in the weather widget. Your coordinates and the resolved place name are cached on your device so the widget can redraw without waking the GPS. They are not sent to us or to anyone other than Apple. You can instead set a location manually, in which case the app never reads your GPS at all. Apple's handling of WeatherKit requests is described in Apple's privacy policy.

8.2 iCloud Sync

Off by default. When enabled, LockIn mirrors its local database to your own private iCloud database so your focuses and launchers appear on your other devices. The data sits in your iCloud account under your Apple ID. We have no access to it and no ability to read, export, or delete it.

8.3 iCloud Backup files

Also optional. LockIn can write an archive of your launchers, custom apps, focuses, and session history into your app's private iCloud storage. Archives are named so that backups from two devices never collide. These files live in your iCloud account, not ours. They deliberately exclude the active blocking plan, so restoring a backup can never resurrect a live blocking session.

Both iCloud features are governed by Apple's iCloud terms and privacy policy.

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9. What we do not do

• We do not sell or rent personal information, and we do not "share" it for cross-context behavioural advertising as California defines that term.
• We do not show ads or embed advertising SDKs.
• We do not request App Tracking Transparency permission, because we do not track you across other companies' apps or websites.
• We do not use the IDFA or any advertising identifier.
• We do not collect your name, email address, phone number, contacts, photos, calendar, health data, or microphone or camera input.
• We do not build profiles about you as a person, and we make no automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.

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10. Retention

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11. Your rights

Because LockIn has no accounts, we hold nothing that identifies you by name, and we usually cannot tell which records belong to you. The one key that links our records to your copy of the app is its random install ID.

If you have submitted a launcher issue report, tell us roughly when you sent it and which app it concerned, and we can locate your install ID from that. Otherwise, email us at hongsinaing2@gmail.com and we will tell you how to retrieve it from the current version of the app. Where we genuinely cannot link a request to a specific install, data protection law allows us to decline it rather than guess — but deleting the app achieves the same outcome yourself, immediately and with certainty, as described below.

11.1 Everyone

You may ask us to give you a copy of the data associated with your install ID, correct it, or delete it. Write to hongsinaing2@gmail.com. We aim to reply within 30 days. There is no charge, and asking costs you nothing in the app.

You can also act without contacting us: deleting the app erases all on-device data and stops all collection, and revoking any permission in iOS Settings stops the corresponding processing.

11.2 European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland

Under the GDPR and UK GDPR you have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, data portability, and objection, and the right to withdraw consent at any time without affecting processing that already happened.

Our legal bases are:

• Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) — running the app's core features and delivering a purchase you made.
• Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) — anonymous product analytics, abuse prevention, and triaging issue reports, so that we can keep the app working and decide what to improve. We have weighed this against your interests and kept the data minimal, pseudonymous, and time-limited; you may object at any time using the contact address above.
• Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) — location, notifications, iCloud Sync, and iCloud backups, each of which you switch on yourself and can switch off at any time.
• Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) — retaining transaction records where tax law requires it.

You have the right to lodge a complaint with your national supervisory authority.

11.3 California

We do not sell or share personal information and have not done so in the preceding twelve months. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16. You may request disclosure of the categories and specific pieces of personal information we hold, request deletion, and request correction, without being discriminated against for doing so. The categories we collect are identifiers (a random install ID), commercial information (purchase status), internet or network activity (in-app events), and geolocation (only if you enable weather).

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12. Children

LockIn is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with information, write to hongsinaing2@gmail.com and we will delete it.

Note that LockIn uses Screen Time with individual authorisation. It is a self-control tool for the person holding the phone, not a parental-control tool for supervising someone else's device.

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13. International transfers

We are based in Cambodia, and the providers listed in Section 15 process data outside Cambodia — including in the United States and elsewhere in Asia. If you are in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, this means your data is transferred outside your region. We rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, together with the UK Addendum where applicable, in our agreements with those providers.

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14. Security

Traffic between the app and our backend is encrypted in transit. Our backend requires proof that a request came from a genuine copy of the app and applies per-install limits. On-device data is protected by iOS file-level encryption and the app sandbox, and iCloud data by Apple's own protections.

No system is perfectly secure. Because LockIn holds no credentials, no payment details, and no contact details, the consequences of a breach are correspondingly limited — but we cannot promise absolute security, and we do not.

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15. Third parties we rely on

We will identify the specific company behind any of these categories, and point you to its privacy policy, on request to hongsinaing2@gmail.com.

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16. Changes to this policy

We will update this page when our practices change and move the "Last updated" date. If a change materially reduces your privacy — for example, collecting a new category of data — we will tell you inside the app before it takes effect. Continuing to use LockIn after a change means you accept the updated policy.

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17. Contact

HONGSIN AING, Kingdom of Cambodia hongsinaing2@gmail.com