Privacy Policy for Imates

Last updated: <date>

Imates is a focus timer where your character sits in a shared study room with other people who are studying at the same time. This policy explains what the app stores, what it sends, and what it never touches.

What we do not collect

Imates does not ask for, collect or store:

• your phone number or real name;
• a password (signing in by email uses a one-time code instead);
• your location;
• your contacts;
• advertising identifiers, and there is no advertising in the app;
• any analytics or behavioural tracking.

Signing in

When you first open Imates you sign in, with Google or with an email address. With an email address we email you a 6-digit code to type in; there is no password. If you already have an Imates account under that Google account or address, you get it back; if not, a new one is made.

If Imates can't reach its server when you first open it, you can choose to study on your own instead. Then there is no account at all: your sessions, calendar, tokens and settings are kept on your phone only and nothing is sent to us. When you sign in later, they are added to the account you sign in to.

What is stored about you

Your account is a random identifier, with the email address you signed in with: your Google account's, or the one you gave for a code. The address is how you get the account back if you reinstall or change phone. Your email is never shown to other people in the app and is not used to contact you, except to send the sign-in codes you ask for. You can sign out at any time, and deleting your account removes it. After that, signing in with the same Google account or address starts a new, empty account: nothing comes back.

Accounts made before 16 October 2026 began anonymous: a random identifier with no email attached. They keep working as they are. Their owner can add Google or an email address in Me → Settings; the account keeps the same identifier and the same data, nothing is created or moved, and the address is then stored against it as above.

Against that identifier, the app stores:

• The display name you choose. If you do not choose one, the app makes one from your character and a short tag, such as "Fox 3F2A". Your name is visible to other people in the app and in its search.
• Your character and its appearance.
• Your total minutes studied, and your current streak.
• Who you have added as a friend, and whose desks you have liked. These are stored as the other people's anonymous identifiers.
• Shared goals you take part in, including each person's minutes on them. The name of a shared goal is encrypted before it leaves your device, so only you and the person you share it with can read it.
• A public key used for that encryption.
• Your email address: your Google account's, or the one you signed in with by code. (An account made before 16 October 2026 has one only if its owner added it.)
• When your record was last updated.

What is kept so you can get your account back

So that a reinstall or a new phone does not lose your progress, the app also keeps a backup of the following. It is visible only to you. No other person using the app can read it, it is not part of your profile, and it is not shown to friends:

• Your daily totals: for each day you studied, the minutes, the number of sessions and how many you finished. This is what your calendar and statistics are drawn from.
• Your tokens, and the characters and pets you have bought.
• Your achievements, and the counters behind them.
• Your settings.
• Your list of sessions: for each session, when it ended, what kind of activity it was, how many minutes it earned, whether you finished it, the shared goal it counted towards if there was one, and the label you typed for it, if you typed one. This is what the day view, the trend and the breakdown by activity are drawn from. The label is text you type, so do not put anything in it that you would not want stored.
• Who you have blocked, and when you blocked or unblocked each person, so a reinstall keeps them blocked. Nobody else can read this list, including the people on it.
• Your own names for activities, such as "Thesis" for Study, and activities you have added yourself. This is text you type, so do not put anything in an activity name that you would not want stored.

This backup is made for every account. While you study on your own without an account, nothing is backed up: it stays on your phone until you sign in.

What stays on your phone only

These never leave your device:

• the key that opens your shared goals' names. It is made on your phone and is never sent anywhere. Deleting your account erases it from the phone.

Before 10 October 2026 your list of sessions also stayed on your phone. It is now part of the backup above.

A friend sees only the figures listed under "What is stored about you". They never see your daily totals, your list of sessions, your labels, your activity names or anything else in the backup.

Blocking and reporting

Blocking someone hides them from you. After you block someone you won't see them anywhere in Imates: not in rooms, not in search, not in your friends, and not their friend requests, likes, encouragement or shared goals. Blocking also removes them from your friends and takes back your like.

It does not hide you from them. The person you block can still use Imates, can still see you in a room they share with you, and can still find you by name. They are not told that you blocked them. You can unblock anyone under Me → Settings → Blocked; that shows them to you again, but does not make them your friend again.

Reporting someone sends the Imates team a report with: your account's identifier, theirs, the reason you picked (offensive name, harassment, or something else) and, if you typed one, your note. The note is text you type, so do not put anything in it you would not want stored. Reports are read only by the Imates team. The person you report is not told, and cannot see the report or who sent it. The app itself never reads reports back, not even your own.

What other people can see while you are studying

While you are in a study room, the app shares, in real time, with the other people in that room only:

• your display name and character;
• whether you are studying, on a break, paused or idle, and how long is left;
• the encouragement emoji anyone sends you.

This is sent live and is not kept afterwards.

Where it is stored

Imates uses Supabase to store accounts and rooms, and Expo to deliver app updates. Sign-in codes are emailed through Resend, an email delivery service, which receives your email address and the message with the code in order to deliver it. Contacting any of these services means your device's IP address reaches their servers, as it does with any internet service. None of them is used to advertise to you.

How long it is kept

Your record is kept for as long as your account exists. When you delete your account (see below), it is removed at once, except reports you have sent, which are kept without your identifier.

Deleting your account

In the app: open Me → Settings, and at the bottom of Your account tap Delete account. The app says what will be removed and asks twice. Deletion is immediate and cannot be undone.

What is removed, from our servers at once and in one step:

• your account and its identifier, its email address, and the link to your Google account if you made one;
• your name, character, minutes, streak, friends, likes and shared goals;
• the whole backup described under "What is kept so you can get your account back": daily totals, your list of sessions, tokens, purchases, achievements, settings, activity names and who you have blocked;
• reports other people sent about you.

Everything Imates keeps on your phone is erased too, including the key for your shared goals' names, and the app starts again as a new person.

Reports you have sent are kept, without your identifier: a report about someone who is still using Imates stays readable by the Imates team after you leave, so leaving doesn't erase it. Nothing in it says who sent it any more.

People who added you stop seeing you. Their own copy of their friend list still holds your old identifier until their app next checks, when it drops it; that identifier no longer leads to anything.

Your Google link and your email address are deleted with the account. Signing in with the same Google account or address afterwards starts a new, empty account.

If you can't open the app any more: write to <your contact email> from the address your account signed in with (your Google account's, or the one you used for codes) and we will delete it for you. If your account is one of the anonymous ones made before 16 October 2026, you never added Google or an email, and you have already uninstalled Imates, we cannot find your account to delete it. It holds no email address and no name but the one you chose, so there is nothing to look you up by. It will sit unused.

If you studied on your own without signing in, there is no account and nothing on our servers: uninstalling Imates, or clearing its storage, removes everything.

Children

Imates is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly store information from them.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it.

Contact

<your contact email>