Privacy policy
Short answerFirstHour reads your pictures on your iPhone. This version of the app doesn't connect to us at all: there's no account, no sign-up, no ads and no analytics code, and we never receive your pictures, your Vault or anything FirstHour finds.
What stays on your iPhone
- Your pictures, and what's found in them. The check runs on your iPhone, and it can keep going for a while after you switch to another app, still on your iPhone. FirstHour keeps a list of what it found: which pictures, what kind of detail, and where in the picture. It never keeps the words or numbers themselves. That list stays on your iPhone and is left out of iCloud and computer backups.
- Everything in the Vault. Photos, videos, files and notes are encrypted on your iPhone and left out of iCloud and computer backups. We can't read them. A few things need a temporary unlocked copy for a moment: showing a file other than a PDF, and bringing in, saving or sharing a video. A file sent to the Vault from another app also waits as a temporary unlocked copy until the Vault opens. These copies are removed when the Vault locks, and again when FirstHour starts. Pictures are shared straight from memory, without a copy. Search reads your notes only while you search, in memory, and saves no list. What iPhone's Quick Look keeps while showing a file is outside FirstHour's control.
- What's left in a picture you share. When you save or share a picture from the Vault, FirstHour removes the place it was taken first. Other details stored in the picture, such as the camera model and date, stay. If removing the place fails, which is rare, the picture is shared as it is. Videos from the Vault are shared with their place and other personal details removed. A copy you cover with Black out in Share carries no hidden details at all.
- Your Vault backups. A backup you save is encrypted and goes wherever you put it. Away from your iPhone, only your recovery phrase protects it, so keep the phrase safe.
- Your pattern, PIN and recovery phrase. We never receive them, so we can't look them up or reset them. Here's how the Vault works.
- Your Plan B and settings. We never receive the providers you tick, the numbers you add, your country, your check-in code, or your IMEI and serial number. They're kept on your iPhone. The IMEI and serial number are kept in your iPhone's secure storage, on this iPhone only, and aren't included in backups. The rest are ordinary app settings, so they're included if your iPhone backs up to iCloud or a computer. If you share, email or print your plan, that copy goes where you send it.
What we don't do
- No ads, no analytics code and no code from other companies in the app. It's built only on Apple's own tools.
- No account, no sign-up and no email address needed.
- We don't sell your data, and we don't track you across other apps or websites.
- We never ask for your account passwords or one-time codes.
Permissions FirstHour asks for
iPhone asks you first, and you can change any of these later in Settings.
| Permission | Why |
|---|---|
| Photos | To sort your pictures and point out ones that show a card, an ID or bank details, on your iPhone. If you ask it to, FirstHour also uses this to hide a picture, move one into the Vault, save one back, or delete one, and iPhone asks before anything is deleted. If you use iCloud Photos, your iPhone may download a picture from your own iCloud so it can be read. That's between your iPhone and Apple. |
| Camera | Only for taking photos and videos straight into the Vault. |
| Microphone | Only to record sound with a video you're taking in the Vault. |
| Face ID | For the app lock, which is always on once you've finished the welcome pages, as long as your iPhone has a passcode. If you don't allow Face ID, your iPhone passcode works instead. Apple handles Face ID on your iPhone, and FirstHour never receives your face data. |
| Location | Not used in this version. |
Theft Lock, coming later
We're building Theft Lock, which would let you mark your iPhone as lost from another device so FirstHour locks itself on that phone. It isn't part of this version. It will need FirstHour's own server, and it will be off unless you turn it on. Before it's available, we'll update this policy to say exactly what it keeps, for how long, who stores it for us, and how to turn it off and delete everything. It will never include your pictures, the Vault, or anything FirstHour finds.
Who else may be involved
- Apple runs the App Store, iCloud, iCloud Photos, Face ID, Shortcuts and the iPhone's own features such as dictation. Apple's own privacy policy applies to those. If you've allowed your iPhone to share analytics with app developers, Apple may send us crash reports about FirstHour. They don't include your pictures or your Vault.
- Websites the app opens, only if you tap the link: Apple's Find My page (icloud.com/find), and this website's privacy policy and terms.
- Your check-in contact, if you set up the phone check-in. Apple's Shortcuts sends them your location and photos when they text your code. FirstHour only notes the time the check-in ran, and doesn't receive anything else.
This website
To learn which pages help people, this website counts visits with PostHog, a web analytics service, which stores the counts for us in the United States. It sets no cookies. To tell new visitors from returning ones, it keeps one random code in your browser's storage for this website. The code isn't linked to your name, email or anything else about you, and you can remove it by clearing this website's data in your browser.
- We count: which pages are visited, the website that sent you here, such as a search engine, your country, the kind of device and browser, and taps on App Store links.
- We don't collect: your name, email or any account; your internet address, which PostHog discards; your exact location; anything about your pictures; or anything that follows you across other websites. Visits aren't recorded or replayed, and clicks aren't tracked.
- If your browser asks sites not to track you (the "Do Not Track" setting), nothing is counted. PostHog's privacy policy applies to the counts it stores.
- No ads, no advertising trackers, no cookies.
- Hosting. The website is hosted by Cloudflare. To deliver each page and protect the site from attacks, Cloudflare handles your request, which includes your internet address and browser details. Cloudflare's privacy policy applies to that.
- In your browser, this website keeps only the visit counter's random code and your light or dark choice, if you make one.
- The free tools work in your browser and don't load the visit counter. A picture you open in one isn't uploaded.
- The app is different: FirstHour itself has no analytics code. Counting happens on this website only.
- If you email us at [email protected], we receive your email address and your message, and keep them only to reply to you. Ask us and we'll delete them.
Your choices
- Turn any permission off in your iPhone's Settings.
- Delete FirstHour to remove the Vault and most of what it keeps on your iPhone. iPhone may keep a few small items in its secure storage, the Keychain, even after an app is deleted: your Vault's locked key record, the IMEI and serial number you typed, and a key Recovery location uses. They can't open anything, because the Vault's contents are gone. Deleting the app doesn't touch copies you saved to Files or Photos, or a backup you saved. Read this first, because the Vault can't be brought back without a backup.
- Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask for a copy of, or to delete, data we hold about you. In this version of the app, we hold nothing about you. To ask, email [email protected].
Children
FirstHour is for people aged 13 and over. It isn't aimed at children under 13, and the app collects nothing from anyone.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, we'll update the date at the top. Questions about your privacy: [email protected].