privacy
last updated 16 august 2026
first year keeps a record of your child's first year. that record is the most personal thing an app could hold, so the design answer was to never hold it: it is written to your phone and it stays there.
this page describes what the app actually does, feature by feature. where something does leave your device, it is named below rather than summarised away.
what stays on your phone
all of it. specifically:
- your child's name, birth date, and whether you chose boy or girl
- every note you write
- every photo you add, stored in the app's own folder on the device
- which drawing and which colour each day was given
- your settings — accent, doodle size, sound, reminder time
none of this is uploaded, backed up by us, or transmitted anywhere. there is no account to create and no server holding a copy. we cannot read any of it, because we never receive it.
if your device is backed up by Apple to iCloud, that backup may include the app's data, in the same way it includes your other apps. that copy is between you and Apple; we have no access to it and no involvement in it.
what leaves your phone
one thing: an anonymous count of which screens are opened and which actions are taken, so we can tell what is broken or confusing. it is handled by Mixpanel on their european servers.
this is the complete list of what is sent. there is nothing else.
- the app was opened; onboarding was started or finished
- a day was opened, written, or deleted
- a photo was added or removed
- a tab was changed; a setting was changed
- the plans screen was opened, a plan was chosen, a purchase began or ended
a few of those carry a detail, and these are all of them:
- when a day is written — whether it had a note, whether it had a photo, whether it was an edit, and which colour was used. never what the note said.
- when onboarding finishes — your child's age rounded down to whole months, and boy or girl. never the name, never the birth date. a name plus a date of birth identifies a person; an age in months does not.
- which plan was chosen on the plans screen
no note, no photo, no name, no birth date and no calendar date is ever transmitted, in any event, under any circumstances.
you can turn it off. settings → anonymous stats → off. that calls the analytics library's own opt-out, so nothing further is collected or sent — it is not merely a flag we promise to check.
photos and the camera
the app asks for the camera only when you tap to take a picture, and only then. on iOS it does not ask for photo library access at all: the picker runs outside the app and hands back the single image you chose, so the app never has permission to see the rest of your library.
a photo you add is squared off and reduced in size on the device, then copied into the app's own private folder. the original in your library is left untouched.
notifications
off unless you turn them on. they are scheduled locally by your phone — there is no push server, and no device token is registered or sent anywhere. turning the reminder off cancels everything already scheduled.
subscriptions
payment is handled entirely by Apple. we never see your card, your name, or your Apple account.
we use RevenueCat to tell whether a subscription is active. it receives an anonymous identifier and the purchase itself — never your child's name, notes, photos or dates.
children
first year is for a parent to use, not a child. it is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect anything from one.
the app is about a child, which is precisely why none of it is collected: the name, birth date, photos and notes never leave the device, and the analytics described above are deliberately limited to shapes that cannot identify anybody.
deleting everything
settings → delete all data removes every day, every photo and every setting from the device immediately and permanently. deleting the app does the same.
because we hold nothing, there is nothing for you to request from us and nothing for us to delete on your behalf. that is the whole point of the design, and it is also its one real cost — see terms on backups.
your rights
under GDPR, CCPA and similar laws you have rights of access, correction, deletion and portability over personal data a company holds about you. we hold none, so there is nothing to access or port — your data is already entirely in your possession, on your device.
for the anonymous usage counts, the opt-out in settings is the control, and it works both before and after the fact.
changes
if this ever changes, the date at the top changes with it. a change that meant your content started leaving the device would be announced in the app itself, not quietly posted here.