BetBlock Privacy Policy

Effective date: August 7, 2026

BetBlock is an iOS app that helps people stop gambling. Because of what it does, it handles some of the most sensitive information a person can share. This policy explains — in plain English — exactly what data BetBlock touches, where it goes, and what never leaves your phone.

The short version:

We collect the minimum. An email address (via Sign in with Apple, and only if you choose to create an account) and your recovery progress data. That's it.
Your journal is encrypted on your phone before it is uploaded. We cannot read it — and neither can anyone who breaks into the database.
Your browsing activity and Screen Time data never leave your device.
No ads. No trackers. No analytics SDKs. We never sell your data.

1. Who we are

BetBlock is developed and operated by an independent developer. For anything in this policy, contact:

Email: alix.profession@gmail.com

2. Your account (optional)

You can use BetBlock without an account. On the login screen, "Skip for now" lets you use the app entirely on your device — nothing is synced, and no account data is collected.

If you choose to sign in, BetBlock uses Sign in with Apple only. There are no passwords to create, remember, or breach. When you sign in, we receive and store:

Your email address, if Apple shares one with us — the address associated with your Apple ID, or Apple's private relay address if you choose "Hide My Email." We recommend the relay: it works fully with BetBlock and means we never see your real address.
Your first name, if you choose to share it (Apple only provides this once, on your first sign-in, and only with your permission). We use it to greet you inside the app.

This is stored with your account in our database (hosted by Supabase, see Section 6). We never see your Apple ID password — Apple handles all authentication.

3. Your journal — encrypted so that we cannot read it

Journal entries (and the written parts of setback records) are encrypted on your iPhone before they are ever uploaded, using AES-GCM encryption built into iOS (Apple's CryptoKit). The encryption key is generated on your device and stored in your Keychain, protected by Apple's Keychain security. The key is never sent to us. We never have it, so we can never read what it protects.

What this means in practice:

Our database stores only ciphertext — scrambled bytes. We cannot read your journal. Neither can Supabase, an accountability partner, or anyone who might ever breach the database.
The trade-off: if you lose access to your device and your Keychain, your journal entries are permanently unrecoverable. There is no "forgot my key" option — not for you, not for us. We chose privacy over recoverability on purpose, and we want you to know that before you rely on sync as a backup.

4. Recovery progress data we sync

If you're signed in, the following is synced to our database so your progress survives a lost or replaced phone:

Streak data — your journey start date and streak start date
Daily pledges — the fact that you pledged on a given day
Daily check-ins — urge strength, triggers, whether you gambled, what helped, how you felt
Urge events — from the urge-support tool: intensity, trigger, chosen activity, and outcome
Setback records — the written parts are encrypted like your journal (Section 3); the structured parts (trigger category, whether your streak reset) are stored as data
Your block list — the names of apps and websites you've chosen to protect yourself from
Profile settings — display name, personal goal, currency, spending baseline, blocking level
Sharing preferences — what you've chosen to share with an accountability partner

Every one of these tables is protected by Row Level Security: a database-enforced rule that a signed-in user can only ever read or write their own rows. This is enforced by the database itself on every single query — not by app code that could have a bug.

If you use BetBlock without an account, all of this stays on your device only.

5. What never leaves your phone

Screen Time and app blocking

BetBlock uses Apple's Family Controls and Screen Time frameworks to shield gambling apps you select. Apple designed these frameworks so that this data cannot leave your device — by rule and by technical design. BetBlock never sees, collects, or transmits which apps you use, which apps you've shielded, or your Screen Time activity. The block screen you see is drawn entirely on your device.

Website blocking (the VPN filter)

BetBlock offers an optional on-device VPN that blocks gambling websites at the DNS level. This is a local packet tunnel that runs entirely on your iPhone:

Every DNS lookup is checked on your device against a blocklist that ships inside the app.
No browsing history, no DNS queries, and no traffic data are collected, logged, or transmitted — to us or to anyone. There is no server on the other end of this VPN; it exists only to filter locally.
The VPN never sees or handles the content of your traffic.

A note on how protection works

BetBlock is deliberately built as a one-way door: the app contains no code that removes protection once you've added it. (Removing protection is only possible through iPhone Settings, outside the app.) This is a product design choice, not a data practice — but we mention it here because it reflects the same principle: the app is built to protect you, including from impulsive moments.

6. Service providers

We use two third-party services. Neither is an advertiser, data broker, or analytics company.

Supabase (database and authentication)

Our backend — accounts and synced data (Sections 2–4) — is hosted by Supabase, which runs on managed cloud infrastructure. All connections between the app and Supabase use HTTPS. Supabase processes this data solely to provide the service to us. Their privacy policy: https://supabase.com/privacy

Superwall (in-app purchases — currently dormant)

The app includes the Superwall SDK, a tool for managing in-app subscriptions. In the current version there is no paywall, no subscription, and no purchase anywhere in the app. The SDK may contact Superwall's servers to check its configuration and subscription status, which involves standard technical information such as a device-generated identifier — but it receives none of your account information, none of your recovery data, and nothing from Sections 3–5. If we introduce a paid tier in a future version, we will update this policy first. Superwall's privacy policy: https://superwall.com/privacy

Two commitments that will hold even if payments ship later: losing a subscription never removes your protection, and crisis support features will never be behind a paywall.

7. What we don't do

No advertising. There are no ads in BetBlock and no ad networks in the app.
No tracking. No analytics SDKs, no trackers, no fingerprinting, no tracking across other apps or websites.
No selling or sharing. We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it with anyone for marketing. We have never done so and will not.
No gambling-industry involvement. We do not share anything with gambling operators, affiliates, or their marketers, ever.

We disclose personal data outside the practices above only if we are legally compelled to (for example, by a valid court order) — and even then, your journal is ciphertext we cannot decrypt.

8. Your rights: export and deletion

Export your data. In the app: Profile → Subscription & data → Export my data. You receive a copy of your synced data in a portable format.
Delete your data. In the app: Profile → Subscription & data → Delete my data. This deletes your account and every row of your data from our database — profile, journal ciphertext, check-ins, urge events, setbacks, pledges, block list, and sharing preferences. Deletion cascades through the entire database automatically.
Or just email us. Send a request to alix.profession@gmail.com from the address associated with your account (or with enough information for us to verify the account is yours) and we will delete or export your data for you.
Local data. Anything stored only on your device is under your control — deleting the app removes it.

Depending on where you live (for example, the EU/EEA under GDPR, the UK, or California under CCPA/CPRA), you may have additional legal rights to access, correct, delete, or port your data, and the right to complain to a data-protection authority. Contact us at the email above to exercise any of them — we honor these requests for all users, regardless of location.

9. How long we keep data

While your account exists: your synced data is retained so the app can work across devices and reinstalls.
When you delete your account: all of your data is deleted from our database, as described in Section 8.
If you never create an account: we hold nothing about you at all.

We do not keep marketing lists, shadow profiles, or archives of deleted accounts.

10. Security

All network traffic uses HTTPS.
Journal and setback text is encrypted on-device before upload; the key lives in your Keychain and is never sent to us (Section 3).
Database access is enforced by Row Level Security — owner-only, default deny, on every table.
Your session token is stored in the iOS Keychain, not in ordinary app storage.
Authentication is Apple-only: there is no password for anyone to phish or leak.

No system is perfectly secure, but BetBlock is designed so that even a full database breach would expose no journal content and no browsing activity — because we never had them in readable form in the first place.

11. Children

BetBlock is not directed at children. It deals with gambling addiction recovery, is intended for adults, and carries an App Store age rating that reflects that. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us at alix.profession@gmail.com and we will delete it.

12. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy — for example, when subscriptions launch (Section 6) — we will update the effective date at the top and, for material changes, tell you in the app before the change takes effect. We will never retroactively weaken the commitments in Sections 3, 5, and 7 for data you have already given us.

13. Contact

Questions, concerns, export or deletion requests:

alix.profession@gmail.com

Note for the BetBlock team (remove before publishing): this policy was drafted to accurately reflect the app's actual behavior as of the effective date, but it has not yet been reviewed by a lawyer. Have it reviewed by qualified counsel — including for GDPR, UK GDPR, and CCPA/CPRA applicability — before launch.