Samvar Privacy Policy
Samvar is built around a simple idea: the people in your life are yours, not ours. This policy explains exactly what the app does with information, in plain language. The short version: everything you put into Samvar is stored on your iPhone, with a private backup copy in your own iCloud; there are no accounts, and Samvar keeps no copy of it on any server. Samvar AI and maps are optional online features that the app asks your permission for before anything is sent. If you allow them, only the specific pieces needed for that request leave your phone, and Samvar does not store them. Your address book is never uploaded.
What Samvar stores, and where
Everything you put into Samvar — people, circles, conversation notes, facts, photos, phone numbers, addresses, birthdays, employers, streaks and scores — is stored on your device, in the app's own storage and in a small shared area that the home-screen widget and Siri shortcuts can read. Samvar has no user accounts and keeps no copy of your data on any server. iCloud backup: if iCloud Drive is turned on for your Apple ID, Samvar also keeps a copy of this data (and your photos for people and conversations) in the app's private iCloud container, so a new or replacement iPhone signed in to the same Apple ID can restore it. That copy is stored by Apple under your Apple ID and Apple's iCloud terms; Samvar cannot see or access it, and it does not appear in the Files app. You can turn it off by turning off iCloud for Samvar in iOS Settings. If you delete the app and have no iCloud copy, that data is gone unless you exported a backup first. Backups are ordinary files you control.
What leaves your device, and why
Nothing below happens until you agree. The first time you use a feature that needs to send information off your phone, Samvar shows a screen explaining what will be sent and asks you to Allow or choose Not now. If you choose Not now, everything stays on your phone and notes are filed with simple on-device rules. You can change your choice at any time under You → Online features.
- Understanding your notes and drafting messages (Samvar AI). When you tap Review & score on a note, or Suggest a message / Opener for a person, Samvar sends the text of that note, the first names of the people involved, the facts you have stored about them, their employer and job title if their contact card has one, and the town from their address (not the street) over an encrypted connection to Samvar's server. The server forwards it to Anthropic's Claude API to be understood or drafted, and returns the result. Samvar's server does not store the content of these requests; it keeps only a per-device count of requests. Anthropic processes the content under its commercial API terms, which do not permit it to train on your data; Anthropic may retain API inputs for a limited period for safety and abuse prevention under its own policy. The server is identified by a random device ID that Samvar generates on first run; it is not linked to your name, Apple ID or email.
- Local context for messages. To make a suggested message feel current, Samvar's server may run a web search for the town named in a person's address (for example "Bristol, UK") to find that week's weather or a local event. Only the town is searched, never the person's name or street. Results are cached for a day and shared across all users of the app for that town.
- Things to do nearby. If you enter where you live under Settings, that town or postcode, the current month, and the first names, stored facts and addresses of your Inner and Close circle (so it can tell who lives near you) are sent to Samvar AI, which searches the web for a few real places and events easily reachable from home (the same or neighbouring postcode areas) and suggests one a week. If you tell Samvar why an idea missed, that note is sent to Samvar AI to be turned into a short memory, stored only on your device on the friend's profile or under About you. Nothing else about you is sent, and the result is cached on your device.
- Tidying addresses. If an address cannot be found on the map, its text (never the person's name) is sent to Samvar AI to be normalised, then looked up again.
- Maps. Addresses and, if you use Near me, your approximate coordinates are sent to OpenStreetMap's Nominatim service to find locations. Results are cached on your device.
- Subscriptions. Samvar Pro is bought through Apple. Apple provides RevenueCat, our subscription service, and Samvar's server with an anonymous receipt confirming that the subscription is active, tied to the same random device ID. We never see your payment details.
- Measuring our adverts (Meta). Samvar advertises on Facebook and Instagram. To learn which adverts lead to people installing and trying the app, Samvar includes Meta's app-events SDK, which tells Meta when the app is installed and opened and when a free trial or subscription starts, along with basic device information (model, iOS version, language). If you allow tracking when iOS asks ("Allow Samvar to track your activity…"), this also includes your device's advertising identifier; if you choose Ask App Not to Track, it does not. You can change this any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking. Nothing about your friends, notes, contacts, circles or anything you type is ever sent to Meta. Meta handles this data under its own privacy policy.
Permissions Samvar may ask for
- Contacts. Used to show your address book so you can flag people into circles, and to keep those people's details in step with their contact cards (name, numbers, email, address, birthday, employer, job title, photo, profile links). Only the people you flag are saved, and only on your phone; the rest are read on screen and discarded. Your address book is never uploaded to Samvar or anyone else. If you allow Samvar's online features, the town and job title from a chosen person's card can be included in a Samvar AI request, and their address can be looked up on the map, as described above.
- Calendar. Read only, to spot recent events whose title or attendees match one of your people and offer to log them. Event details stay on your device.
- Microphone and Speech Recognition. Used only when you tap the microphone on the Log page, to turn what you say into text. Where your iPhone supports it, recognition happens entirely on the phone; otherwise Apple's speech service processes the audio under Apple's terms. Samvar never saves or uploads the audio itself.
- Tracking. iOS asks once whether Samvar may use your advertising identifier to measure its adverts (see Measuring our adverts above). Saying no changes nothing in the app.
- Camera and Photos. Only when you choose to add a photo to a person or a conversation. Photos stay on your device.
- Location. Only when you use Near me or the location pin when logging. Never uploaded except as described under Maps.
- Notifications. Nudges, the evening check-in and the Sunday digest are scheduled on your device. No push server is involved.
What Samvar does not do
- No advertising, and no advertising or analytics SDKs.
- No selling, sharing or renting of your information to anyone.
- No tracking across other apps or websites.
- No account, email address or password required.
- No searching for information about your friends by name.
Messages and calls
The Call, Text, Email and WhatsApp buttons simply open the relevant app on your phone with the number or address. Samvar does not send messages itself and cannot read your conversations, calls or email.
Children
Samvar is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect information from them.
Your rights and choices
Because your data lives on your device, you already have complete access to it. You can export it at any time (You → Your data → Download backup) and erase it (You → Erase all data, or delete the app). You can use Samvar without any of the permissions above; the related features simply stay off. If you have any question, or want to ask about the request counts our server keeps, email privacy@samvar.app. Users in the UK and EU have the rights set out in UK GDPR and GDPR, including the right to complain to the ICO or your local supervisory authority.
Service providers
Anthropic (AI processing), Cloudflare (hosting of Samvar's server, in its global network), RevenueCat (subscription status), Apple (App Store, payments) and OpenStreetMap Nominatim (maps). Each receives only what is described above.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, the app will tell you on launch and the date at the top of this page will be updated.