Privacy Policy

Last updated: 19 July 2026

Gatehouse ("the app", "we") helps you limit time on distracting apps by shielding them behind short, natural-language access requests judged by an AI gatekeeper, and by letting you appoint an accountability partner. This policy explains what we collect, why, and who processes it. We designed the app to collect as little as possible.

What stays on your device

Most of your data never leaves your phone. Your goal and tagline, your list of gated apps and the nicknames you give them, the names you give your accountability partners, your app-access policy (strictness, generosity, time limits), and your local request history are stored only in the app's on-device storage. We do not upload them. iOS does not let the app read the real names of your apps — that is why you assign nicknames yourself.

What we send to our server

• Apple account identifier. When you sign in with Apple, we receive a stable identifier for your Apple account. We request no name or email. We store this identifier to recognize you across sessions, enforce a daily usage limit, and connect you with accountability partners.
• Session token. After sign-in we issue a session token, stored securely in your device Keychain and sent with each request to authenticate you.
• Push notification token. If you use accountability partners, we store your Apple Push Notification token so we can deliver partner requests and alerts.
• Accountability data. The links between partnered accounts and the approval requests you send — including any task description, reason, or personal message you choose to include in a request to your partner. (The names you give your partners stay on your device.)
• Usage counts. A per-day count of how many AI requests you have made, to enforce the free daily limit. This is a count, not the content of your requests.
• Subscription status. If you subscribe to our paid tier, we verify your purchase with Apple and store your entitlement status and Apple transaction identifier so we can unlock paid access. Payment itself is handled by Apple; we never see your card or payment details.
• App integrity key. To prevent abuse of our service, the app uses Apple's App Attest to prove requests come from a genuine, unmodified copy of the app. We store the resulting per-installation public key and a counter. This is used only for fraud prevention and cannot be used to track you across other apps or websites.

Your request text and the AI

When you ask the gatekeeper for access, the short description you type is sent through our server to our AI provider, Anthropic, which generates the access decision. This is necessary to provide the core feature. We do not store the content of these requests on our servers — they are forwarded and processed transiently. Anthropic processes the text under its own terms and privacy commitments as our data processor. Do not include sensitive personal information in request text.

Third parties

• Apple — Sign in with Apple, and Apple Push Notification service for alerts.
• Anthropic — processes your request text to generate access decisions.
• Cloudflare — hosts our server infrastructure.

We do not sell your data, show advertising, or use third-party analytics or tracking SDKs.

Retention and deletion

Your account identifier, partner links, subscription status, app-integrity key, and push token are kept while your account is active. Approval requests are short-lived and age out. You can permanently delete your account and all associated server-side data at any time from within the app, at Settings › Account › Delete account; this also revokes the app's Sign in with Apple authorization. You can also email us to request deletion (see Contact). Signing out clears your local session; deleting the app removes the data stored on your device.

Security

Our AI provider key is held only on our server and never ships in the app. Traffic is encrypted in transit (TLS). Access to your data is authenticated with your session token and keyed to your verified Apple identifier.

Children

Gatehouse is a self-monitoring tool intended for users 13 and older and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Your choices

• Use of accountability partners, and therefore partner data, is optional.
• You can sign out or delete the app at any time.
• You can permanently delete your account and all server-side data in the app at Settings › Account › Delete account, or by contacting us.

Changes

We may update this policy; the "Last updated" date above reflects the current version. Material changes will be reflected here.

Contact

Questions or data requests: dyagress@gmail.com