Hearing Aid Finder & Tracker Privacy Policy

Hearing Aid Finder & Tracker (the “App”) helps you find a hearing aid that is somewhere nearby. It scans for the Bluetooth signal the aid gives off, lists the devices it can see with a rough distance for each, and once you have picked yours it shows a proximity radar and beeps and vibrates faster as you get closer. If the aid is still paired to your phone as an audio output, the App can play a loud tone through it. It also remembers where your phone was the last time it saw the aid, and can notify you when a lost aid comes back into range. It is built to work entirely on your device.

The short version: we do not run servers, we do not create user accounts, we do not use analytics or advertising SDKs, and what the App learns about your hearing aids — their names, what your phone last saw of them and where — stays on your phone. The only third party involved is RevenueCat, which manages in-app purchases.

The App does not collect, transmit or store on any server:

• Which Bluetooth devices are near you, which ones you save, the names you give them, or how you use the App.
• Your location, or the places your phone last saw a hearing aid. Those positions are stored only on your phone (see “Location” below).
• Your name, email address, phone number or any account information (there are no accounts).
• Anything about your hearing, your health or your hearing aid’s settings. The App never connects to a hearing aid’s controls and reads nothing from it beyond the public advertisement every Bluetooth device broadcasts.
• Audio from your surroundings. The App does not use the microphone and cannot record.
• Your contacts, calendar, photos, health data or any other data from other apps.
• Usage analytics, crash reports, advertising identifiers or behavioural tracking data.

To find a hearing aid the App needs Bluetooth permission. While you scan, it listens for the short public advertisement that every nearby Bluetooth Low Energy device broadcasts — hearing aids, earbuds, watches, TVs and so on, yours and other people’s. From each advertisement it reads the device name (if any), the manufacturer identifier, the service identifiers, the appearance code and the signal strength. It uses these only to sort likely hearing aids to the top of the list, to show a brand where one can be inferred, and to estimate how far away a device is. Distances are estimates from signal strength; the App does not and cannot determine direction or precise position.

Nothing about a device is kept unless you pick it. Devices you do not pick are held in memory only while the scan runs and are gone when it ends. When you pick your aid, the App saves the identifier iOS assigns to that device, its advertised name, the name you give it, the inferred brand and a small fingerprint of its advertisement so it can recognise the aid again if the identifier changes — all on your phone.

During a search the App never connects to the aid; it only listens, because a connected aid stops advertising. It does not pair with it, does not read or change its settings, and does not send it anything. The one exception is back-in-range alerts, described below.

The App asks for location permission while it is in use, for two reasons. First, on iOS a Bluetooth scan can reveal where you are, so Apple treats scanning as location-relevant. Second, the App records where your phone was the last time it saw each saved aid — latitude, longitude, accuracy and time — so that if the aid is out of range you can see on a map where to start looking. This position is stored only on your phone, only for the aids you have saved, and is replaced each time the aid is seen again. The App never requests “Always” location access and does not track your movements.

The last-known-location map is drawn by Apple Maps on your device. To draw it, your phone requests map tiles for that area from Apple; Apple’s handling of that request is described in Apple’s privacy policy. The map can also show your own current position, provided by iOS on your device, so you can see how far you are from the pin. We never receive any of it.

Back-in-range alerts are off by default. If you turn them on and an aid is marked lost, the App asks iOS to keep a Bluetooth connection request pending for that aid, and iOS keeps it alive even after you close the App. The moment the aid advertises again iOS wakes the App, which posts a notification on your phone, records the phone’s position as the aid’s last known location, and immediately drops the connection so the aid keeps advertising for the search screen. No data is read from the aid.

These are local notifications, created by the App on your phone. No push notification service is involved, no device token is created, and nothing is sent to us or anyone else. The App asks for notification permission only when you turn alerts on.

If a saved aid is currently connected to your phone as an audio output — the same way it plays phone calls or music — the search screen offers Ring it, which plays a loud tone through the aid at your phone’s volume level. To offer this the App reads the list of audio outputs iOS currently has connected (their names and types) and nothing more. The tone, the search beeps and the vibration are all generated on your phone. The App does not use the microphone and does not record.

The App makes no network requests of its own. Nothing is uploaded, no configuration is fetched, and nothing is reported back to us.

The only network traffic the App produces comes from Apple’s in-app purchase system and RevenueCat, described below (when the App starts, to check whether your purchase is active, and when you open the paywall, buy or restore a purchase), and from Apple Maps when you open the last-known-location map.

If you open the Terms of Use, this Privacy Policy or your Apple subscription settings from inside the App, the page loads in an in-app browser from our website or from Apple, and the server delivering the page sees your IP address, as with any web page.

The following data is stored locally, in the App’s sandbox on your device, and nowhere else:

• Whether you have completed the introduction screens.
• Your settings: back-in-range alerts on or off, sound and vibration on or off, feet or metres, and appearance.
• Your saved hearing aids: the identifier iOS assigns to each, its advertised name, the name you gave it, the inferred brand, the advertisement fingerprint, when you saved it, whether it is marked lost, and its last known location and time.
• Which aid you searched for last, so the next search starts instantly.
• Your purchase status, cached so that the App keeps working offline.

To forget one hearing aid, open it from Settings in the App and choose Forget This Device; its name and last known location are removed from your phone. Deleting the App removes everything it stores — your saved aids, their locations and your settings. There is nothing on our side to delete, because nothing was ever sent to us. Your purchase record stays with Apple and can be restored after reinstalling the App.

Scanning, the device list, distances and renaming are free. The guided search, Ring it, last known location and back-in-range alerts require Pro, unlocked with either an auto-renewing weekly subscription or a one-time lifetime purchase. Purchases are processed by Apple through the App Store; we never see your payment details.

To validate purchases and keep the App unlocked across reinstalls, the App uses RevenueCat, a purchase management service. RevenueCat receives an anonymous, randomly generated app user identifier, your App Store purchase receipt, and basic device information (device model, OS version, app version, locale). This is the minimum information needed to confirm that a purchase is active. RevenueCat does not receive your name, your email, or anything about your hearing aids or where you have been.

RevenueCat’s privacy policy is available at https://www.revenuecat.com/privacy. Apple’s privacy policy is available at https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/.

The App is a general-audience utility, rated 4+. Whatever the age of the person using it, the App behaves the same way and collects the same amount of information about them: none.

There are no accounts, no sign-in, no messaging, no user-generated content, no advertising, no analytics and no third-party tracking, and the App gives no one — child or adult — any way to send personal information to us. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children, and since we collect none from anyone, there is nothing about a child for us to hold, use, disclose, sell or delete. If you believe a child has somehow provided personal information to us, email us and we will delete anything we find.

Purchases are made through the Apple Account signed in on the device. Parents can require approval for every purchase using Ask to Buy, or block in-app purchases entirely in iOS Settings › Screen Time. If a child has made a purchase without permission, contact Apple Support to request a refund.

Because we hold no personal data about you on any server, requests to access, correct, export or delete your data are fulfilled entirely by you, on your device, as described above. If you have a question about your rights under GDPR, the UK GDPR, CCPA/CPRA or similar laws, or want to know what RevenueCat holds for your anonymous identifier, contact us and we will help.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, as those terms are used in California law. We never have, and there is nothing for us to sell or share.

Your saved aids, their last known locations and your settings are stored in the App’s private container, protected by iOS sandboxing and your device passcode and encryption. Communication with RevenueCat and Apple uses TLS.

No app, device or transmission can be made perfectly secure. We keep the risk low by holding as little as possible and keeping it on your device, but we cannot guarantee absolute security, and you are responsible for keeping your device updated and locked with a passcode.

If we change how the App handles data, we will update this page and the “Last updated” date. Material changes will also be described in the App Store release notes for the update that introduces them.

Appcelerator Studio is the data controller for Hearing Aid Finder & Tracker. For any privacy question or request, email team@appcelerator.studio.