Owlee · Smallcarrots
Privacy Policy
Last updated
A clear explanation of what stays on your device, what is sent when you listen or subscribe, and how to exercise your privacy rights.
On this page 17 sections
- Who is responsible
- Information on your device
- Library and audio requests
- Purchases and subscription information
- Apple Search Ads measurement
- Limited onboarding measurement
- Feedback from Settings
- Optional crash diagnostics and chapter feedback
- When you contact us
- Purposes and legal grounds
- Who receives information
- How long information is kept
- International processing and security
- Your rights and choices
- Permissions and children
- These pages and external links
- Updates to this policy
Who is responsible
This Privacy Policy explains how OLIVER HEGELUND DUEDAM, trading as Smallcarrots (“we”, “us”, or “our”), handles personal information in connection with Owlee, its audio services, and these legal pages. OLIVER HEGELUND DUEDAM is responsible for deciding how and why information is used for those services and acts as the data controller where that term applies.
Postal address: Rua do Conde de Ferreira 159, Porto, Portugal.
Contact us about privacy or your information at hello@smallcarrots.com. Our Terms & Conditions explain the rules for using Owlee and managing subscriptions.
Owlee currently works without a separate email-and-password account. This does not mean that no personal information is processed: installation identifiers, purchase records, network information, and usage events can still be personal information.
Information on your device
Owlee uses local storage to remember your setup and make listening work smoothly:
- Your profile. The name you enter, your ranked topic choices, onboarding completion, and whether recommendations have been shown are stored on your device. A nickname is sufficient; you do not need to provide a legal name.
- Listening progress. The most recent book and chapter, playback position, playback speed, and related timing information are saved locally so you can resume.
- Cached content and identifiers. The app and its SDKs store catalogue information, artwork caches, installation identifiers, and purchase status needed for their functions. PostHog keeps its analytics identifier and event queue in memory rather than saving them across app launches.
- Privacy and review preferences. Terms acceptance, the optional diagnostics choice, whether audio has been played, and the app’s rating-request history are stored locally.
The current app does not upload your entered name or ranked topic choices as profile fields to our server, RevenueCat, or PostHog. Onboarding answers about your evening routine are used during that session and are not included in the saved profile or the analytics events we explicitly send.
Topics include religion and philosophy. Your choices are used to arrange recommendations on the device; they are not a declaration of your beliefs. The actual book or chapter you request must still be sent to our audio service to play it, as explained below.
Owlee does not provide cloud synchronization of your profile or bookmarks. Your operating system may separately back up app data under your device or cloud-backup settings.
Library and audio requests
Owlee is available for iPhone and iPad. Cloudflare provides its catalogue, artwork, and audio storage and delivery. On devices that support Apple App Attest, the media service uses an app-generated key identifier and cryptographic attestation or assertion to check the app installation. The key reference and credential are kept on your device; the private key is not sent to our service.
The Cloudflare media service receives the app identifier generated by RevenueCat and checks your membership with RevenueCat before issuing or renewing access tokens. On iOS devices without App Attest support, access uses this membership check without app attestation. Tokens last up to one hour and may expire earlier if your membership expires. A chapter request includes the book, part, and chapter identifiers needed to deliver the audio.
Our hosting and content-delivery providers receive the network information necessary to deliver the response or audio, such as your IP address, request time, requested resource, and technical connection details. These requests can indicate which content was requested; they are separate from the playback bookmark stored on your device.
Service and security logs may contain this request information to diagnose failures and protect access. We do not use your listening choices to target advertisements or to make decisions about your eligibility for employment, credit, insurance, or healthcare.
Purchases and subscription information
Your app store processes payment and provides purchase information toRevenueCat, which manages subscription access for Owlee. Information includes the generated app identifier, purchased product, transaction identifiers and dates, subscription status, renewal or expiry information, and the store and offer involved.
We use purchase information to unlock paid content, restore eligible purchases, resolve support issues, prevent misuse, and understand subscription performance. The RevenueCat identifier is a generated app identifier, not your device’s hardware serial number. Even without your name or email, it is a persistent identifier and should not be treated as fully anonymous data.
We do not receive your complete payment-card details from in-app purchases. The store processes your payment and store-account information under its own privacy policy.
Apple Search Ads measurement
On iOS, Owlee asks Apple’s AdServices framework for an attribution token and passes it to RevenueCat. RevenueCat uses it to ask Apple whether the installation came from an Apple Search Ads campaign. Attributed campaign information, such as campaign, ad group, and keyword, may be associated with the membership record to understand which campaigns lead to subscriptions.
This does not use the advertising identifier (IDFA), and the app does not request access to activity in other companies’ apps or websites through App Tracking Transparency.
Limited onboarding measurement
Owlee uses PostHog to measure whether onboarding works, including reaching an active membership. This limited measurement runs during onboarding independently of the optional crash diagnostics choice. It records four event types: onboarding started, step viewed, paywall opened, and onboarding completed after membership is confirmed.
Events include the locally assigned onboarding experiment and variant, the screen identifier and index, whether access was purchased, restored, or already active, and a coarse marketing channel or approved campaign label. Unapproved campaign labels are discarded. The events do not include your name, selected topics or routine answers, audiobook or chapter identifiers, playback position, advertising click identifiers, or the URL that opened the app.
PostHog uses a random identifier held in memory to connect events during the current app launch. Owlee does not save this identifier or its event queue across launches, create a person profile, or join it to RevenueCat identifiers or support records. Network providers and PostHog receive an IP address to deliver and protect requests; GeoIP enrichment is disabled.
PostHog screen and touch autocapture, lifecycle capture, remote feature flags, automatic error capture, and session replay are disabled. Owlee does not send library, audiobook, playback, or ambience activity to PostHog. Onboarding experiments compare screen designs; they do not make decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects about you.
Feedback from Settings
If you choose Send feedback in Settings, Owlee sends the message you enter to PostHog with a label identifying that form. Messages are limited to 2,000 characters. The form does not request your name, email address, or screenshots, and the submission does not attach audiobook, chapter, purchase, or contact details.
This is separate from optional crash diagnostics. A message is sent only when you submit it. Please avoid including personal or sensitive information. We use your message to investigate problems and improve Owlee.
Optional crash diagnostics and chapter feedback
Optional crash diagnostics is off by default. If you enable it during onboarding or in Settings, Owlee uses Sentry for scrubbed crash and error reports. These retain the error type, safe stack locations, app, operating-system and runtime versions, and fixed labels describing the affected operation. Enabling waits for your choice to be saved; turning it off stops future diagnostics sharing.
Sentry session replay, SDK logs, metrics, performance tracing, automatic session tracking, screenshots, and breadcrumbs are disabled. Owlee removes raw exception messages, request and user payloads, source variables, and detailed device and locale context.
When diagnostics is enabled, you can also send feedback about a chapter through Sentry. The form does not ask for a name or email, and screenshot capture is disabled. It sends your message together with the audiobook, chapter, and playback position disclosed beside the feedback control. Please avoid personal or sensitive information. Chapter feedback is unavailable while diagnostics is off; Settings feedback remains a separate option.
When you contact us
If you email us, we receive your email address, message, and any attachments or information you choose to provide. We use them to answer your question, investigate a problem, verify an information request, and keep a record of the resolution.
Please share only what is necessary. Do not send passwords, full payment-card numbers, or medical records. If a receipt or screenshot helps with a purchase issue, remove unrelated personal information first.
Purposes and legal grounds
Where the European Economic Area or UK data-protection rules apply, the legal ground depends on the purpose:
- Providing the service: processing needed to deliver requested audio, verify paid access, restore purchases, and provide contractual support is necessary to perform our contract with you or take steps you request before entering it.
- Security and reliability: proportionate processing to prevent misuse, investigate failures, and protect the Service is based on our legitimate interests in operating a secure and reliable product, where those interests are not overridden by your rights.
- Limited product measurement: onboarding measurementand Apple Search Ads attribution support our legitimate interest in understanding and improving onboarding and evaluating our own campaigns, where that interest is not overridden by your rights. You may object as explained below.
- Optional diagnostics: Sentry crash diagnostics and chapter feedback rely on your consent. Diagnostics stays off unless you enable it, and you may withdraw that consent in Settings.
- Voluntary Settings feedback: we process the message you choose to submit to respond to your request and improve the service. Where applicable, this supports our legitimate interest in resolving problems and improving Owlee.
- Legal obligations: we process information when necessary to meet applicable accounting, tax, consumer-protection, or other legal duties.
- Consent: where we request consent for a specific optional use, you may withdraw it without affecting processing that was lawful before withdrawal.
Network and purchase-verification information is needed to provide online and paid features. Without it, those features cannot operate. You can use a nickname for local personalization, and you choose whether to contact support.
This notice explains our practices; reading it or using Owlee is not itself consent to processing for which the law requires a separate choice.
How long information is kept
Retention depends on what the information is used for, rather than a single period for every record:
- Local profile and progress: remain in app storage until overwritten or removed. Clearing app data or deleting the app generally removes this storage, subject to your operating system’s backup and restore behavior.
- Purchase records: are retained as needed to maintain and restore entitlements, handle billing disputes and fraud, and meet applicable record-keeping obligations. Store records are also subject to the store’s retention rules.
- Usage, error, and service records: are retained according to the purposes of evaluating the app, investigating operational or security issues, and resolving identified problems. Relevant criteria include the age of the data, whether identifiable detail remains useful, and any ongoing investigation.
- Migration backups: restricted local recovery backups may temporarily retain legacy subscription records. They are kept only as long as needed to verify the migration and recover from related problems, then deleted when no longer needed.
- Support correspondence: is retained while addressing your request and as needed for follow-up, dispute resolution, or a legal obligation.
Where continued retention is not needed, information is deleted or de-identified. A specific record may need to be kept longer to meet a legal obligation or resolve a claim. Contact us for information about retention of a particular record or to request deletion.
International processing and security
Our providers operate internationally, including in the United States, and information may be processed outside your country. An EU analytics endpoint does not mean that all providers or support operations are confined to the EU. Owlee uses PostHog’s EU service and Sentry’s Germany region for production diagnostics. Other providers and support operations may process information internationally.
Where a transfer requires protection under applicable data-protection law, appropriate safeguards must apply, such as an applicable adequacy decision or approved contractual protections, including standard contractual clauses and a UK addendum where required. You can contact us to ask where relevant information is processed and request details of the safeguards applicable to it.
We use technical and organizational measures appropriate to the information and risks, including access restrictions and protected network connections. No system is completely secure. Keep your device and store account secure and install available security updates.
Your rights and choices
Depending on the law that applies and the processing involved, you may have the right to:
- Know how your information is used and request access or a copy.
- Correct inaccurate information or request deletion.
- Restrict certain processing or receive eligible information in a portable format.
- Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.
- Complain to a data-protection authority and exercise your rights without unlawful discrimination.
Your right to object
You may object to processing based on legitimate interests, including related profiling, on grounds relating to your situation. We will assess the objection under applicable law and stop that processing unless a permitted ground for continuing applies. You can contact us at the address below.
How to make a request
Email hello@smallcarrots.com with “Owlee privacy request” in the subject and describe what you need. We may request proportionate information to verify the request and locate the relevant records. The app uses generated identifiers, so an email address alone may not identify an installation. We will explain what is needed and will not ask for your store password.
We respond within the period required by applicable law, generally within one month under the GDPR, with any permitted extension explained to you. If we cannot fulfill a request, we will explain why and any available complaint or appeal route. We do not need to collect additional identifying information solely to identify someone whose records cannot otherwise be linked to them.
Settings displays a selectable Privacy reference based on your RevenueCat app identifier and offers a privacy-request email link. You may include that reference to help locate purchase and API records. It is not a device hardware identifier. PostHog’s random in-memory identifier is not shown or retained across launches, so onboarding records generally cannot be located from your membership reference alone.
Local data and diagnostics controls
You can remove local app data through your device’s available storage controls or by deleting the app. Backups may need to be managed separately. This does not erase provider-held records, cancel a subscription, or prevent future events if you reinstall and use the app again.
You can change the Optional crash diagnostics switch in Settings. Turning it off stops future Sentry diagnostics sharing and makes chapter feedback unavailable. It does not disable the limited onboarding measurement or erase information already sent. Settings feedback is sent only when you choose to submit a message. Contact us to request deletion or object to processing based on legitimate interests; deleting historical records does not itself change your diagnostics preference.
You may complain to the supervisory authority where you live, work, or believe an infringement occurred. See the EEA supervisory-authority directory or the UK Information Commissioner’s complaint service.
Permissions and children
Owlee plays audio; it does not record you. The current app does not request microphone access, access to contacts or photos, or precise device location. Background audio and lock-screen controls support listening and do not require microphone recording. Owlee does not read health or fitness records.
The Service is not directed to children under 13 or anyone below a higher minimum age required by applicable law. If a parent or guardian believes a child has provided personal information inappropriately, contact us so we can investigate and take the steps required by law. Store age ratings do not replace local age or parental-consent requirements.
These pages and external links
When you visit these legal pages, our website host Vercel receives ordinary request information, including an IP address, requested page, and browser details, to serve and protect the site. These pages do not embed the app’s PostHog, Sentry, or RevenueCat SDKs, advertising trackers, or a contact form.
Opening an external policy or store-help link takes you to another provider’s service, where its privacy practices apply. Selecting an email link opens your email application; a message is sent only if you choose to send it.
Updates to this policy
We will update this policy when the app or relevant practices change and revise the date at the top. For material changes, we will provide additional notice and obtain any consent required before using information for a new purpose. An updated policy does not retroactively authorize processing that required consent.
Questions about this policy or information-handling practices can be sent to hello@smallcarrots.com.