Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 28 September 2026 · App: Tickface (app.tickface) · Publisher: Atwa Labs

The short version

Tickface has no accounts, no sign-in and no advertising, and nothing it sends can identify you.

Two things leave your phone. Anonymous usage statistics — which screens you open and which designs, colours and backdrops you choose — go to Google Analytics for Firebase so we can see what people actually use. You can switch them off in Settings. And if you use a design that shows the weather, an approximate location, rounded to about a kilometre, goes to a weather service to get the forecast for your area.

What the app can access, and why

What you are playing (Notification access)

Two designs — Vinyl and Mixtape — show the song playing on your phone. To do that, Android requires an app to hold Notification access, which is how the system shares media sessions.

• Tickface reads only the title, artist and album art that the playing app publishes.
• It reads no notifications, of any kind, ever.
• That information is held in memory while it is drawn on your wallpaper. It is never written to storage and never sent anywhere.
• The permission is optional. Without it those designs show “Nothing playing”.
• You can withdraw it at any time in Android Settings → Apps → Special app access → Notification access.

Approximate location (weather designs only)

The Beacon design shows the current weather. To find the weather where you are, the app:

1. Reads the approximate location Android already has, if you granted that permission.
2. Rounds it to two decimal places — roughly a kilometre, so it identifies an area, not an address.
3. Sends those rounded coordinates over an encrypted connection to Open-Meteo, a free weather service, to ask for the forecast there.

Your location is sent to no one else, and nothing else is sent with it — no device identifier, no account, no name. Open-Meteo is an independent service with its own privacy practices. The weather that comes back is stored on your phone so it can be redrawn without asking again.

The permission is optional. Without it, Beacon shows dashes where the weather would be.

Your home screen photo (optional)

On phones where one wallpaper covers both screens, Tickface can show a still picture on your home screen while the watch stays on your lock screen. If you choose your own picture, you pick it with Android's photo picker, which hands Tickface only that one image — the app cannot see the rest of your photos and asks for no photo permission. A resized copy is kept in the app's own storage on your phone so it can be drawn. It is never uploaded or sent anywhere, and choosing the phone's default wallpaper or uninstalling the app deletes it.

Display over other apps (wake screen only)

The optional wake screen shows a design over your lock screen when you wake your phone. Android requires the Display over other apps permission for that. Tickface uses it only to draw the design; it reads nothing from other apps or from the screen. Without it, the wake screen is simply off.

Purchases

Paid designs are sold through Google Play Billing. Payment is handled entirely by Google: Tickface never sees your card, your address or your payment details. The app asks Google which designs you own and keeps that list on your phone so it works offline. Google may give us anonymous sales and earnings reports, which say nothing about individual buyers.

Your settings

Your chosen design, colour preset, backdrop, seconds and 12/24-hour setting are stored in the app's own storage on your phone. The settings themselves stay there; the anonymous usage statistics below report which of them are in use.

Anonymous usage statistics (Google Analytics for Firebase)

To learn which designs people use and where the app is confusing, Tickface sends usage statistics to Google Analytics for Firebase, a service run by Google.

What is sent:

• The screens you open, and the designs, colour presets and backdrops you choose.
• What you do with them: setting a wallpaper or a wake screen, turning the wake screen off and how you dismissed it, starting a purchase and whether it completed, and whether you allowed a permission.
• Your Seconds and 24-hour settings, how many paid designs you own, and which design is showing.
• Added by Firebase itself: a random identifier for this installation (not linked to you, your account or your phone's advertising ID), basic events such as app opens and sessions, your phone model and Android version, a country or city estimated from your internet connection, and Google Play purchase events with the product and its price.

What is never sent: your name, email or account; the song you are playing; your precise or weather location; your Advertising ID or Android ID; your photos, contacts or files.

The data is used only to understand and improve the app. It is not used for advertising, not shared with anyone else, and not combined with other data about you. It is sent encrypted, stored on Google's servers (which may be outside your country), and deleted automatically after 14 months.

Switching it off: Settings → Share Anonymous Usage. Off, the app sends no usage statistics and the random identifier is erased from your phone.

What Tickface does not do

• No accounts and no sign-in; the app never asks for your email.
• No advertising and no advertising identifiers.
• No tracking across other apps or websites, and no profiles of individual people.
• No access to your contacts, microphone, camera, files or photo library — only the single picture you choose for your home screen, if you choose one.
• Nothing is sold or shared with data brokers.

This website

tickface.app sets no cookies and runs no analytics or advertising. Its fonts and images are served from the site itself, not from third parties. The site is hosted on Cloudflare, which processes the technical data every web request carries — such as your IP address and browser — to deliver the pages and protect them from abuse, under its own privacy policy.

If you email us — to join the beta, for example — we use your address and anything you include only to reply and, for the beta, to add you as a tester on Google Play. We never add you to a mailing list or share your address. Ask and we delete your emails.

Crash reporting

The app contains no crash reporting beyond what Google Play provides to every developer. If that changes, this policy and the app's Data safety information on Google Play will be updated before that version is released.

Children

Tickface is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect personal information from children.

Keeping and deleting data

No account or personal profile is held on our side. Usage statistics are tied only to a random installation identifier and are deleted automatically after 14 months; switching off Share Anonymous Usage erases that identifier from your phone. Uninstalling the app removes your settings and the stored weather from your phone. Purchases stay attached to your Google account, so they return if you reinstall; for purchase records held by Google, use your Google account's own privacy tools.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct or delete personal data about you, and to object to its use. Because the app holds no account or profile on our side, most of this is in your hands already: switch off Share Anonymous Usage, withdraw a permission, or uninstall. For anything else, including emails you have sent us, write to hello@tickface.app and we will answer within 30 days.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the new version appears at this address with a new date at the top. Real changes — anything about what leaves your phone — will also be mentioned in the app's release notes.

Contact

Questions about privacy: hello@tickface.app