Privacy Policy

Effective October 8, 2026

Family Hub is a family organizer made by Christopher M Nichols. This policy explains what the app stores, where it goes, and how to delete it. We don't sell your data, show ads, or track you across other apps and websites.

What stays on your phone

Everything you add (family members' names and profiles, events, meals, recipes, grocery lists, chores, contacts, notes and the records in family tools) is saved on your phone. If you never turn on Family sharing, it stays there. Private notes always stay on your phone and are never uploaded.

Family sharing

When you start or join a family group, the app signs in anonymously (no email, password or phone number) and saves your family's shared items in an online database run by our hosting provider, Supabase, so everyone in your group sees the same thing. This includes the names and profile details you type for family members (such as birthdays, phone numbers, sizes and allergies), profile pictures, events, meals, lists, chores and stars, family chat messages and reactions, shared contacts, family notes, records in family tools (such as health, budget, school and pet records), family photos, saved places and imported schedules. A valid invite code creates a request; a parent must approve it before that phone can read family data. Family notes shared with only some people are restricted by the server, and group chats can only be read by the people in them. Family gallery photos, videos and chat attachments are kept in private file storage at Supabase. Authorized family members receive temporary viewing links. Anyone given an active viewing link can open that file until the link expires; do not share those links outside your family. Gallery captions, dates, albums, tagged family members and uploader information are shared with your family.

Location

Weather: if you allow location, your approximate position is sent to Open-Meteo to get the forecast, and Apple's map service turns it into a city name. It is not stored by us.
Place labels (optional): saved places are shared with your family. If you enable only “Share where I am”, your phone shares labels such as “home” or “at school” without uploading its live coordinates.
Live Locator (optional): after you explicitly enable exact sharing, your phone uploads GPS coordinates, accuracy, timestamps, available GPS speed and battery/charging status to Supabase for your family map, place alerts, and location history. To save battery, the phone sends updates in small batches and notes when you have stayed in one place (shown to your family as “Here since…”). Approximate mode rounds coordinates on your phone before upload, excludes speed, and disables saved-place alerts. Sharing continues in the background with your permission. Location history and location activity are accessible to your family for up to 30 days and removed by automatic daily cleanup. Approximate mode does not erase previously shared exact history. Pause sharing to stop updates and remove your current map pin; if your phone is offline the server removal completes after reconnection. Erase your history in Locator at any time.
Check-ins and family SOS: these send a one-time current location to your family when available, even if continuous sharing is paused. If location is unavailable, the message still sends without it. Family SOS sends normal notifications to your family; it does not contact emergency services. Expected-arrival reminders use your latest shared location and identify missing updates as unconfirmed.
Travel summaries: estimated distance, travel time and top speed are calculated from shared GPS history. These are not proof that someone was driving. Family Hub does not detect crashes or read phone messages.
Temporary browser links: if you choose to create a link, anyone who has that link can view your latest shared exact position or approximate area, your profile name and the update timestamp until the link expires (1, 8 or 24 hours) or you revoke it. Route history, battery status and other family members are excluded. Pausing sharing hides your position from the link. Only a cryptographic hash of the access token is stored in the database.
Directions: the Navigate button opens the address in Apple Maps, Google Maps or Waze, which have their own privacy policies.

Calendars, photos and camera

If you link your iPhone calendars, the events you choose to import are copied into Family Hub (and shared with your family group if sharing is on). Events you export are added to a “Family Hub” calendar on your phone. Photos and camera images you use to scan flyers are read on your phone to find dates; those images are not uploaded. Photos you add to a family album or a profile picture are shared with your family group as described above.

Shared-in schedules and recipes

When you import a team or school schedule from a link, or a recipe from a website, the app downloads it directly from that address. The schedule's events are saved like your other events.

Recipe discovery

When you search for a dish, Family Hub sends the search words or the selected recipe ID through Supabase to fatsecret to retrieve results. Your family names, family ID, profiles and location are not sent to fatsecret. We retain anonymous request counters to limit API use, but do not save the search words or downloaded recipe content in your family data. Recipe images load from fatsecret's image service. See fatsecret's privacy policy for its handling of requests.

Notifications

If you allow notifications, your phone's push token is stored so family alerts (for example a new meal request) can be delivered through Expo's push service and Apple. Reminders for your own events are scheduled on your phone.

Subscriptions

Family Plus is sold through Apple. Payment is handled entirely by Apple; we never see your card. We use RevenueCat to check whether your family has an active subscription. RevenueCat receives an anonymous family ID, your purchase status and the family member name of the person who subscribed (so the app can show “Paid by Mom”).

Children

Family Hub is meant to be set up by a parent or guardian. Kids can use it on a family phone, but the app doesn't ask children for personal information, has no ads, and doesn't contact anyone outside your family group. Parents control which family members are added and can delete them at any time.

Deleting your data

In the app, go to Settings › Delete my data. You can erase everything on your phone, remove just yourself from your family group (which deletes your anonymous sign-in), or delete your whole family group and everything shared in it. Deleting the app also removes what's stored on your phone. A Family Plus subscription is billed by Apple and must be cancelled in iPhone Settings › your name › Subscriptions.

Changes

If this policy changes, we'll update the date above and, for important changes, let you know in the app.

Contact

Questions about privacy: [email protected]

Food Diary entries and saved nutrition history stay on your phone for the selected profile and are not shared with your family or food providers. Optional food searches send only search terms, food identifiers or filter choices through Supabase to USDA FoodData Central or fatsecret. Barcode lookup sends the barcode to fatsecret through Supabase or directly to Open Food Facts. Fatsecret food details are temporarily cached within provider limits; saved diary records retain food/serving identifiers, amounts and your own labels, with nutrition refreshed online. Camera scanning reads barcodes without uploading photos.

Optional product lookups send the barcode or search you enter to Open Food Facts, the US FDA, or the US National Library of Medicine. These lookups do not send your family profiles or saved prescriptions. Food barcode scanning uses camera permission; no scan photos or audio are saved.