Overview
HoldOn is a Screen Time control app built on Apple's Family Controls, Screen Time, and DeviceActivity frameworks. This policy explains, plainly, what that means for your data — what never leaves your device, what we collect to run the product, and who we share the minimum necessary information with (like Apple, for payments).
We built HoldOn around a simple rule: gate the product all you want, never trap the person, and never collect more than the product needs to work. This policy follows that same rule.
Screen Time & Family Controls data
When you choose which apps or websites HoldOn should protect, Apple's FamilyControls framework represents each one as an opaque, encrypted token — by Apple's own design, HoldOn is never given the app's name, bundle identifier, or icon as readable data. We cannot see which specific apps you've protected, and we have no way to transmit that information even if we wanted to, because Apple never hands it to us in a readable form.
The same applies to the moment a shield appears: HoldOn's iOS extensions detect that you opened a protected app and show an interruption, but this happens entirely on your device, inside Apple's sandboxed Screen Time extensions. None of it is sent to us in real time or otherwise.
What stays on your device
The following is stored only in a local, app-specific container on your device — never on our servers, because we don't operate any:
- Your list of protected apps and websites (as opaque tokens, not names)
- Attempt counts, conscious decisions, and "continue anyway" counts, per day
- Your current and longest streaks
- Per-app pause duration and intervention-type preferences
- Reasons you select during an intervention (e.g. "bored," "habit," "avoiding work")
This data is used only to compute your own stats (Time Saved, streaks, Insights) and is never transmitted off your device as identifiable, app-linked history.
Product analytics
We use Mixpanel to understand product-level usage — for example, how many people complete onboarding, which intervention type gets used most, or whether a notification led someone back into the app. These events carry coarse counts and category labels (like "app" vs. "website," or an intervention type such as "breathing"), not the names of your specific protected apps, since — as above — we don't have access to those in the first place.
Analytics events are tied to an anonymous installation identifier generated by Mixpanel's SDK, not to your name, email, or Apple ID.
Subscriptions & payments
Payments are processed entirely by Apple through the App Store, and subscription management runs through RevenueCat, our subscription infrastructure provider. HoldOn never receives or stores your card number, billing address, or other payment details — Apple and RevenueCat handle that directly. We receive only whether your subscription is active, which is what unlocks Premium features in the app.
Notifications
Every notification HoldOn sends — the pause hand-off, weekly progress summaries, a first-week progress report, or an occasional check-in — is scheduled locally on your device using Apple's notification framework. We don't operate a push notification server, and no notification content is generated remotely.
Data sharing
We share data with exactly two categories of service providers, and nobody else:
- Apple — for authentication, Screen Time enforcement, and payment processing.
- RevenueCat & Mixpanel — for subscription management and anonymous product analytics, as described above.
We do not sell your data. We do not use it for advertising. We have no advertising business.
Data retention & deletion
Your on-device history stays until you delete it yourself — Settings includes a "Reset Progress" option that permanently deletes attempts, decisions, streaks, and history. Uninstalling the app removes everything HoldOn stored locally. To request deletion of analytics data tied to your installation, contact us at the email below.
Children's privacy
HoldOn is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will act promptly to remove it.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes in a way that affects what we collect or how we use it, we'll update the date at the top of this page and, where the change is material, notify you inside the app.
Contact
Questions about this policy or your data? Reach us at ronald.santana94@gmail.com.