Buddy
Buddy Privacy Policy
Last updated: 12 November 2026 · App: Buddy (com.raghav.buddy_app) for Android ·
Developer: Raghav Patpatia · Contact: admin@platinumhillsgaming.com
Buddy is a companion app for Android. You can chat with it, and it helps with money, health and medicines, music, books and films, maps and travel, screen time, phone cleaning and games with friends (Buddy Arena). This policy explains what data Buddy uses, where that data goes, and the choices you have.
The short version. Most of what Buddy does happens on your phone. Buddy reads your SMS, contacts and files only on the phone and never uploads them. Data leaves your phone only for the features listed below, and only the part that each feature needs. Buddy does not sell your data. Signing in, cloud backup, cloud AI and Buddy Arena are all optional.
1. Your account, cloud backup and Buddy Arena (Firebase)
Buddy uses Google Firebase (Authentication, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Functions and Cloud Messaging), run by Google, to provide these optional features. The data is stored in Buddy's Firebase project.
Sign-in (optional)
You can sign in with your Google account. Firebase Authentication receives your name, email address and Google account ID, and gives you a Buddy user ID.
Cloud backup (optional, only when signed in)
- Buddy backs up its settings and data automatically, shortly after something changes. It is stored under your user ID, and the database rules allow only your signed-in account to read or write it. Only the latest copy is kept.
- Encrypted with your passphrase: your money data (transactions, balances, deposits, holdings and budgets), health data (meals, workouts, weight, step history, medicines and the doses you took), your profile and birth details, your chat with Buddy and its notes, SOS contacts and note, saved and nearby places, your job profile, your email address, reading progress and highlights, and saved passwords and keys (your email app password and any API keys you added). These are encrypted on your phone (PBKDF2-SHA256 and AES-256-GCM) with a passphrase that only you know, before they are uploaded. Without the passphrase nobody can read them, including the developer. If you have not set a passphrase, they are not uploaded at all.
- Not encrypted with your passphrase: other settings, such as your theme, avatar look, to-do list, levels, XP and trophies, music favourites and saved stations, saved sites in Browse, and app preferences. They are protected by the access rules and Google's encryption at rest, so only your account can read them through the app.
- Downloaded files (AI models, offline maps, saved books and songs) are not backed up.
Buddy Arena (optional, only when signed in)
- Hunter card: your hunter name, avatar gender, weapon, level, lifetime XP, best wave and boss wins. Other signed-in players can see it on leaderboards and in search.
- Friends and chat: friend requests, your friends list, chat messages and read markers. Only you and the friend involved can read them. When you send a message, Cloud Functions passes the sender's name and up to 300 characters of the text to Firebase Cloud Messaging, which delivers a notification to your friend.
- Voice calls and parties: calls and Boss Arena parties go directly between phones (peer to peer, encrypted by WebRTC). To connect, the phones swap network addresses through Firestore and Google's public STUN servers. Call audio is not recorded or stored.
- Online games (such as chess, tic-tac-toe, carrom and Quoridor): a game room with its code, the players and their moves. Only the players in a room can read it. Public rooms can be found through Quick match.
- Blocks and limits: who you blocked, and a timestamp that limits how often requests can be sent.
- Push token: a token for your phone, so calls and messages can reach you when Buddy is closed.
Family memories
From a certain level, a Buddy character can become your family member and remember the times you spent together. These memories are short notes, up to 280 characters each, based on your chats with that character. They are stored only on Buddy's server. The database rules stop any app or account from reading or changing them directly; only Buddy's server code can add them or send them back to your app. They are not encrypted with your passphrase. They are removed when you delete your account.
Money PIN
If you set a PIN to hide your money screens, a salted and peppered hash of the PIN is stored on Buddy's server in encrypted form. The PIN itself is never stored. If you forget it, a 6-digit code is emailed to your Google account's address through the Brevo email service. The code expires after 10 minutes.
App Check
Buddy uses Firebase App Check with Google Play Integrity to check that requests come from the real Buddy app. Google receives information about the app and the device's integrity for this check.
2. Analytics, crash reports and performance
- Firebase Analytics records how Buddy is used: which screens and features are opened, how long the app and AI replies take, the length of a message in characters, the phone's memory size, settings such as which AI model is on and whether the wake word is on, and the name of a radio station you play. It never records what you say, type, read or browse. Google Analytics also collects standard data such as an app-instance ID, the device model, the Android version and your approximate location from your IP address.
- Firebase Crashlytics receives crash reports: the error and stack trace, device model, Android version, app version and memory use. Buddy also reports when Android closed the app itself (for example, when the phone ran out of memory).
- Firebase Performance Monitoring measures timings such as how long the app takes to start.
This data is not linked to your name or email, and it is used only to fix bugs and improve Buddy. Google keeps it under Firebase's retention limits (Crashlytics reports for about 90 days, Analytics data for up to 14 months).
3. Ads (Google AdMob)
Buddy Arena can offer a rewarded video ad, for example to revive after you fall in a run. Watching one is your choice. Google AdMob serves these ads and may use your device's advertising ID, IP address and basic device information to show ads, measure them and prevent fraud. You can reset your advertising ID or turn off personalised ads in your phone's settings (Settings → Google → Ads, or Settings → Privacy → Ads). See how Google uses information from apps that use its ad services. Buddy never gives AdMob your money, health, SMS, contacts, files or chat data.
4. Permissions and data on your phone
You can turn any permission off in Android Settings at any time. Only the related feature stops working.
| Permission | What Buddy does with it |
|---|---|
| Microphone |
Talking to Buddy: your speech is turned into text by your phone's speech-recognition service
(usually Google's). When you are online, that service may process the audio on its own servers, under its own
privacy policy. When you are offline, recognition runs on the phone. Wake word ("Hey Buddy"), if you turn it on: a foreground service listens with a speech model that runs entirely on the phone, and a notification shows while it listens. Audio is not uploaded. If you teach the wake word your voice, the short recordings are kept on the phone only. Song recorder (Practice): records your singing on the phone and saves an MP3 and a notes file in your Download/Buddy folder. If you download the optional lyrics model (OpenAI Whisper), lyrics are found on the phone. The audio is never uploaded. Buddy Arena voice calls: used only while you are in a call (see section 1). |
| Camera | Buddy does not use the camera and does not ask for camera permission. |
| SMS (read) | Bank, card and UPI messages are read on the phone to record your spending, income and balances in Spend. Other messages are ignored. Messages are never uploaded. The transactions found are saved on the phone and are part of the encrypted backup. |
| SMS (send) | Used only when you trigger SOS: Buddy texts your chosen emergency contacts a help message with your location and your SOS note. Without this permission, your SMS app opens with the message ready to send. |
| Contacts | Shows a person's name instead of a number next to a payment, and lets you pick SOS contacts. Your contacts list is never uploaded. Only the SOS contacts you choose are saved, and they are part of the encrypted backup. |
| Location | Maps and navigation, weather, nearby food and medical help, nearby jobs, SOS and the station alarm. The station alarm follows your GPS position in the background (with a notification) only while it is set. See section 5 for what is sent. |
| Accessibility service ("Buddy scroll tracker") | Counts how many Reels, Shorts and other short videos you swipe through, so Buddy can show your daily scroll stats, nudge you and stop you at your limit. It only watches Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Moj, Josh and ShareChat. To tell one YouTube Short from the next, it briefly checks the channel name and title on screen; these are kept in memory only and never saved or sent. Only the counts are stored, on the phone. It does not perform actions for you. |
| Usage access | Screen time per app, and the cleaner's list of apps you have not used for a long time. It stays on the phone. |
| All files access | The Cleaner finds thumbnail caches, old installers, duplicates, viewed WhatsApp statuses, old screenshots, old downloads and large videos, and shows them to you. Nothing is deleted unless you choose it. The Library uses it to list and open the documents, books and videos on your phone. File names and contents are never uploaded. |
| Music and audio | Lists the songs on your phone in Music. They stay on the phone. |
| Physical activity | Counts your steps for Health. |
| Notifications, full-screen alerts, alarms | Reminders (water, medicines, morning brief, daily growth), alarms and timers, chat messages, incoming Arena calls (shown full screen, like a phone call), music controls and download progress. Exact alarms make alarms and medicine reminders ring on time. |
| Run in background, display over other apps | Keeps Buddy's companion service running for reminders and the scroll tracker (a permanent notification shows while it runs), and lets Buddy come to the front when you say the wake word or reach your reels limit. |
Medicines and health data
Your medicines, the doses you mark as taken, meals, workouts, weight and steps are stored on the phone. Medicine reminders are scheduled on the phone. This data is never sent to analytics or to any AI. It leaves the phone only inside the cloud backup, encrypted with your passphrase (section 1).
5. Data that goes to other services
These features contact outside services directly from your phone. Each one gets only what the feature needs, and its own privacy policy applies.
| Feature | What is sent | Sent to |
|---|---|---|
| Maps, navigation, places | The map area you view, places you search for, a route's start and end points, and your position when you ask for things near you | OpenStreetMap services (map tiles, Nominatim, Overpass, Photon by Komoot, Valhalla). Offline map packs are downloaded from GitHub. |
| Weather | Your coordinates | Open-Meteo |
| Movies | Your searches and the films you stream or save | Internet Archive (archive.org). Only films marked public domain or Creative Commons are saved, to your Movies/Buddy folder. |
| Movies: free films and trailers on YouTube | These play in YouTube's embedded player. YouTube may collect data and set cookies when a video plays. | YouTube. The YouTube Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy apply. |
| Movies: search, posters and trailers (optional) | Your searches, sent with your own TMDB key | The Movie Database (TMDB). Buddy ships with no key. Yours is kept in the phone's secure storage. |
| Browse | The sites you open load directly from those sites, in Buddy's web view or a Chrome tab. Their cookies and site data are kept on your phone, and you can clear a site's data in Buddy. Buddy does not record the addresses you visit; analytics only notes that Browse was opened. | The sites you choose |
| Flights | Flight numbers (sent with your own RapidAPI key), and an aircraft's callsign or transponder code for its live position | AeroDataBox on RapidAPI; OpenSky Network and adsb.lol |
| Trains | Train numbers, stations and PNR numbers, sent with your own RapidAPI key | IRCTC API on RapidAPI |
| Music, radio and lyrics | Searches and the titles of songs you play or download | Internet Archive, Audius, Radio Browser and the stations' streams, iTunes Search, LRCLIB |
| Books and learning | Book searches and the books you download | Project Gutenberg, Open Library, Google Books, OpenStax, LibriVox |
| News, web answers, dictionary | Search words and the words you look up | Google News, Hacker News, Wikipedia, DuckDuckGo, Free Dictionary API |
| Jobs | Search words and your city | Job boards (for example Greenhouse, SmartRecruiters, Ashby, Remotive, RemoteOK, Jobicy and Himalayas) |
| Market prices | The fund and stock symbols you track, not your amounts | Yahoo Finance |
| Mail (optional) | Your email login, to fetch and send your mail. The app password is stored encrypted on your phone. | Your own email provider only |
| Email read tracking (optional) | If you set it up, an invisible image is added to emails you send, and opens are logged | A tracking server that you run yourself. Buddy offers it only after you confirm that server. |
| Model downloads | A normal download request | Hugging Face, GitHub, Google ML Kit (the handwriting model) |
6. Buddy's AI
- On-device AI. Buddy can download an AI model (such as Gemma or Qwen) and run it on your phone. Whatever you send it stays on the phone. Buddy's voice (Kitten TTS) and handwriting recognition also run on the phone.
- Cloud AI with your own key (optional). If you add your own API key for Google Gemini, OpenRouter or Amazon Bedrock (Anthropic Claude or Amazon Nova), the text for that request goes to that provider: your message, the recent conversation, facts Buddy remembers about you, and passages from documents you added to Buddy's library when they answer your question. Some features also use it: to-do sorting (the task text), food estimates (the food name), spending categories (merchant names only, never amounts, dates, balances or accounts), email drafts (the email you are replying to), job tips (your job profile), and the investing coach and stock analysis (the funds and stocks you hold and your risk preference). Your spending figures, SMS, health data and medicines are never sent to a cloud AI. The provider's privacy policy applies. Without a key, nothing is sent and the on-device model is used.
7. The 3D avatar
Buddy's 3D characters are drawn on your phone from models built into the app. Your choices (character, face, hair, outfit and colours) are saved on the phone and in your backup. One character's face is modelled on a real person, with that person's consent. No camera is used, and no photo of you is taken or uploaded.
8. Children
Buddy is for adults aged 18 and over. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has used Buddy, email us and we will delete their cloud data.
9. Sharing and selling
Buddy does not sell your personal data and does not share it, except with the services named in this policy, which process it only to provide their feature. Data may also be disclosed if the law requires it.
10. Security
Data sent over the internet uses encrypted connections (HTTPS/TLS). Firestore rules limit who can read each piece of cloud data. Money, health and other personal data, and saved passwords and keys, are encrypted with your passphrase before upload. On the phone, passwords and keys are kept in Android's secure storage. Android's own cloud backup and phone-to-phone transfer are turned off for Buddy's data.
11. How long data is kept
- On your phone: until you delete it in the app, clear Buddy's storage or uninstall Buddy. Songs you record and films you save stay in your Download/Buddy and Movies/Buddy folders until you delete them.
- Cloud backup, Arena data, family memories and money PIN: until you delete them or delete your account. Each new backup replaces the previous one.
- Analytics and crash reports: see section 2.
- Other services: under their own policies.
12. Your choices and rights
- Use Buddy without signing in. Nothing is then stored in Buddy's cloud.
- Turn off any permission, or any part of Buddy, in Settings → My components.
- See, correct or delete your data in the app. You can also restore your backup or sign out at any time.
- Delete your account and all of its cloud data in the app, or by email. See how to delete your account.
- Ask us for a copy of your cloud data, or ask any question about your data, at admin@platinumhillsgaming.com. We reply within 30 days.
13. Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new "Last updated" date. Important changes will also be shown in the app.
14. Contact
Raghav Patpatia · admin@platinumhillsgaming.com