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Cairn Privacy Policy

Last updated: May 2026

Cairn is built around a single belief: your private writing should stay yours.

What Cairn collects

Nothing. Cairn does not collect, store, transmit, or share any personal information, journal entries, usage analytics, crash reports, device identifiers, or behavioural data.

What stays on your iPhone

Everything you write in Cairn is stored only in the app's database on your iPhone:

  • Your journal entries
  • Mood, tags, summaries, and headlines extracted by Apple's on-device Foundation Models framework
  • Your streak history
  • Your settings and preferences

The AI that reads your entries to extract patterns runs entirely on your iPhone, using Apple's built-in language model. Your words are never sent to Apple, to us, or to any third-party server for analysis.

iCloud sync (optional, Premium only)

If you choose to enable iCloud sync (a Premium feature, opt-in only), your encrypted journal database is mirrored to your private iCloud account. This data is:

  • Encrypted with your Apple ID and only accessible to you on your Apple devices
  • Not visible to us — we have no access to your iCloud data
  • Not visible to Apple — Apple's CloudKit uses end-to-end encryption for private databases when Advanced Data Protection is enabled
  • Stored only across your own devices signed into the same Apple ID

You can turn off iCloud sync at any time from Settings within Cairn.

Third parties

Cairn does not embed any third-party analytics, advertising, attribution, or tracking SDKs. There is no Firebase, Mixpanel, Adjust, AppsFlyer, Sentry, Crashlytics, Meta SDK, TikTok SDK, or similar in the build.

The only third party Cairn uses is RevenueCat, exclusively to validate App Store receipts so we know whether you've purchased Premium. RevenueCat receives an anonymous Apple receipt only — never your journal contents, name, email, or device identifiers. RevenueCat's privacy policy: https://www.revenuecat.com/privacy

In-App Purchases

Cairn offers optional Premium subscriptions and a lifetime purchase. These are processed entirely by Apple via the App Store. We never see your payment information. Apple's privacy policy covers App Store purchases: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/

Children's privacy

Cairn is rated 4+ but is not designed specifically for children. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone of any age, because we do not collect data at all.

Your rights under GDPR / CCPA / Irish Data Protection Act

Because Cairn does not collect personal data, there is nothing for us to disclose, delete, or correct. If you want to permanently remove all your journal entries, use Settings → Delete all entries inside the app. This is irreversible and removes the data from your iPhone immediately.

If you have enabled iCloud sync, deleting entries inside the app also removes them from iCloud across your devices.

Changes to this policy

If we ever change this policy — for example, if we add a feature that does collect data — we will:

  1. Update the date at the top of this page
  2. Surface the change in the app via an update notice
  3. Require your explicit opt-in for any data collection

We will not silently begin collecting data.

Contact

Privacy questions: Gareth@onliware.ie