Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how the ChallengeTime parent and child apps collect, use, and share information when a parent manages a family account, pairs a child device, reviews activity, and uses child-safety features.

Last updated: October 3, 2026

Parent Authorization

ChallengeTime is a parent-managed service. Before creating a child profile or pairing a child device, the adult must confirm that they are the child’s parent or legal guardian, or that they are otherwise authorized, and authorize the processing described in this policy. The parent controls whether optional AI checking is enabled for a challenge. Android permission prompts on the child device do not replace the parent’s authorization.

Information We Process

• Account details needed for sign-in, such as email address and authentication identifiers.
• Family account information, including parent and child display names, authentication identifiers, and optional child age.
• Child-device safety data, including launcher-visible app names and package identifiers, foreground-app activity, app-usage duration, screen-time settings, app rules, and protection status.
• Challenge and rewards data, including assigned challenges, submissions, review outcomes, credits, and redeemed screen time.
• Optional AI-generation inputs, including the parent’s instructions, subject, language, child age, and up to three parent-selected reference images.
• When a parent enables AI checking, challenge instructions, the approved rubric, and the child’s submitted questions, answers, explanations, and selected images needed to evaluate that challenge.
• Parent-app interaction events used to understand whether important product flows work. These events do not include names, account IDs, package names, challenge text, answers, images, or child coordinates.
• Subscription and entitlement information from Google Play, including purchase records needed to verify access, reconcile billing, prevent fraud, and stop renewal after account deletion.
• Technical service data needed to operate the app, such as Firebase Cloud Messaging tokens and App Check / integrity signals.

Protection Reliability Diagnostics

The child app automatically sends technical failure and service-status reports linked to the existing child profile, using authenticated Firebase services. Reports include device model and manufacturer, Android, app and WebView versions, accessibility connection transitions, recent technical events, Android process-exit reasons, and limited ChallengeTime code frame names where available. Reports are used to investigate protection failures. Exception messages, raw traces, messages, passwords, photos, challenge answers and other apps’ contents are not included. No advertising or hardware identifier is added for diagnostics.

Local history contains at most 32 recent events and four process exits from the last seven days. Server snapshots are replaced rather than accumulated; daily cleanup removes snapshots older than seven days, normally within one further day. Local expired data is removed when the app next runs. Removing the child profile or family also removes its server diagnostic snapshot.

How We Use Information

• To create and maintain a parent account and family relationship.
• To pair and manage child devices linked to the family.
• To display device status, challenge activity, and credits in the parent app.
• To generate parent-requested, age-appropriate educational challenges and, when separately enabled, evaluate submitted work.
• To send operational notifications, such as challenge submissions, time requests, and protection alerts.
• To verify subscriptions and measure coarse product reliability and completion events.
• To secure the service, prevent abuse, and verify that authorized app builds are calling backend services.

Information We Do Not Use

ChallengeTime does not serve advertising, use child data for behavioral advertising, or collect precise location. The child app’s Accessibility service has Android window-content access to identify visible apps and window positions, cover blocked windows, and request dismissal of blocked floating videos. It does not inspect typed text, messages, passwords, or other application content, and does not upload window geometry or accessibility nodes. Workout camera frames are analyzed on the device unless the user explicitly submits an image as challenge evidence.

How Information Is Shared

Information is shared within the family account so linked parents can manage linked child devices. The service also uses infrastructure providers such as Firebase Authentication, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Functions, Cloud Storage, and Firebase Cloud Messaging and Firebase Analytics to operate, secure, and measure the product. Google Play processes subscription purchases.

AI features use only a production-approved AI processing provider. Depending on the production configuration, that provider may be Google’s Gemini API or OpenAI’s API. Challenge generation sends the parent request, subject, language, child age, and any parent-selected reference images. Optional AI checking sends the minimum challenge instructions, approved grading criteria, and submitted work needed for grading. The provider does not receive Firebase credentials, authentication tokens, arbitrary account access, or unrelated family data. ChallengeTime does not use these inputs to train its own models or for advertising. ChatGPT account age detection and parental controls are product features and do not replace ChallengeTime’s safeguards for API processing.

OpenAI API requests are sent with response storage disabled. OpenAI states that API data is not used for training, but standard abuse-monitoring logs may be retained for up to 30 days unless Zero Data Retention is enabled for the API organization. ChallengeTime will not enable OpenAI processing of personal data from a child under 13, or the applicable age of digital consent, until the required Zero Data Retention control is verified.

Data Retention

Family profiles, settings, challenges, credits, and entitlement records are retained while the family account remains active and as needed to operate the service and meet legal obligations. App-usage statistics are scheduled for deletion after 90 days. Submitted media for a completed challenge is scheduled for deletion after 7 days; media awaiting retry or parent review may be retained for up to 30 days. Unreferenced submission media is scheduled for deletion after 7 days. AI generation audit records, including captured provider prompts and results, are scheduled for deletion after 90 days. Staged AI reference images are removed when the generation job reaches a terminal state, with orphan cleanup beginning after 24 hours. Unassigned ready AI drafts expire after 7 days. When an account is deleted, ChallengeTime deletes account and family data and requests that Google Play stop renewal of subscriptions purchased by that account. A minimal, access-restricted billing record, including the Play purchase token when still necessary, may be retained for billing reconciliation, cancellation retries, refunds, fraud prevention, and legal compliance. It is deleted as soon as it is no longer needed and no later than 90 days after the subscription expires or cancellation completes, whichever is later.

Security

KidShield uses access controls, authenticated backend services, and integrity protections intended to limit unauthorized access. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, but reasonable measures are used to protect service data.

Your Choices

• Parents can update settings, unlink devices, or stop using the service.
• Parents can leave AI checking off and can omit AI reference images.
• Parents can use the support contact listed on the Google Play listing for privacy-related requests.
• Parents can request account and associated-data deletion in the app or through the standalone web instructions.

Children and Changes to This Policy

Parents should not submit identifying child information to an AI feature unless it is necessary for the selected feature. ChallengeTime prompts parents and children not to include names, faces, school details, addresses, or similar identifying information in AI inputs. If the production AI provider or a material child-data practice changes, this policy will be updated before the changed processing is enabled.