Split Circle privacy policy

Split Circle is an app for sharing expenses with friends, family and groups, made by The Tech Express (Himanshu Verma) ("we", "us"). This policy explains what the app collects, why it collects it, who can see it, how long it is kept and how to delete it. It covers the Split Circle apps for Android and iPhone, and the Wear OS watch app.

The short version

• No ads, no selling. We don't show ads, and we don't sell your data or share it with advertisers or data brokers.
• No tracking. There are no analytics or advertising tools in the app, and it doesn't use your advertising ID.
• Receipt photos aren't kept. A receipt you scan is read by an AI model and then discarded. Neither the app nor our server keeps the photo.
• Only your circle sees your expenses. A group's expenses are visible only to that group's members.
• The assistant is optional. Your data goes to an AI service only when you ask the assistant a question. See what it sends.
• Delete any time. You can delete your account from inside the app, and your private data is erased. See how it works.

Information we collect

Your account

You sign in with your Google account or your Apple ID, on either app. From Google we receive your name, email address and profile picture; from Apple, your name and email address, which can be a private relay address if you choose "Hide My Email". Firebase Authentication gives your account a user ID. If you connect both ways of signing in, both lead to the same account. We never see your Google or Apple password.

What you add

• Groups: name, emoji, members, and for trips the dates, budget and home currency.
• Expenses: title, amount, currency, category, place, date, who paid, who shared it, and how it was split.
• Payments between people to settle up.
• Your settings: category budgets and the friends you've chosen to hide.

Invites

When you invite someone, we create an invite code that holds the group's name and emoji, your name, and when it expires. If you invite someone by email, their email address is stored on that invite, so it's waiting for them when they sign in.

So that friends can add you directly in the app, we also store a one-way fingerprint (SHA-256 hash) of your email address linked to your user ID. The address itself isn't stored there. Nobody can browse the list; it only answers "is this exact address on Split Circle?"

Notifications

We store a Firebase Cloud Messaging token for your phone, linked to your account, so we can tell you when someone in your group adds or changes an expense. It's removed when you sign out or delete your account.

Assistant usage

For each day, we record how many questions you asked the assistant and roughly what they cost to answer. That's how the daily limit works. The text of your questions and answers is not stored.

Diagnostic logs

The app keeps a short record of what it did, such as which screen opened, whether a sync or upload worked, the type of any error, and how long things took. It sends these records with the app version, device make and model, Android or iOS version, a random ID for that app session, and your user ID, so we can trace a problem you report. They're deleted automatically after 30 days.

These logs never include names, email addresses, amounts, expense titles or anything you type. As an extra safeguard, anything that looks like an email address or a long number is masked on your phone before it's sent.

Play Store install referrer

If you install Split Circle from an invite link, the app reads the Google Play install referrer once, only to find the invite code, so that invite opens after you install.

What stays on your phone

• A copy of your data for offline use, in the app's private storage. It isn't included in Android device backups, and on iPhone it's kept in the app's own storage.
• PDF reports you export are made on your phone and go only where you choose to share them.
• Daily reminders are scheduled on your phone.
• Your watch. The phone sends your balances and recent activity to your paired watch over the Wear OS connection, not through our servers.

How we use your information

• To run the app: signing you in, syncing across your devices, sharing expenses with your groups and working out balances.
• To notify you about activity in your groups and send your daily reminder.
• To answer your questions to the assistant, when you ask one.
• To read a receipt you scan, when you scan one.
• To find and fix problems, keep the service secure, and enforce fair-use limits.

We don't use your information for advertising, we don't sell it, and we don't build profiles of you.

Who can see your information

People you share with

• Group members see your name and picture, and every expense and payment in that group.
• A one-on-one expense is seen by you and the other person only.
• Anyone holding an invite code can see the group's name and emoji and the name of the person who sent it.
• Notification messages, such as "Asha added Dinner, ₹600", are shown to the other members of that group.

Service providers

These companies process data for us, only to provide their service:

When the law requires it

We may disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect the rights and safety of our users or others. If Split Circle ever changes ownership, your information stays protected by this policy.

The Split Circle Assistant

The assistant answers questions about your own balances, such as "Who owes me the most?". You don't have to use it. When you ask a question, our server sends the following to OpenRouter:

• Your question, and up to the last 12 messages of the current chat.
• A summary of your account: your totals; the names of your friends and what you owe each other; your groups, with their members and balances; and recent activity, with expense titles, amounts and who paid.

OpenRouter passes this to the company hosting the AI model, currently Meta's Llama 3.1 8B, which writes the answer. Both handle the request under their own privacy terms. We don't store your questions or the answers on our servers. We keep only the daily count described above.

The summary includes your friends' names as they appear in your groups. Please don't type sensitive details, such as bank or card numbers, into the chat.

Reading receipts

When you scan a receipt, the app shrinks the photo and sends it to our server, which passes it to OpenRouter. OpenRouter passes it to the company hosting the AI model, currently Google's Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite, which reads the shop name, the items and prices, the tax and the total. Both handle the request under their own privacy terms.

• Only the photo is sent: nothing about your account, your groups or other people.
• We don't store the photo or what was read from it on our servers, and the app deletes its copy as soon as it's read. Only the items and amounts you choose to save become an expense.
• We keep a daily count of scans, to limit each account to 20 a day.

A receipt can show a card's last digits or a phone number. If you'd rather that wasn't sent, add the items yourself instead of scanning.

Where it's stored and how it's protected

• Location: your groups, expenses and account records are stored in Google Cloud Firestore in Mumbai, India. Sign-in, notifications and diagnostic logs use Google's global services, so that data may also be processed outside India.
• Encryption: data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS) and at rest.
• Access rules: the database rules on our server allow each record to be read only by the people it belongs to. The list of users can't be browsed, and usage counters can only be changed by our server.
• Keys: the key for the AI service, used by the assistant and for reading receipts, is kept on our server and is never built into the app.

No system is perfectly secure. If you find a security problem, please tell us at thetechexpressyt@gmail.com.

How long we keep it

Deleting your account

In the app, go to Account → Delete account. This:

• Erases your sign-in, profile, private records and settings, daily assistant and receipt-scan counts, notification tokens, email fingerprint, and the invites you created. If you sign in with Apple and delete your account from an iPhone, Split Circle also tells Apple to revoke its access to your Apple ID; from Android, you can remove it at appleid.apple.com → Sign in with Apple.
• Replaces your name and picture with "Deleted user" in the groups you were part of. The expenses and payments you shared with other people remain, because their balances depend on them.

You can also delete single expenses, leave a group, or delete a group you created. If you can't get into the app, ask us to delete your account and we'll do it within 30 days.

No access to the app? Request deletion on the Split Circle account deletion page.

Your choices and rights

• Notifications: turn them off at any time in your phone's settings.
• Assistant: optional. Nothing is sent to the AI service unless you ask a question.
• Receipt scanning: optional. A photo is sent only when you scan a receipt; you can always add the items yourself instead.
• See and correct: everything you've added is visible in the app, and you can edit or delete it there.
• Your legal rights: under applicable law, including India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you can ask to access, correct or erase your personal data, or raise a complaint. Email thetechexpressyt@gmail.com and we'll reply within 30 days.

App permissions

• Internet: to sign in and sync.
• Notifications: for group activity and your daily reminder.
• Play install referrer: to open an invite link after you install.

Split Circle doesn't ask for your camera, contacts, location, files or phone. When you scan a receipt, a system screen (Google's document scanner, the photo picker, or your camera app) gives Split Circle only the one picture you choose.

Children

Split Circle isn't meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we'll delete it.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, we'll update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. For significant changes, we'll also mention it in the app's release notes on Google Play and the App Store.

Contact us

For privacy questions, data requests or complaints, email thetechexpressyt@gmail.com.