Privacy Policy
Homeplay is an iPhone app for students. You add what you're studying, like photos, scans or documents, and Homeplay turns it into a course you work through, chapter by chapter, and friends see who studies the most each week.
This policy explains what Homeplay does with your data: what it keeps, where, who it's shared with, and what you can do about it. In short:
- Your courses stay on your iPhone.
- Your profile and friends are kept by Google Firebase in Europe, your sign-in in the United States.
- To make your courses, what you add is sent to Google's Gemini, only once you've said yes in the app.
- Covers are painted, and the mascot talks with you, with OpenAI.
- Homeplay Plus is bought from Apple, and RevenueCat keeps track of who has it.
- If you allow notifications, Homeplay tells you when someone wants to be your friend, accepts your request or passes you on this week's board, and reminds you before your streak ends and before a test you've set.
- No ads, no tracking, no analytics, and your data is never sold.
- You can delete your account, and everything with it, in the app.
Who's responsible
Homeplay is made by Sharmarke Mohamed Hilowle, in Switzerland, who's responsible for your data in Homeplay. For anything about your privacy, write to privacy@homeplay.app.
What stays on your iPhone
Your courses stay on your iPhone: the photos, scans and files you add, the chapters, readings, quizzes and covers made from them, your progress, stars and streak, and your settings. Homeplay doesn't keep copies of them on its servers. If you back up your iPhone, they're part of its backups.
Your account and profile
You sign in with Apple. Apple shares your name and an email address with Homeplay; if you choose to hide your email, Apple shares a relay address instead. Your sign-in is kept by Firebase Authentication, a Google service, in the United States. Homeplay uses your name for your profile. It doesn't use your email, and never shows it to anyone.
Your profile is your name, your username, the color you pick, and when you joined. It's kept by Google Firebase, in data centers in Europe. Homeplay doesn't collect a profile photo: your picture in Homeplay is your color with your first letter on it. Earlier versions of Homeplay let you add a profile photo; if you added one, Homeplay deletes it from its servers and your iPhone the next time you open the app, and a copy kept for recovery is gone within 7 days.
Friends
Homeplay is better with friends, so others see some of your profile:
- Someone who searches for your exact username only sees that someone has it. Nothing else shows until you're friends.
- When you ask someone to be friends, they see your name, username and color with your request.
- Your friends see your name, username, color, and the stars you earned this week, on the leaderboard and in their list of friends.
Your friendships, friend requests and weekly card are kept by Google Firebase in Europe, with your profile.
Blocking and reporting
You can block or report anyone who can see you. A block keeps the blocked person's name, username and color as they were, so you can find them again to unblock them; they're never told. A report sends Homeplay the reported person's name, username and color as you saw them, so we can check them; they're never told who reported them. We look at every report and, if needed, remove what was reported or the account it came from.
Notifications
If you allow notifications, Homeplay registers your iPhone with Firebase Cloud Messaging, a Google service, and keeps the ID it gets, which says nothing about you, with your account in Europe. When someone asks to be your friend, accepts your request, or passes you on this week's board, Homeplay's server functions send their name, and for the board both your stars this week, to that ID, and Apple's push service brings it to your iPhone. The ID is taken back when you sign out, turn notifications off, or delete your account. So that it tells you at most once a day that a friend passed you, Homeplay keeps when it last did, until you delete your account. The reminder before a free week of Plus ends, the evening reminder before your streak ends, and the reminders before a test are set on your iPhone and don't go through any server.
The AI that makes your courses: Google Gemini
To make a course, Homeplay sends the photos, scans and files you add to Google's Gemini API, which reads them, writes your course's plan, readings and quizzes, and picks videos that fit. This only happens once you've said yes in the app ("Can Gemini read your pages?"). To take your yes back, delete your account in Homeplay's settings, or delete the app: both erase it from your iPhone. Without it, Homeplay can't make courses from your pages.
Google processes what's sent to answer Homeplay, under the Gemini API Terms and Google's Privacy Policy.
Videos: YouTube
Homeplay uses YouTube API Services to find videos for your chapters, searching for each chapter's topic. Videos play in YouTube's own player inside the app, and YouTube may collect data while you watch, as it does with any YouTube video. By watching videos in Homeplay, you agree to YouTube's Terms of Service. Google's Privacy Policy explains what YouTube does with data. Homeplay doesn't connect to your YouTube or Google account.
Covers and talking with the mascot: OpenAI
Homeplay paints each course's cover with OpenAI: the course's name and a short summary of it are sent to OpenAI's image model.
When you talk with a course's mascot, what the chapter is about, including what you added for it, is sent to OpenAI's voice model as the conversation starts, and your voice goes from your iPhone to OpenAI while you talk, so the mascot can answer. Homeplay doesn't record or keep your conversations.
Covers are painted, and conversations started, by Homeplay's server functions, which Google Cloud runs in the United States. OpenAI processes what's sent under its API terms; see OpenAI's Privacy Policy.
Homeplay Plus: Apple and RevenueCat
Homeplay Plus is a subscription you buy from Apple, in the App Store. Apple handles the payment: Homeplay never sees your card or your Apple Account's details.
RevenueCat, a company in the United States, keeps track of who has Plus for Homeplay. It knows you by your Homeplay account's ID, never by your name or email, and keeps what you bought in the App Store: which plan, when it started, and when it renews, ends or was refunded. Homeplay's server functions ask RevenueCat whether you have Plus. RevenueCat processes this under its own Privacy Policy.
What Homeplay counts
So that Homeplay's costs stay fair for everyone, its server functions count what you use: how many courses you start, how many cover pictures are painted for you, and how many seconds you talk with the mascot, for the day, the week and the month. The counts are kept with your account by Google Firebase in Europe, and start over as each day, week and month does, except the free minutes to try talking with the mascot, which count once.
Keeping Homeplay safe
Homeplay uses Firebase App Check with Apple's App Attest, which checks that requests come from the real Homeplay app, so others can't misuse Homeplay's services. Everything Homeplay sends travels encrypted.
What Homeplay doesn't do
No ads. No tracking across apps or websites. No analytics. Your data is never sold, and it's only shared with the services named here, so that Homeplay works.
Where your data goes
Your profile and friends are kept in Europe. Your sign-in is kept in the United States, where OpenAI, RevenueCat and Homeplay's server functions are too, Google's Gemini may process what's sent to it outside Europe, and Firebase Cloud Messaging and Apple's push service may deliver notifications from outside Europe, so this data leaves Switzerland and Europe. They protect it with the safeguards the law requires, such as standard contractual clauses.
How long it's kept
- Your account, profile, friends, blocks and reports are kept until you delete your account.
- A friend request is kept until it's answered.
- Your iPhone's notification ID is kept while you're signed in on it with notifications allowed.
- Your weekly card only ever shows the stars you earned this week.
- What Homeplay counts of your use is kept until you delete your account, each count starting over with its day, week or month.
- RevenueCat keeps your purchases until you delete your account. Apple keeps its own record of what you bought, under Apple's Privacy Policy.
- Technical logs, like when Homeplay's server functions ran, are kept by Google Cloud for up to 30 days, to find and fix errors.
Deleting your account
In Homeplay's settings, Delete account deletes your account for good: your sign-in, profile, username, color, friendships, friend requests, the blocks you made, the reports you sent or that were about you, your iPhones' notification IDs, what Homeplay counted of your use, and what RevenueCat keeps of your purchases. It also revokes Homeplay's Sign in with Apple, and erases Homeplay on your iPhone, with your courses, stars and streak. A profile photo from an earlier version of Homeplay, if one is still there, goes too, and a copy of it kept for recovery is gone within 7 days. It can't be undone.
Deleting your account doesn't cancel Homeplay Plus, which Apple bills: cancel it first, in Homeplay's settings under Subscription, or in your Apple Account's subscriptions, or Apple keeps charging you.
Your rights
You have the right to know what data Homeplay has about you, to get a copy of it, to have it corrected, and to have it deleted. You can change your name, username and color in the app, and delete everything in its settings. For anything else, write to privacy@homeplay.app, and we answer within 30 days. If you think your data isn't handled as it should be, you can also complain to the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), or to the data protection authority where you live.
Children
Homeplay is for students 13 and older. It isn't meant for children under 13, and if we learn that a child under 13 has made an account, we delete it. If the law where you live asks for a parent's or guardian's permission to use apps like Homeplay at your age, ask them first.
Changes
If Homeplay changes what it does with your data, this page changes too, with a new date at the top. If it's a big change, Homeplay tells you in the app.