Privacy Policy

1. Overview & Privacy Philosophy

Personal Budget is developed and provided by Sam Sifiso Mndebele (trading and operating as AvidCo, "we", "us", or "our"). We firmly believe that your personal financial records and transaction habits are your private property. We built Personal Budget with a strict Zero-Knowledge, Local-First architecture.

We do not operate backend user tracking databases, we do not require you to create an online account or register an email address, and we do not harvest, monetize, or sell your personal or financial data.

2. Sensitive Permissions: SMS Access Policy (RECEIVE_SMS)

A. Purpose of SMS Access

When you make an in-store card purchase, ATM withdrawal, or online transaction, your financial institution sends an SMS alert. Personal Budget listens for these incoming SMS broadcasts to extract the transaction amount, currency, and merchant name. This eliminates tedious manual data entry and helps you track expenses effortlessly.

B. Scope & Processing Guarantee

• No Background Cloud Upload: Your SMS text and metadata are never sent across the internet.
• Ephemeral Processing: Incoming SMS content is evaluated in volatile memory solely to identify monetary transaction patterns. Non-financial text messages (personal chats, OTPs, verification codes) are immediately discarded without any storage.
• Explicit User Approval: Detected expenses are presented to you via a local notification with action buttons ("Save to Budget", "Edit", "Discard"). No expense is permanently recorded to your budget without your confirmation or explicit setting.
• Strictly Optional: Granting SMS permissions is 100% optional. If you decline the permission, the rest of Personal Budget remains fully functional with manual entry.

3. Notification Permission (POST_NOTIFICATIONS)

On devices running Android 13 (API level 33) and above, Personal Budget requests the android.permission.POST_NOTIFICATIONS permission. This is used exclusively for:

• Displaying immediate, actionable expense prompts when a bank transaction SMS is detected.
• Optional recurring reminders to help you review monthly rollover summaries.

Notifications are generated strictly by the local operating system on your phone; no remote push notification server (e.g. Firebase Cloud Messaging) is used to track your device activity.

4. On-Device Local Data Storage & Zero-Knowledge Cloud Sync

All budget accounts, income streams, custom categories, expense transactions, and cumulative savings goals created within the app are stored primarily in a local SQLite database (powered by Android Room) inside your device's private internal storage sandbox.

A. Zero-Knowledge Encrypted Cloud Sync (Google Firebase)

To prevent catastrophic data loss when upgrading phones, reinstalling the app, or recovering from device hardware damage, Personal Budget includes an automated encrypted cloud backup service.

In Google Firebase, your data is stored strictly as meaningless ciphertext. Even in the event of an external database leak or subpoena, unauthorized parties can only see encrypted binary data without any decipherable names, accounts, or amounts.

B. Enabled by Default for Data Protection

Because accidental data loss when changing devices or clearing cache is a primary frustration for budget tracking, Encrypted Cloud Sync is enabled by default. This ensures your financial records are continuously protected without requiring complicated manual setup.

C. User Freedom & Immediate Settings Opt-Out

You retain complete autonomy and freedom over your data synchronization preferences. You can disable cloud synchronization at any time:

• Open the app and navigate to Settings → Encrypted Cloud Sync.
• Toggle the switch to Disabled.

Once disabled, cloud synchronization ceases immediately, and Personal Budget operates in 100% offline, local-only mode. You can also purge all cloud records at any time using the in-app data reset tools.

5. Third-Party Services & Advertising

Personal Budget integrates select third-party SDKs to support app distribution, monetization for free tier users, and in-app billing:

A. Google Mobile Ads (AdMob) & Huawei Ads

The free version of Personal Budget may display advertising banners and native ad cards. Ad networks may collect anonymous, non-personally identifiable diagnostic device telemetry and an Advertising ID (such as Google AAID or Huawei OAID) in accordance with applicable store policies and your device ad tracking preferences.

You can opt out of personalized advertising via your device settings (e.g., Settings → Google → Ads → Delete advertising ID), or you can remove all ads permanently with a one-time in-app upgrade.

B. In-App Purchases & Billing (Google Play Billing & Huawei IAP)

When purchasing the lifetime ad-free upgrade, payment transactions are processed entirely by Google Play Billing (Google LLC) or Huawei In-App Purchases (Huawei Services). AvidCo never handles, stores, or has access to your credit card numbers or financial payment credentials.

6. Data Retention, Account Deletion & User Erasure Rights

Because Personal Budget is built with local-first and zero-knowledge principles, you possess total control over your information and account lifecycle:

• In-App One-Tap Local Reset: Navigate to Settings → Data Management → Clear All Budget Data to instantly wipe all transactions, months, categories, and savings records from your device hardware.
• Cloud Backup & Account Deletion: If you created an optional cloud sync account (via Email/Password or Google Sign-In), you can permanently delete your account and associated encrypted backups by visiting our dedicated Account & Data Deletion Request Page or emailing support@avidco.co.za.
• Complete Erasure via Uninstall: Uninstalling Personal Budget immediately removes all cached data, local SQLite databases, and preferences from your phone hardware.
• Data Retention Timeline: Local deletions occur instantly. Online account and cloud backup deletion requests are processed within 48 to 72 hours, with complete purge from rolling system backups finalized within 30 days.

7. Data Security

We follow industry-standard security practices:

• Application sandboxing strictly enforced by the Android and HarmonyOS operating system kernels.
• Zero external API communication for budgeting features.
• Zero exposure of online banking credentials—Personal Budget never connects to your bank account via APIs, Plaid, or screen scrapers.

8. Children's Privacy

Personal Budget is a general audience personal finance application intended for individuals aged 16 and older. We do not knowingly collect or solicit any personal information from children under the age of 13 in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and Google Play Families Policies.

9. Regulatory Compliance: POPIA, GDPR & CCPA

Personal Budget complies with the South African Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

Because AvidCo does not process or transmit your personal data to remote servers, your statutory rights (including the right to access, rectify, restrict, or erase personal records) are natively exercised directly through the app interface on your device.

10. Contact Information & Data Inquiries

If you have questions, feedback, or inquiries regarding this Privacy Policy or the personal data protection practices of Personal Budget, please contact the developer:

Developer Name: Sam Sifiso Mndebele (operating as AvidCo)
Application Name: Personal Budget
Application ID: za.co.avidco.personalbudget
Email: support@avidco.co.za / sams.mndebele@gmail.com
Website: https://personalbudget.avidco.co.za