1. Overview & Privacy Philosophy
At 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)
Personal Budget requests access to the
android.permission.RECEIVE_SMS permission solely to power the automated "Smart SMS Expense Detection" feature. All SMS analysis takes place 100% locally in-memory on your device hardware. We never transmit, upload, backup, or share your SMS messages or bank details to any external server or cloud service.
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
All budget accounts, income streams, custom categories, expense transactions, and cumulative savings goals created within the app are stored exclusively in a local SQLite database (powered by Android Room) inside your device's private internal storage sandbox.
Other applications cannot access your Personal Budget database. If you uninstall the app or clear app storage in your device settings, your local budget database is completely and permanently erased.
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 & User Erasure Rights
Because all data is stored on your device, you possess total control over your information:
- In-App One-Tap Reset: Navigate to Settings → Data Management → Clear All Budget Data to instantly wipe all transactions, months, categories, and savings records.
- Complete Erasure via Uninstall: Uninstalling Personal Budget immediately removes all cached data, local databases, and preferences from your phone hardware.
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 security of Personal Budget, please contact us:
AvidCo
Email: support@avidco.co.za
Website: https://personalbudget.avidco.co.za
Application ID: za.co.avidco.personalbudget