SpendLahPrivacy Policy
Your expenses, receipts and settings live on your iPhone, and so does the AI that reads them. This page says what stays on your iPhone, what is sent anywhere, and what we keep.
Who we are
SpendLah is made by Winston Lau, Singapore. In this policy, “we” means that developer. Contact: spendlah.app@gmail.com.
What stays on your iPhone
Your expenses, receipts and settings are stored on your iPhone. They are not synced to any SpendLah server.
Backups are files you export. We never see them.
AI on your iPhone
SpendLah’s AI is Apple Intelligence, running on your iPhone. It reads typed notes the simple reader cannot handle, receipt photos, payment notifications the app’s templates cannot read, your spending questions and your AI edits. None of that is sent to SpendLah’s server or to any AI company. It needs an iPhone that supports Apple Intelligence, and you can turn it off any time in Settings, then AI & Privacy.
A long receipt may be read by Apple’s Private Cloud Compute instead, when your iPhone is online. Apple’s servers process the photo for that one request and keep nothing; Apple states that the data is never stored and never available to Apple. When your iPhone is offline, the phone reads the receipt itself.
Anything you share to SpendLah is read on your iPhone.
Our server and what it keeps
SpendLah’s server is hosted on Supabase in the Singapore region. It receives the usage analytics described below and serves exchange rates. It never receives your notes, photos, notifications, questions or expenses.
It keeps a record of each install: the install ID, when it was first and last seen, the app and iOS version, and the iPhone model.
The install ID is a random number the app makes. It is not your name, email or Apple ID. It is kept in your iPhone’s Keychain, so it can survive deleting and reinstalling the app.
The app also downloads daily exchange rates from our server, about once a day. That request carries nothing about you: no install ID, no account and no expense data, and it works whether analytics are on or off. The rates come from Frankfurter (frankfurter.dev). Only our server contacts Frankfurter, and it sends nothing about you.
SpendLah doesn’t store your IP address; our hosting provider’s request logs may keep it for a short time for security. For abuse limits we use a salted one-way hash of the IP address. It is deleted within 3 days.
Analytics
SpendLah collects usage analytics: which features are used, how often they succeed, and how long they take. It also collects daily app health figures from iOS: how many crashes and hangs happened, how long the app took to open, and how much memory and processing it used. It does not collect crash logs.
Each event carries your random install ID, so events from one iPhone can be grouped together. It doesn’t carry your name, email or Apple ID. It never includes expenses, amounts, merchants or receipts.
Analytics are on by default. Turn them off in Settings, then AI & Privacy. Turning them off also deletes the analytics already sent from your iPhone. If you are offline, this happens once your iPhone is back online, unless you turn analytics on again first.
Third parties
- Apple provides Apple Intelligence on your iPhone and Private Cloud Compute for long receipts, under Apple’s privacy policy. Apple also provides the daily app health figures through iOS.
- Supabase hosts SpendLah’s server in the Singapore region.
We do not track you across apps, sell data, or show ads.
How long we keep things
| What | Where | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Expenses, receipts, settings | Your iPhone | Until you delete them or the app |
| Install record (install ID, first and last seen, app and iOS version, iPhone model) | SpendLah’s server | Deleted 400 days after last use |
| Salted one-way IP hash and per-minute counters, for abuse limits | SpendLah’s server | Deleted within 3 days |
| Usage analytics and app health figures | SpendLah’s server | 400 days |
| A receipt read by Private Cloud Compute | Apple | Not stored |
Your choices and rights
Under Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), this is how we use data and how you stay in control.
- Purposes. We use analytics and install records to keep SpendLah working and fix problems.
- Withdraw consent. Turn analytics off in Settings. You can do this any time. AI can be turned off there too, though it never sends anything to us.
- Access and correction. Email spendlah.app@gmail.com to ask for access to, or correction of, personal data we hold about you. Server records have no expense content, and we can’t tell whose install they came from.
- Deletion. Deleting the app deletes the data on your iPhone. Server records have no expense content. They are deleted on the schedule above; the last of them go 400 days after you stop using SpendLah. Questions or requests: email us at spendlah.app@gmail.com.
Children
SpendLah is not directed at children.
Overseas transfers
SpendLah’s server is in Singapore. Apple’s Private Cloud Compute may run in other countries; it stores nothing.
Security
- SpendLah has no account and no bank login, so there is no password or bank credential for anyone to take.
- Your expenses and receipts sit in SpendLah’s private storage on your iPhone, protected by iOS encryption when your iPhone has a passcode. SpendLah has no lock of its own, so anyone who can unlock your iPhone can open it.
- Everything the app sends travels over an encrypted connection (HTTPS).
- SpendLah holds no AI service keys, in the app or on our server.
- Backups you export are not encrypted by SpendLah. Keep them somewhere safe.
No system is perfectly secure. If there is a data breach, we will notify the regulator and affected people where Singapore law requires. SpendLah has no accounts, so we would do this through the app and this website.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we will update the effective date above and announce the change in the app’s release notes and on this page.
Contact
Questions or requests: spendlah.app@gmail.com.
Data Protection Officer: Winston Lau, spendlah.app@gmail.com.