Guardyn collects the minimum data required for anti-theft protection: device location (GPS), SIM card operator identity (for swap/removal detection), camera photos, audio recordings, and video clips — only when a security event is triggered or a remote command is issued by the device owner.
Location: GPS coordinates are attached to the security alerts sent to you. If you choose “Allow all the time”, Guardyn collects location data to attach your device's coordinates to theft and security alerts even when the app is closed or not in use, including while the phone is locked. Background location is optional and is only used after you enable it.
Account information: when you sign in with Google we receive your account email address, Google display name, profile photo URL, and a Firebase user ID. They are used to authenticate you, link your devices to your account, deliver alert emails, manage your subscription or pass, and provide support.
Device information and identifiers: a push-messaging (FCM) token, device manufacturer and model, and app version are used to register your device and deliver remote commands. The Android ID is sent when you redeem a referral code, where it is stored only as a one-way hash to prevent the same phone from claiming more than one referral reward, and when a purchase is activated, where it is stored with the license record for entitlement verification and fraud prevention.
Wear OS watch (optional): if you turn on the watch guard in the Guardyn watch app, your watch can capture its location, a small photo or short video clip (only on watches with a camera) and a few seconds of audio when a watch guard triggers. This evidence is sent only to your paired phone. See “Wear OS Watch Guard” below.
Purchase information: product, plan, purchase or payment status and order references from Google Play Billing or Razorpay, used to verify and manage your entitlement. Payment card and bank details are handled by Google Play or Razorpay; Guardyn does not store them.
2. Special Permissions & Device Access
To provide reliable anti-theft protection while the phone is locked or running in the background, Guardyn utilizes specific system permissions:
Full-Screen Intent (USE_FULL_SCREEN_INTENT): Allows the app to wake the device screen and present immediate owner-initiated remote capture or theft recovery commands even when locked.
Appear on Top (SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW): Allows Guardyn to display transient security alerts and execute remote evidence capture commands when the app is in the background.
Device Administration: Monitors failed unlock attempts and allows the owner to remotely lock the lost or stolen device. On a Wear OS watch that supports it, an optional watch administrator is used only to notice wrong PIN or pattern attempts on the watch; it cannot lock, wipe or change the watch.
Phone State (READ_PHONE_STATE): Reads SIM card operator identity to detect SIM swaps and removals — a common first step in phone theft. On dual-SIM devices, all SIM slots are monitored. SIM identity is stored only on your device and is never transmitted to any server.
3. Zero Cloud Persistence
Evidence (photos, video, audio) is never stored in any cloud bucket. It is encrypted locally on your device (AES256-GCM) and relayed to your email via a transient Cloud Function that discards the data immediately after delivery.
4. Data Storage
All evidence is stored in an encrypted vault on your device's private storage. Only account, entitlement, device registration, operational, and payment metadata is stored in Firebase Firestore, protected by security rules that restrict access to the authenticated owner.
5. Third-Party Services
We use Firebase (Authentication, Firestore, Cloud Functions, Cloud Messaging, App Check, Analytics, and Crashlytics), Google Play Billing, Razorpay for web payment processing, and Sentry for error and performance monitoring. These services have their own privacy policies.
Firebase Analytics (Android app): collects app usage events (for example screens and sessions, protection armed or disarmed, paywall and purchase outcomes, and connectivity recovery after the phone was offline), an app-instance ID, and device and app version information to measure stability and improve features. The connectivity recovery event contains only how long the phone was offline (exact milliseconds and a coarse range), the connection type (Wi-Fi, mobile data, Ethernet or other) and how many alerts were waiting to be sent; it never includes network names, IP addresses, carrier or location. The advertising ID is not collected and ad personalization signals are disabled. Guardyn shows no ads.
Crash and error diagnostics (Android app): Firebase Crashlytics and Sentry receive crash reports, stack traces, device and app version details, and diagnostic breadcrumbs. When you are signed in, Sentry error reports from the Android app also include your Firebase user ID, account email, and Google display name so that we can diagnose problems affecting your account. Screenshots and view hierarchies are not attached.
Sentry (website): a limited sample of web sessions may be replayed for diagnostics; text is masked, media is blocked, and default personal information collection is disabled.
Website Analytics (Optional, Consent-Based)
On our public website pages (guardyn.tech) we use Google Analytics 4 only if you click “Accept” in the analytics banner. Until you accept, the Google Analytics script is not loaded and no analytics cookies are set. If your browser sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal, we treat it as a decline and do not ask.
What is collected: pages visited (path only — query strings such as referral codes are stripped), approximate region derived by Google from your IP address, browser/device type, and anonymous interaction events such as download-button clicks, pricing views, checkout started and purchase completed (plan type and currency only).
What is never collected: your name, email, account ID, device data, payment or order identifiers, evidence, or anything from the Recovery Console.
No advertising: Guardyn shows no ads. Google Signals, ad storage, ad user data and ad personalization are permanently disabled.
Never on sensitive pages: analytics are not loaded on the Recovery Console (/dashboard), account deletion, or checkout/subscription pages.
Withdrawing consent: use (also linked in the site footer) and choose “Decline”. We then stop measurement and delete Google Analytics cookies.
6. Optional Alert Integrations and Companion
You can link Guardyn's Telegram alert bot to a private Telegram chat (alert delivery and bot commands require Pro). Alerts sent there are relayed through a Cloud Function to the Telegram Bot API without being stored in cloud storage, and the linked chat can send remote commands to your devices (for example, request the phone's current location or sound its siren for a limited time). You can also configure your own Telegram bot, Discord webhook, HTTPS endpoint, or MQTT broker; these are sent directly from your device to the destination you choose. Enabled destinations receive incident metadata and location when available. Media is sent only where supported and explicitly enabled. Your chosen services may store these messages under their own policies; Guardyn does not control their retention. Credentials are encrypted on the device and excluded from ordinary settings exports.
Pending alert payloads are encrypted locally for retries for up to seven days. Changing the owner or destination, or deleting an incident, cancels its future queued delivery. The standalone website edition optionally sends outbound carrier SMS when configured and permitted. Carrier charges may apply, and SMS is not end-to-end encrypted. This feature does not read your SMS inbox. An approved watch companion can request protection status, incident counts, and a find-phone notification, and (if you allow it) arm protection and start or stop the siren.
Wear OS Watch Guard (Optional)
The Guardyn Wear OS app has no internet access and no analytics or crash reporting. Its watch guard is off until you turn it on in the watch app, after an in-app explanation and Android's camera, microphone and location prompts. A notification stays visible on the watch while it runs. It never uses background location, and after the watch restarts it stays paused until you open the app.
When it captures: a wrong PIN on the watch (only on watches that support it), the watch being taken off your wrist, unplugged from its charger, or moved while off your wrist. At most one capture per trigger every 5 minutes and 6 per hour.
What it captures: location; a small photo or a 2.5-second video clip on watches with a camera; about 3 seconds of audio on watches with a microphone; the trigger, failed-attempt count and battery level. Each can be switched off.
Where it goes: only to your paired phone running Guardyn, over the Wear OS connection (Bluetooth or a Google-managed link), and only after you allow watch evidence for that watch on the phone. Until the phone confirms it is stored, the watch keeps it encrypted (AES256-GCM) for up to 48 hours and then deletes it.
On the phone: it is stored in the same encrypted vault as phone evidence and sent to your configured alert channels like any other incident (media attachments require Pro), at most one alert per trigger every 5 minutes. Drills and incidents during a session with cloud alerts turned off are stored but not sent. You can delete watch evidence from the vault at any time.
7. Account Deletion
You can delete your account and all associated data from the app's profile menu or by contacting support. Deletion removes all Firestore metadata, device registrations, and Firebase Auth credentials permanently.