Privacy Policy

What the app stores

Your family tree (people, relationships, dates, birthplaces, where someone lives, notes, photos) is stored in a local database on your phone. Backups you create are saved as files on your phone. Nothing is uploaded anywhere. Kinestry has no servers, no accounts, no sign-in, no analytics, no advertising and no trackers of any kind.

Internet access

Two things in Kinestry touch the network, and neither one sends your tree anywhere.

The first, and the reason Kinestry requests the network permission at all, is Desktop Mode, which lets a laptop browser on your own Wi-Fi network view and edit your tree while your phone is present. This traffic flows directly between your phone and your laptop on your local network. It never touches the internet, and it stops the moment you turn Desktop Mode off. Pairing requires a code shown on your phone and your explicit approval of each device.

Be aware of what this means in practice: while Desktop Mode is on, your names, dates and photos genuinely do travel across your Wi-Fi to the paired browser — that is the whole point of the feature. They are not stored on the laptop, and no third party is involved.

That connection is not encrypted. It is a plain web connection between two devices on the same network, which is why your browser shows the phone's address rather than a padlock. On your own home Wi-Fi that is the same level of exposure as anything else on it. On Wi-Fi you share with strangers — a café, a hotel, an office, student housing — somebody else on that network could in principle read what passes between your phone and your laptop. On a network you do not trust, leave Desktop Mode off. It is off unless you turn it on, it stops when you tell it to, and nothing is served while it is off.

The second is the rating pop-up. When Kinestry asks whether you would like to rate it, the dialog is drawn by the Google Play app on your phone, not by Kinestry, and Play does its own network work to show it. Google therefore knows it was asked for. Kinestry is told nothing back. Not whether it appeared, not whether you rated anything, not what you said, and no part of your tree is involved. There is more on this under "Asking you to rate the app" below.

Asking you to rate the app

Once, after you have used Kinestry properly — a second finished export, or a tree that has reached ten people — the app asks Google Play to show its own rating dialog. Google Play draws that dialog, not us, so Google knows it was asked for. We are told nothing: not whether it appeared, not whether you rated anything, not what you said. Google limits how often it will show, and we never ask twice. No part of your tree is involved.

Someone in a family tree who is not the person using the app

A family tree is about other people, and most of them will never have heard of us. If you are in someone's tree and you want your details removed, we cannot help you directly, and we want to be plain about why rather than sound evasive: the tree is a file on that person's phone. We have no copy, no account for them, no way to search for your name and no way to reach their device. There is nothing for us to delete, and nothing we could delete even if we wanted to.

The person who recorded the information is the only one who can change or remove it. If you write to us we will tell you exactly this, and nothing more, because that is all we know.

Outbound links

The "Visit Website" and "Privacy Policy" buttons in Settings open this site in your phone's own web browser. Kinestry itself sends nothing — your browser makes that request, exactly as it would for any link you tap. We receive no information about you when you do this.

This website

This site has no analytics, no cookies and no third-party scripts; the fonts are served from here rather than a font network. If you pick one of the four colour palettes at the top of the page, your browser remembers the name of it in local storage so the next page you open is not a different colour. That preference never leaves your browser, and clearing your browsing data removes it.

Calendar

Kinestry has no calendar permission and never reads your calendar.

On your phone, tapping "Add birthday", "Add memorial day" or "Add anniversary" hands that one name and date to your own calendar app, already filled in, using Android's built-in "new event" action. Nothing is sent anywhere, no web page opens, and it works with no connection at all. You still decide whether to save the event.

In Desktop Mode you are working in a web browser, which has no calendar app to hand an event to. There those same buttons open Google Calendar's web quick-add page instead, which does pass that name and date to Google in the web address. It happens only when you tap the button, only for the person you tapped it on, and Google's handling of it is then governed by Google's own privacy policy, not ours. If you would rather nothing left the device, add the date from your phone.

Photos

If you attach photos to people in your tree, Android's own photo picker opens and hands Kinestry only the picture you chose. Kinestry holds no photo or storage permission at all, so it cannot see the rest of your gallery, and it never asks you for one. The picture you pick is copied into the app's own private storage. Photos are never uploaded.

Backup, and moving to a new phone

Android can copy an app's data to Google's servers automatically, and can carry it across when you set up a new phone. Kinestry switches both of these off.

Nothing is sent to Google's backup service, on any version of Android. And when you move to a new phone, Android's transfer will not carry your tree across either. Your family data stays on the one handset it was entered on, which is what the rest of this policy promises.

This matters for you, so please read it. Because there is no cloud copy and no account, the database on your phone is the only copy of your tree. If you lose the phone, replace it, or wipe it, that copy goes with it. Use Settings, then Back up tree to write a backup file, and keep that file somewhere you control. Opening it on the new phone brings everything back.

Notifications and reminders

Kinestry shows two kinds of notification, both created entirely on your phone.

The first is the persistent "Desktop Mode is on" notice shown while your phone is serving your tree to your laptop — required by Android so you always know it is running.

The second is optional. If you switch on "Remind me on the day", the app schedules a quiet note each morning for a birthday, memorial day or anniversary already recorded in your tree. Like any notification it may vibrate your phone, which is the one reason Kinestry carries Android's vibrate permission. These reminders are built and delivered by your phone alone: nothing is sent anywhere, no reminder service is involved, and the text never leaves the device. Turning the switch off removes every pending reminder. Because Android forgets scheduled alarms when a phone restarts, the app asks for permission to re-create them after a reboot — that permission is used for nothing else.

Sharing and exports

When you export a PDF, image, GEDCOM or backup file, you choose where it goes using your phone's standard share dialog. What you share, and with whom, is entirely in your hands.

Opening a family file from another app

Kinestry can open a family file — a Kinestry backup, or a Family Tree Builder .ftz archive — that another app hands it, from a chat, an email, a cloud drive or your files. This only happens when you choose Kinestry from that app's share or open dialog. Kinestry cannot reach into another app to read anything.

The file is copied into Kinestry's own private storage on your phone so it can be read reliably, then it is opened as a new family tree. The tree you already have is never overwritten and never merged into. You are shown what the file contains — how many people, how many marriages — and asked before anything is created. The copy is deleted once the import finishes.

Nothing about this involves a network or a server. The file came from your phone and stays on your phone.

Reporting a problem

Settings has a Send feedback button. It does not send anything by itself: it opens your own email app with a message already written, and nothing leaves your phone unless you press send there. Kinestry has no server to send it to.

That message contains the app version, your palette and card-style settings, whether Desktop Mode is on, your phone's model and Android version, and counts from your tree — how many people, how many marriages, how many have a photo. It contains no names, no dates, no places, no notes and no photographs. The whole message is shown to you before it is sent, so you never have to take our word for it.

Children

Kinestry asks nobody for their age, has no accounts and takes nothing from anyone's device, child or adult. Family members you record in your tree exist only on your device.

The one message that can reach us is the one you write yourself, through Send feedback — see "Reporting a problem" above for exactly what it contains. If a child writes to us there, we answer that message and delete it, and we never write to them again.

Where to get Kinestry

The only official build of Kinestry is the one on Google Play. Copies obtained anywhere else may have been altered by somebody other than us: we cannot vouch for what they do with your family's information, and this policy describes only the official app.

Where we are

Kinestry is published from India. Because the app has no servers and collects nothing, there is no transfer of your data to India or anywhere else — your family tree never leaves the device it is on. Any question about this policy can be sent to the address below.

Changes

If this policy ever changes, the updated version will be published at this address and the date above will change. Since Kinestry's design principle is that your data never leaves your device, do not expect much to change.

Contact

Anything about Kinestry or about this policy: kinestryapp@gmail.com. That inbox is read by the person who wrote the app.

Kinestry is made by Valeed Labs, a one-person studio. The Google Play listing shows the studio's own address, valeedlabs@gmail.com, because Play identifies the developer behind an app rather than the app itself. Both reach the same person. Use the Kinestry address for anything about the app or your privacy; it is the one that is monitored for that.