Morning HugPrivacy Policy
Last updated 21 October 2026
Morning Hug helps families stay close to a parent who lives alone. The parent's phone quietly shares signs that it is being used, and the family sees that the parent is well, or is told when there has been no sign for a long time. This policy explains what we collect, why we collect it, who helps us run the service and what you can do about your data.
Who we are
Morning Hug is run by PrivateDevOps LTD, a company registered in Bulgaria (UIC 204591393, Sofia). We are the controller of the personal data described here. Write to hello@morninghug.app about anything in this policy.
The people in Morning Hug
- A carer is someone who creates an account with an email address, looks after a parent and pays for their own subscription. Up to four carers can look after one parent. The first adds the parent; the others join with a code that the parent shows on their own phone. All of them see the same status, alerts and photos, and each other's names. The parent can remove anyone except the first, and the first can remove the others. Everyone, the parent included, is told when someone new joins.
- The parent is the person whose phone shares signs of activity. The parent has no account. Their phone is linked once by scanning a code shown on the carer's phone, and the parent agrees on their own phone before anything is shared.
What we collect about carers
- Your email address, so you can sign in with a one-time code. There are no passwords.
- The name you choose to show and your language.
- A push notification token for your phone, so we can send you alerts.
- The parents you look after, the names you gave them, their settings (the hours of their day, how long without a sign counts as unusual) and any pause you set.
- What you do with an alert, for example pressing "I'll call".
- Your subscription status from the App Store or Google Play, passed on by RevenueCat. That is the plan, when it renews or ends, the store, and for accounting the price paid, the currency, the country and the store's transaction numbers. We never see your card or other payment details.
- Photos you send to the parent, and a profile photo if you add one.
What we collect from the parent's phone
- A random device key created when the phone is linked. We keep only a one-way hash of it.
- The phone's platform, model, system version and app version, its time zone and language, and whether the permissions the app needs are granted.
- The time of each sign of activity and what kind it was. The kinds are the phone being unlocked, the phone moving, steps being counted, a charger being plugged in or out, the app being opened, and "I'm OK" being pressed. We never store routes, messages, calls, the photos on the phone or which apps are used.
- Only if the parent turns on step sharing on their own phone: the number of steps per day, from the phone itself or from Apple Health, which also counts a watch, and the times when the watch counted steps. Without that choice we store no step counts. Morning Hug reads only the step count from Apple Health, never writes to it, never reads any other health data, and never uses Health data for advertising or shares it with anyone but the family.
- A short summary of each day, made on our server from the signs of activity: the time of the first and the last sign and how many hours had a sign. It shows the family how the parent's days usually go, by week, month and year.
- The battery level and whether the phone is charging.
- When the parent presses SOS, the phone's location at that moment. It is sent to the family with the alert. On iPhone the parent may allow location "Always" so the app keeps running in the background. That location stays on the phone and leaves it only if SOS is pressed.
- The parent's birthday and profile photo, if the parent or the family adds them, and a note when the parent asks the family for new photos.
- When the parent reports a photo, the photo is deleted at once. We keep a note of who sent it, when it was sent and when it was reported, so we can stop someone who misuses Morning Hug.
Technical data
Our servers record each request (the time, the address called and the result) to keep the service secure and to fix problems. IP addresses are used to limit repeated sign-in attempts and are deleted after one day. Cloudflare, which carries traffic to our servers, processes IP addresses to deliver it.
We do not use advertising, tracking or analytics tools. We do not build marketing profiles, and we never sell personal data.
Why we use it, and the legal basis
| Purpose | Legal basis under the GDPR |
|---|---|
| Providing Morning Hug to the carer, including sign-in, the parent's status, alerts, photos and birthday reminders | Our contract with the carer, Article 6(1)(b) |
| Sharing the parent's signs of activity and SOS with the family | The parent's consent, given on their own phone before linking, Article 6(1)(a). The parent can withdraw it at any time with "Stop sharing". |
| Showing the parent's daily steps to the family | The parent's explicit consent, given by turning on step sharing on their own phone, Article 6(1)(a) and Article 9(2)(a). Turning it off deletes the stored totals. |
| Subscriptions and accounting | Our contract, and our legal duty to keep accounting records, Article 6(1)(b) and (c) |
| Security, preventing abuse and fixing errors | Our legitimate interest in a safe service that works, Article 6(1)(f) |
Who helps us run Morning Hug
These providers process data on our behalf. The app stores also act under their own terms with you.
| Provider | What it does | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Hetzner Online GmbH | Our servers and database | Germany |
| Cloudflare, Inc. | Network and the secure connection to our servers, storage of photos | Photos are stored in the EU |
| Our email hosting provider | Sends the email with your sign-in code | Germany |
| Expo (650 Industries, Inc.) | Passes push notifications to Apple and Google | United States |
| Apple and Google | Deliver push notifications, run the app stores and take payment for subscriptions | Worldwide |
| RevenueCat, Inc. | Keeps the subscription status reported by the app stores | United States |
The text of a notification, for example "No sign from Mum since 9:00", passes through Expo, Apple or Google on its way to the phone. When data goes to a provider in the United States, the transfer relies on safeguards the GDPR allows, such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
How long we keep it
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Your account and the parents you look after | Until you delete your account or remove the parent |
| Signs of activity | 30 days |
| Daily step totals | 13 months, or deleted at once when the parent stops sharing steps |
| Daily summaries of activity | 13 months |
| Alerts | 12 months after they are closed |
| Records of sent notifications | 90 days |
| Photos sent to the parent | 90 days, or less if deleted earlier |
| Notes of reported photos | 400 days |
| Profile photos | Until replaced or removed |
| Subscription events | 400 days, also after an account is deleted, for accounting |
| Sign-in codes | Valid for 10 minutes, deleted within the hour |
| IP addresses used to limit sign-in attempts | 1 day |
| Database backups | Up to 8 days |
When a carer deletes their account, every parent looked after only by that carer is deleted with all of their data, photos included. When the parent presses "Stop sharing", the phone is unlinked and sends nothing more. What was collected before then is deleted on the schedule above, or at once if the carer removes the parent.
Your rights
Under the GDPR you can ask to see your data, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict or object to its use and to receive it in a portable format. Where we rely on consent you can withdraw it at any time.
- Carers can delete their account in the app, under Account.
- Parents can stop sharing at any time in the app.
- For anything else, write to hello@morninghug.app. We answer within one month.
You can also complain to the Bulgarian Commission for Personal Data Protection (cpdp.bg) or to the data protection authority where you live.
Security
- All traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted.
- Photos are private. The app receives a link to a photo that works for one hour.
- Sign-in codes and the parent's device key are stored only as one-way hashes.
- Only the people who run Morning Hug can reach our servers.
Children
Morning Hug is not meant for children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their data.
Changes to this policy
When we change this policy we update the date at the top. If a change matters for how your data is used, we tell carers in the app or by email before it applies.