Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Holdwell is published by Aksel Cornelius Bjorland (“we”, “us”). We are the controller of the limited personal data described below. This policy covers the Holdwell iPhone app and this website.

2. What stays on your iPhone

Everything you enter is saved in a private database inside the app on your phone. We never receive a copy. That includes:

• Your setup answers: sex, age (kept as a birth year), current and goal weight, how long you have taken your medication, training experience, where you train, equipment, your biggest concern and side effects you report.
• Your medication (which one, how often, which day) and the doses you type in, injection sites and side effects. Holdwell never suggests a dose. You enter what your doctor set.
• Protein entries, custom foods and your daily target.
• Workouts, check-ins (energy and how you feel), sets, reps and weights.
• Weights, tape measurements and progress photos. Progress photos are re-saved without location data and stay in the app.
• Your Muscle Score history and your reminder settings.

Holdwell does not sync this database to any server or to iCloud. If you use iCloud Backup or a computer backup, your device backup includes the app’s data like it does for other apps, and Apple stores that backup under your Apple Account. Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets read a small summary file that is shared between the app and its widgets on your device only. Reminders are local notifications created on your phone. Holdwell has no push notification server.

3. Apple Health

Holdwell connects to Apple Health only if you allow it, and you choose each data type on the Apple Health permission sheet. You can change this at any time in the Health app.

Apple Health data is never sold, shared or used for advertising, and it never leaves your device except inside your own iCloud backup. It is not sent to our server, to RevenueCat, to Google, to Open Food Facts or to anyone else. Weights that Holdwell reads from Health are shown on your phone and are not copied to any server.

The Apple Watch app. If you install it, your protein, your next shot day, your Muscle Score and today’s workout are shown on the watch, and the protein you add and the workouts you finish there come back to your iPhone. They travel only between your own paired iPhone and Apple Watch, using Apple’s WatchConnectivity, and are not sent to us or to anyone else.

4. Meal photos (optional protein estimate)

If you tap “Photo of your meal” and choose or take a picture, that picture is sent for one protein estimate. This is the only time Holdwell sends a photo anywhere. Progress photos are never sent.

1. Holdwell shrinks the photo on your phone (at most 1024 pixels on the long side) and saves it as a new JPEG, which leaves out location and camera details.
2. It is sent over HTTPS to our server function, together with a random anonymous subscription ID (see Purchases). No name, email or Health data is sent. The function and its small database run on Supabase in the United States (Northern Virginia).
3. Our server checks with RevenueCat that you have an active subscription and checks your daily limits.
4. The server passes the photo to Google’s Gemini API, which returns an estimate of the protein in the foods it sees.
5. The estimate comes back to your phone. You can change every number before it is logged.

We do not store the photo and we do not log it. It exists in memory only for the length of the request. We do not keep the estimate either.

We send the photo to Google’s Gemini API from an account on Google’s paid terms (a Google Cloud project with billing turned on). Google’s terms for paid use say that Google does not use prompts, including images, or responses to improve its products, and that Google logs requests for a limited time only to detect and prevent abuse and to meet legal requirements. We rely on those terms. Once the photo reaches Google, what happens to it is governed by Google’s terms and policies, not by us. See Google’s Gemini API terms.

What our server keeps

• Daily counters. To stop abuse and control cost, the server counts requests per day. It keeps only a one-way hash of your anonymous subscription ID and a one-way hash of your IP address, with a count and the date. These rows are removed automatically after a few days. The raw ID and raw IP address are not kept in the counters.
• A subscription check record. So we do not ask RevenueCat for every photo, the server remembers for ten minutes that a subscription ID was active. The record holds only a one-way hash of that random ID, a yes flag and a timestamp. It contains no name, email or health data. Records older than a day are never used and are deleted automatically.
• Technical logs. Each request writes one log line with a hash, the image size, the time taken, the model used and an error type. The photo, the raw ID and your IP address are not in it. Our hosting provider, Supabase, may keep standard infrastructure logs, which can include IP addresses, for a short time under its own policy.

Daily limits apply to each user and to each network address. If you reach a limit you can still log protein with quick add, barcode or by typing.

5. Barcode lookups

The camera reads the barcode on your phone. The picture is not sent anywhere. Only the barcode number goes to Open Food Facts, an open food database run by a non-profit, to fetch the product name and protein. Like any web request, it also reveals your IP address and the app name (“Holdwell-iOS”, with the app version and the address of our support page, which Open Food Facts asks every app to include) to Open Food Facts. We send nothing else, and we do not keep a record of what you scanned outside your own phone.

6. Purchases

Holdwell is a subscription app. Apple handles payment through your Apple Account. We never see your card, your Apple Account or your name.

We use RevenueCat to check that a purchase is valid and to unlock the app. RevenueCat receives your purchase and subscription status, a random anonymous app user ID it creates for your install, and the technical details any request carries, such as app version, country and currency, and IP address. RevenueCat also gives us subscription reports. We do not give RevenueCat your name, email, Health data or logs.

7. What we do not do

• We do not ask you to create an account.
• We do not show ads and we do not share data with advertisers.
• We do not track you across other companies’ apps and websites. Holdwell does not use the advertising identifier and does not show the App Tracking Transparency prompt.
• We do not use analytics or crash-reporting tools. The only third-party code in the app is RevenueCat.
• We do not sell or share personal information, including health information.
• We do not give medical advice or use your data to decide on your medication.

8. Permissions Holdwell asks for

• Apple Health: described above. Optional.
• Camera: to scan barcodes, photograph meals and take progress photos. Optional. When you pick a photo from your library, iOS shares only the photos you select.
• Notifications: for shot-day, workout and protein reminders, and one reminder two days before a free trial ends. Optional. Reminders are created on your phone.

You can change any permission in iOS Settings.

9. Keeping and deleting your data

Your data lives on your phone until you delete it. You can delete single entries in the app. Deleting the app deletes all of its data from your phone. A device backup you made earlier may still hold a copy until you delete that backup (iPhone Settings, your name, iCloud, Manage Account Storage, Backups). Samples Holdwell wrote to Apple Health stay in Health until you delete them there, unless you deleted the matching entry in Holdwell first.

Because your data is on your device, you already hold your copy. Holdwell has no export button in this version. If you want help, write to us.

On our side we keep only the small records listed in section 4, which are not linked to your name, and the purchase information held by Apple and RevenueCat under their own policies.

10. Your rights (GDPR and CCPA)

Access and deletion happen on your device. The health and fitness information you enter is stored only on your iPhone, so you can see it in the app and delete it by deleting entries or the app. We do not hold a copy.

The only things we hold are the server records from section 4 (counters and a subscription check record, each keyed by a one-way hash rather than your name) and what Apple and RevenueCat hold about your purchase. We cannot tie these to a person by name. You can still write to us and we will answer as far as we can.

If you are in the European Economic Area, the UK or Switzerland

• You have the right of access, correction, deletion, restriction, portability and objection, and the right to withdraw consent at any time (for example by turning off Health access in iOS). You can complain to your local data protection authority.
• Our legal bases: performing the subscription contract with you; your consent, which iOS asks for when you allow Health, camera or notifications and when you choose to send a meal photo; and our legitimate interest in preventing abuse and controlling cost (daily limits).
• Our service providers (Apple, RevenueCat, Supabase and Google) may process data in the United States. They use transfer safeguards described in their own policies.

If you live in California or another US state with a privacy law

You have the right to know, delete and correct personal information, to opt out of sale or sharing (we do not sell or share personal information), and not to be treated differently for using these rights. Because your health information stays on your device and we do not receive it, we cannot sell, share or disclose it.

11. Children

Holdwell is for adults aged 18 and over. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has used Holdwell, write to us.

12. Security

Data sent from the app uses HTTPS. Data on your phone is protected by iOS, including your passcode. No system is perfectly secure, so please keep your phone locked and updated.

13. Changes to this policy

If we change what Holdwell does with data, we will update this page and its effective date, and we will tell you in the app before the change reaches you if it affects your data.

14. Contact

Questions or requests: akselcb@gmail.com

Aksel Cornelius Bjorland, Norway