Legal
PyPad privacy policy
The short version: PyPad collects nothing about you. It has no account system, no analytics, no advertising, and it does not hold the Android internet permission, so it cannot make a network connection at all. Your code and projects stay in the app's private storage on your device.
1. What this policy covers
This policy applies only to the paid edition of PyPad for Android, identified on
Google Play by the package name com.anatory.pypad.
A separate, free, advertising-supported edition of PyPad is planned. It will be a different app with a different package name, it will require internet access, and an advertising provider will collect identifiers through it. That edition will have its own, different privacy policy, and this policy does not apply to it. If you are reading this from inside an app that shows advertisements, this is the wrong policy.
This policy does not cover the Anatory Software website; see the website privacy policy for that.
2. Information we collect
None. Anatory Software does not collect, receive, store, sell or share any personal information through PyPad.
Specifically, PyPad contains no analytics or telemetry code, no advertising SDK,
no crash-reporting SDK, no attribution or marketing SDK, and no sign-in or account
system. It does not read the Android advertising ID, ANDROID_ID, the
device serial number, telephony information, your location, your contacts, your
camera or your microphone.
The only Android system services the app uses are the notification manager, and the activity manager. The latter is used only to read why a previous run of your code stopped, so it can tell you.
3. What PyPad stores on your device
PyPad stores the following in its own private storage area, where other apps cannot read it. None of it is transmitted to us or to anyone else.
- Your Python files and project folders, and any images or sounds you add
- Snapshot checkpoints, so you can restore an earlier version of a file
- Which tabs you had open
- App settings, such as font size and whether autocomplete is switched on
- Crash records
Crash records are written locally when the app or your running code stops unexpectedly. Each contains a timestamp, the process and thread name, the app version, and a stack trace. For a native crash it holds the process name, exit reason and status code. They contain no personal information and no contents of your files. PyPad keeps at most 20 of them and deletes the oldest beyond that. They stay on your device unless you choose to export one and send it to us.
4. Permissions
PyPad requests exactly one permission that you will ever be asked about:
- Notifications (
POST_NOTIFICATIONS), used for a silent, ongoing notification while your code is running, showing which script it is, how long it has been going, and a Stop button. PyPad asks the first time you tap Run, after explaining why, and offers a "don't ask again" option. The app is fully functional if you decline.
PyPad requests no other permissions. It has no access to your location, contacts, photos, camera, microphone, call logs or messages.
5. Network access
PyPad does not hold the Android INTERNET permission. This is a
stronger guarantee than a promise not to use the network: the operating system
will not permit the app to open a network connection, whatever its code tries to
do.
The code editor inside PyPad is a web view, but it is served entirely from files packaged inside the app, through the app's own request interceptor, with file and content access switched off. It does not load anything from the internet.
For completeness: building PyPad downloads the Python interpreter and some Python libraries from python.org and PyPI, with pinned checksums. That happens on the developer's computer when the app is compiled. It has nothing to do with the app you install and involves no data of yours.
6. Android device backup
PyPad never transmits anything itself. However, Android has its own backup feature, and PyPad currently participates in it at Android's default setting.
This means that if you have device backup switched on in your Android settings, Android may copy PyPad's files (your projects, snapshots, settings and crash records) into your own Google account backup, encrypted, in the same way it does for other apps. This is done by the operating system, not by PyPad; we cannot see it, cannot access the backup, and receive nothing from it. It is your backup, in your Google account, under Google's privacy policy.
You can turn device backup off, or exclude individual apps from it, in your Android settings.
7. Google Play's role
PyPad is distributed through Google Play, and two things happen through Google rather than through us:
- Your purchase. PyPad is a paid app with no in-app purchases. The transaction is handled entirely by Google Play; the app contains no billing code at all. We never see your payment details. Google gives us aggregated sales and payout reports, which do not identify individual buyers.
- Android vitals. Google's platform collects crash and performance information at the operating-system level for apps installed from Play. There is no SDK for this in PyPad and no permission involved. It is Google's collection, not ours, and is governed by Google's privacy policy. We can see the resulting statistics in the Play Console in aggregated, anonymized form.
8. Children
PyPad's declared target audience on Google Play is 13 and over, and the app is not directed to children under 13. It is, however, a beginner-friendly tool for learning to program, and younger people may well use it.
Because PyPad collects no personal information from anyone, it collects none from children either. There is no mechanism in the app through which a child could disclose personal information to us, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
9. Deleting your data
We hold no data about you, so there is nothing to request the deletion of and no request process to go through. Everything is under your control on your own device:
- Delete individual files or whole projects inside PyPad
- Restore an earlier version of a file from its snapshot history
- Clear crash records, or export one to a location you choose if you want to send it to us
- Uninstall PyPad to remove everything it has stored
If you have Android device backup switched on, see section 6. A copy may also exist in your own Google account backup, which you manage through your Google account.
10. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, we will update the date at the top of this page. Changes that affect what the app collects will also be described in the app's release notes. We will not start collecting personal information in this edition of PyPad without saying so clearly and prominently first.
11. Contact
Questions about this policy, or about privacy in PyPad, go to [email protected], the same address shown on the app's About screen. For help using the app, see the support page.
Anatory Software, Oregon, United States.