Earvane privacy.

Earvane listens only while you have the hunt switched on. The last twenty seconds are kept in the phone’s memory and overwritten continuously. Nothing is written to storage until you press CATCH; then that fragment is saved on your phone as a WAV file, with the date, the part of the day and what the app recognised. If the phone already knew where you were, the catch remembers that spot too. That stays on your phone; you can switch it off in the service hatch, and the field report leaves it out.

AUTO catch is a session you start yourself. It runs for at most thirty minutes, shows a notification the whole time, and keeps listening with the screen off. It saves a fragment only when it recognises a sound, and it will not start a catch while it hears someone speaking. A catch you make yourself is always kept, and the app marks it when it heard a voice.

Recognition runs on your phone, with a model that is part of the app. No audio is sent anywhere to be analysed.

Your recordings, your progress, and the name you write on your ID card stay on your device. We (NR-tainment) receive nothing: no audio, no location, no identifiers, no usage statistics and no crash reports. Two Google services do receive data, and only what is described under Ads and Google Play Games below.

If Android backup is switched on for your phone, Android may include the game’s progress and your list of catches in your own Google backup. The recordings themselves are left out. That backup is Android’s, stored under your Google account; we have no access to it.

Earvane shows rewarded ads only: an ad plays when you press a button that says so, for example to swap a target once more. There are no banners and nothing interrupts your game. While an ad plays, the hunt is paused, so the microphone never records it. The ad software itself starts with the app, so it contacts Google when you open Earvane, whether or not you ever choose an ad.

The ads come from Google AdMob. To show and measure them and to prevent fraud, the Google Mobile Ads SDK collects your device’s advertising ID, your IP address (from which Google derives an approximate location), information about how you interact with ads, and diagnostic data. In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, a consent form asks you before the first ad whether ads may be personalised; you can refuse. You can reset or delete your advertising ID in Android’s settings. How Google uses this data: policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

If you have a Google Play Games profile, Earvane signs you in automatically and reports the stickers you earn as achievements, under your profile. Google Play Games then knows which achievements you unlocked and when. No recordings, locations or names from your catches are sent. You manage your profile, and whether games may sign you in, in the Google Play Games settings.

A recording in a public place can pick up someone speaking. The app detects speech and warns you before you share such a recording. Sharing is always your own action, through Android’s share sheet. Please do not share recordings of people without their consent.

Earvane asks once, when you pick up the finder, and only after it has explained why. Your position is then used for two things, and both of them happen on the device.

The finder and the map sheet. While the finder is open, your position works out the direction and distance of nearby places (churches, fire stations, dog parks) from a list that is part of the app. Put the finder back and it stops following you.

The spot of a catch. A catch keeps the spot where you made it, if the phone already knew it. Nothing is switched on and nothing is measured for that, so a catch made with the finder closed has a spot only when something else on your phone had recently asked for one. It is stored with the catch, it is what the map sheet draws, and you can switch it off in the service hatch under PLACE. Switch it off and catches from then on have no spot.

Your location never leaves the phone by itself. Earvane has no account and no sync; the field report leaves the spot out, and a shared recording does not carry it. The one copy that does contain it is the backup you make yourself, to a folder you choose; that is your own data going to your own folder.

Places data: OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL.

Two kinds, both created on your phone: the notification that shows while AUTO catch is listening, and an optional daily reminder at 17:00, which is off until you switch it on. There are no push messages and no server that sends them.

• Every recording can be renamed or deleted, one at a time, in the logbook.
• The service hatch has a guarded wipe that removes every recording and all progress from the phone.
• A backup writes your catches and progress to a folder you choose yourself, and restore reads them back. We never see that folder.
• A field report writes one text file about the recognition (what the device thought, how sure it was and what you made of it) and hands it to the share sheet. It holds no audio, no location, no names you wrote yourself, and nothing that identifies your phone beyond its model. It goes nowhere unless you send it.
• Uninstalling the app removes everything it stored.

NR-tainment itself collects nothing, so there is nothing for us to delete on request. Data held by Google for ads or Google Play Games is managed in your Google account.

Earvane is meant for people aged 13 and over.

If the app starts sending anything new, this page changes before that version is released, and the date at the top changes with it.

Questions: privacy@audiolab.tools (mention Earvane).