Corvid Contacts Privacy Policy

The short version

Corvid Contacts works fully offline, entirely on your device, with no account or server required. If you choose to, you can also sync your contacts with a CardDAV server you control (typically your own Nextcloud instance) - that's entirely optional. From version 1.0.5 you can also, if you choose, share an address book with your phone's contacts, so that other apps on your device can show names and photos for them (see "Sharing with your phone's contacts," below); that stays on your device. We do not operate that server, we do not receive a copy of your contact data ourselves, and the app contains no analytics, no advertising, and no crash-reporting SDKs. The only outside parties that ever see anything are: the server you configure, if any; Google Play, which periodically verifies this is a genuine, licensed install (see "Anti-piracy verification," below); and - only while you're typing an address or asking the app to fill in an address's details, and only if you leave address lookup turned on - either Komoot (Photon, the default) or Google Places (see "Address lookup," below). You can turn address lookup off entirely in Settings. Similarly, a contact whose photo is hosted externally (rather than stored directly) is only fetched from that outside host if you turn on "Fetch & Embed Remote Photos" in Settings, or choose to download that one contact's photo manually - see "Contact photos," below.

Information the app handles

Contact data. Corvid Contacts stores the contact information you sync or enter, which may include names, phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, birthdays, notes, organization/job title, group memberships, photos, and related fields defined by the vCard/CardDAV standard. This data is:

• Stored locally on your device, in the app's own database. Unless you choose to share an address book with your phone's contacts (see "Sharing with your phone's contacts," below), nothing is placed in Android's shared system Contacts.
• Sent to and received from the CardDAV server you configure in the app (e.g., your Nextcloud instance) over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection, so that server can keep your contacts in sync across your devices.

We do not have access to this data. It is never sent to us or to any server we operate.

Sharing with your phone's contacts (version 1.0.5 and later). You can choose to share an address book with the contacts on your phone, so that apps like Messages and the dialer can show names and photos for your contacts. This is off by default, and you turn it on for each address book separately. When you do:

• Corvid places a copy of that book's contacts in Android's contacts storage on your device, under a "Corvid Contacts" account. You choose how much is copied for each book: Caller ID (name, phone numbers and photo), Full contact (also emails, addresses, websites, social profile links, birthday, company and job title, nickname, relationships and groups), or Everything(also notes). A relationship that links to another contact is copied as that contact's name, and only if that contact is also in a shared address book; otherwise it is left out of the copy.
• Any app on your device that you have allowed to access contacts can read that copy, and what it does with it is governed by its own privacy policy. Corvid does not send the copy to Google or anyone else, and does not add it to your Google account. An app such as Google Contacts may offer to copy or move a contact into another account; if you do that, the new copy is handled by that app.
• To keep the copy in step, Corvid reads the contacts in its own account. Edits you make to them in other apps are saved back to the contact in Corvid (and sync to your server, if you use one). A contact you delete from your phone's contacts is hidden from them on that device; it is not deleted from Corvid or from your server. Corvid does not read, copy or upload your other contacts.
• This uses Android's contacts permission, which Corvid asks for only when you first share an address book. You can switch sharing off for a book at any time, or take the permission away in Android settings, and Corvid removes the copy from your phone's contacts.

Account/server credentials. Your configured server address, username, and app password (or equivalent credential) are stored locally on your device using Android's secure app-private storage, solely to authenticate you to your own server. We do not receive or store these credentials ourselves.

Address lookup.While you're typing an address for a contact, the app can look up matching suggestions as you type. It does the same when you choose "Fill in address details" on an address, which sends that address to the same service. Nothing is looked up unless you do one of those things. This is controlled by the Address Lookup setting, which has three choices:

• Photon, run by Komoot (default), using OpenStreetMap data. The text you've typed so far, plus a coarse, country-level coordinate, is sent to Komoot's Photon service. The coordinate is not your GPS location, and the app never requests location permission. It comes from asking Android's built-in location lookup, which on many phones is provided by Google, for the position of the country named in your device's region setting; only that country name is sent to it. See Komoot's Privacy Policy.
• Google Places. The text you type is sent to the Google Places API instead, subject to Google's Privacy Policy.
• Off.No address query is ever sent anywhere. You can still type a full address manually, you just won't get autocomplete suggestions.

You can change this at any time.

Contact photos.A contact's photo is usually stored directly as part of its data (see "Contact data," above) and never leaves the sync described there. Some contacts, though - notably ones imported from Google Contacts - instead reference a photo hosted elsewhere by URL. Loading one of these means the app has to contact whatever server hosts that specific photo, which we can't predict in advance since it depends entirely on where each contact's photo happens to be hosted. This is controlled by the Fetch & Embed Remote Photos setting (off by default, and a checkbox when you sign in): when on, the app downloads such photos and saves them into the contact, so they stay available offline and sync with it to your server; when off, such a contact simply shows no photo instead. You can also download an individual contact's photo on demand from its detail screen, regardless of this setting.

Notifications. The app can show local notifications (e.g., birthday reminders) generated entirely on your device from your synced contact data. These notifications are not sent through any third-party push or messaging service.

Anti-piracy verification. Corvid Contacts is a paid app, and uses Google Play's built-in Installer Check to verify it was installed through Google Play, to protect against unauthorized redistribution. This check is performed by Google Play itself, not by us, and works mostly offline, but may periodically require a network connection to Google Play services. See Google's documentation for details.

What we don't do

• We don't run our own backend server that stores or processes your contacts.
• We don't include analytics, advertising, or crash-reporting SDKs of any kind.
• We don't sell or share your data with third parties, because we don't have it in the first place.
• We don't require you to create an account with us.

Permissions

The app requests only:

• Internet access, to sync with the CardDAV server you configure, if any, to periodically verify a genuine Google Play install, and, if address lookup is enabled, to query Photon (Komoot) or Google Places.
• Notifications, to show local reminders such as birthdays.
• Contacts (read and write), only for the optional sharing with your phone's contacts described above. Corvid asks for it when you first share an address book. It writes the shared copy with it, and reads back only the contacts in its own account, to pick up your edits and deletes. It never reads your other contacts.

Android's background-work library, which runs sync and reminders, also adds routine permissions that Android grants without asking: network state, wake lock, running at startup and running a foreground service. They let that work happen in the background and give access to none of your data.

The app never requests location, camera, or storage permissions.

Data security

Contact data is transmitted to your configured server over HTTPS. Data at rest is stored in the app's private, sandboxed storage on your device, which other apps cannot access. The one exception is a copy you choose to share with your phone's contacts: it is in Android's contacts storage, where apps you have allowed to access contacts can read it. Corvid Contacts excludes its data from Android's cloud backup, so it is not copied to your Google account that way. Android's direct phone-to-phone transfer, if you use it when setting up a new phone, does carry the app's data, but not your server login, to the new phone. As with any software, we can't guarantee absolute security, and the overall security of your synced contacts also depends on the server you choose to connect to.

Your control over your data

• All of your contact data lives on your own device and your own server - you can export it (Settings → Export Contacts) or delete it at any time.
• Uninstalling the app removes all locally stored data, including any copy you shared with your phone's contacts.
• Turning off sharing for an address book removes its copy from your phone's contacts. You can also take the contacts permission away in Android settings. If you only clear the app's data in Android settings, the copy stays until the next time you open the app, which then removes it; turn sharing off first if you want it gone right away.
• A contact you delete from your phone's contacts stays in Corvid, hidden from there, until you choose to show it again or delete it in Corvid.
• Because the app's data is not in Android's cloud backup, there is no backup to restore after a reset or a lost phone. Export your contacts (Settings → Export Contacts) to keep a copy of contacts that exist only on your device.
• Logging out clears your stored server credentials from the device.
• Because you control the CardDAV server, you control retention and deletion there as well, independent of this app.
• Step-by-step instructions for deleting your data, on your device and elsewhere, are on the data deletion page.

Third-party links

If the app displays a link to an external site (for example, a website field on a contact), we are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of that site.

Children's privacy

Corvid Contacts is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by an updated "Last updated" date above.

Contact us

Questions about this policy or your data can be sent to privacy@benica.dev.