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Privacy policy

Last updated October 12, 2026.

Smiley Man showing a calm feeling

Applies to version 1.0.

Applies to
The Smiley Man Homework app for iPhone and iPad, its parent emails, and the Parent page
Operator
Daniel Praid, 120 N. Pearl Street, Apt 407, Port Chester, NY 10573, United States
Privacy contact
smileymanhomework@gmail.com
Last updated
October 12, 2026
Consent notice version
2026-10-12

The short version

  • Your child uses the app on their own phone to keep track of homework. Parents stay informed by email.
  • Until a parent confirms their email address, our server holds only that email, and deletes it after 7 days without a confirmation. Your child's nickname and homework stay on the phone until then. The confirmation is your consent.
  • We collect only what the emails and the Parent page need: the homework your child adds, Proof photos of finished work, your child's nickname, and parents' email addresses.
  • No ads, no tracking, no selling or sharing for marketing, and no AI training on your child's data. No AI chat for your child, ever.
  • Photos of homework sheets are kept on the phone. To read a sheet, a copy with the name and student number blacked out may go to Apple's Private Cloud Compute or, only if you allow it, to Anthropic; we don't store those copies. Proof photos are kept for 30 days. Homework is kept until the end of the school year. If the app isn't opened for 6 months, we delete everything we hold for your family, and we email you a month before.
  • You can see everything on the Parent page and delete single assignments or everything, in the app or on the Parent page, at any time.

Who this policy covers

Smiley Man Homework is used by children, including children under 13, with a parent's permission. The child has no account, no password and no sign-in. A parent (the "primary parent") sets the app up on the child's phone, protects its settings with a Parent PIN, and can invite other parents by email. Parents don't need the app: they get emails and a private Parent page.

We follow the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the FTC's COPPA Rule.

What we collect

From your child, through the app

WhatWhyWhere it lives
Assignments: titles, notes, due dates, the date they were assigned, whether a due date was read or guessed, how the assignment was captured, Steps, and when each was marked DoneDone emails, the Daily digest, the Parent pageThe child's phone, and our server
Classes: names, colors and teacher namesGrouping homework and helping Reading match a sheet to a ClassThe child's phone, and our server
Changes: deleted assignments and moved due datesThe "Changes" part of the Daily digestThe child's phone, and our server
Proof photos of finished work. Before a Proof photo is uploaded, the phone blacks out the name and student number fields when it can find them, but a photo can still show the child's name (for example in handwriting the phone didn't read). The photo on the phone isn't changed.The Done email links to them on the Parent pageThe child's phone, and our server for 30 days
Photos of homework sheets and screenshotsReading them into assignmentsThe child's phone only, except as described under "Reading" below
Voice, when the child says homework instead of typing itTurned into text on the phoneNever stored and never sent

From parents

WhatWhy
The primary parent's email addressThe consent notice and confirmation, Done emails, the Daily digest, account notices
Other parents' email addresses, added by the primary parentTheir invitations, confirmations and emails
Your child's nickname, which you type at setupSo the emails can say whose homework it is. Please use a first name or an initial, not a full name. It's sent to us only after you confirm your email, so the emails can use it.
Your child's full name, if you type it at setupOnly to hide the name before photos and homework leave the phone. It stays on the phone and is never sent to us or anyone else.
Email choices: who gets Done emails and the Daily digest, and the digest timeSending the right emails at the right time
Whether you allowed cloud ReadingUsing Anthropic only when you said yes

Collected automatically

WhatWhy
A random household ID and a device key the app creates at setupConnecting the phone to its household. The server stores only a scrambled (hashed) form of the key.
The time zone set on the phoneSending the Daily digest at the right local time and reading due dates correctly
The app version and counts of which kind of Reading was usedKeeping the service working
The subscription's App Store transactionKnowing whether the subscription is active. Apple handles payment; we never see card details.
When the primary parent confirmed, which notice version they agreed to, and a scrambled (hashed) form of the IP address usedA record of consent
Server logs with error codes and IDs onlyRunning and securing the service. Logs never contain photos, homework text, names or email addresses.
A scrambled (keyed hash) form of an email address we send a setup or invite email toLimiting how many of those emails one address gets, since anyone can type any address. Kept for 1 day.

We don't collect location, contacts, the advertising identifier, browsing history or anything for advertising. The app contains no third-party analytics, advertising or tracking code.

Reading: how homework photos become assignments

When your child snaps a sheet, the app proposes assignments with due dates, and your child confirms each one before it's saved. Where the Reading happens depends on the phone:

  1. On the phone. On phones with Apple Intelligence, Apple's on-device model reads the photo. Nothing leaves the phone.
  2. Apple Private Cloud Compute. If the phone's model can't make sense of a sheet, Apple's model on Private Cloud Compute may read it. Apple says this data is used only to answer the request and is never stored. Before it's sent, the phone blacks out the Name and Student number fields.
  3. Anthropic, only with your permission. Where Apple Intelligence isn't available (phones without it, such as an iPhone 13 mini, or with it turned off), a parent can allow cloud Reading on a separate permission screen that names Anthropic. The phone first reads the text itself, blacks out the Name and Student number fields in the photo and leaves their values out of the recognized text, crops the sheet and removes location data. The photo and the text then go through our server to Anthropic's Claude model. Anthropic doesn't train AI on them. Under Anthropic's standard terms it may keep them for a limited time for safety checks, then deletes them. Our server doesn't keep the photo. It keeps the reading result, which is the assignment text, for 24 hours so a retry doesn't run twice.
  4. Simple rules on the phone. Otherwise, the phone reads the text itself with simple rules.

Typed and spoken homework is always read on the phone.

Steps for big assignments. When your child asks for a plan for a big assignment, the app suggests Steps on different days. A packet is split by pages on the phone. For other work, Apple's on-device model names the Steps from the assignment's title and Class, or its title and Class (as text, never a photo, with the child's nickname hidden) may go to Private Cloud Compute or, where Apple Intelligence isn't available and only if you allowed cloud Reading, through our server to Anthropic, under the same terms as cloud Reading. Otherwise simple rules on the phone name the Steps.

How we use information

Only to provide the service you signed up for:

  • sending the consent notice, confirmations, invitations, Done emails, the Daily digest and account notices
  • showing your child's homework and Proof photos on the Parent page
  • reading homework photos into assignments, as described above
  • checking the subscription
  • keeping the service secure and working

We don't use it for advertising, profiling, selling, or training AI models, and we never combine it with data from any other app, including Smiley Man Check-In.

Who we share it with

We don't sell or rent personal information. We share it only with service providers that help run the service, under contracts that limit their use to providing that service:

ProviderWhat they doWhat they receive
Cloudflare, Inc.Hosts our server, database and photo storage, and sends our emailsEverything our server stores, as described above
Apple Inc.Private Cloud Compute Reading and Steps suggestions on Apple Intelligence phones; App Store payments and subscriptionsRedacted sheet photos, and the titles and Class names of assignments to plan in Steps (Private Cloud Compute); purchase details (App Store)
Anthropic, PBCCloud Reading and Steps suggestions where Apple Intelligence isn't available, only if a parent allowed cloud ReadingRedacted, cropped sheet photos and the phone's recognized text (with the Name and Student number values left out), with the child's Class names and teacher names; for Steps, an assignment's title and Class name as text, with the nickname hidden

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect the safety of a child or the security of the service. If the service is ever transferred to another operator, we'll tell parents first and the new operator must follow this policy.

No homework leaves the phone before a parent confirms their email:

  1. During setup, you choose a Parent PIN and the app shows a summary of this policy.
  2. You enter your email and your child's nickname, and we send you a notice describing what we collect, why, our service providers, how long we keep it, and your rights, with a confirmation link. Until you confirm, our server holds only that email; the nickname stays on the phone.
  3. Tapping the link is your consent. Until you do, the app keeps homework and the nickname only on the phone. If you don't confirm within 7 days, we delete your email address and the household.
  4. About a day after you confirm, we send a second email repeating what you agreed to and how to withdraw.

Cloud Reading through Anthropic needs a separate yes on a permission screen in the app.

Your rights as a parent

You can, at any time:

  • Review your child's information on the Parent page, linked from every email.
  • Delete a single assignment on the Parent page, or everything from the app's parent settings or the Parent page. Deleting everything removes it from the phone and our server, and we email you a confirmation.
  • Stop further collection by turning off emails, removing other parents, turning off cloud Reading, or deleting everything.
  • Withdraw consent by deleting everything. You can also email us at smileymanhomework@gmail.com.

We'll answer requests within 30 days.

How long we keep information

InformationKept for
Photos of homework sheetsOn the phone, until the assignment is deleted. A redacted copy sent for Reading isn't stored by us; see "Reading" for Apple and Anthropic.
Proof photos30 days on our server
Assignments, Done history and changesUntil the end of the school year (the July 1 after their due date)
Parent email addresses and choicesWhile the household exists. Unconfirmed setups are deleted after 7 days.
Email delivery logs90 days
A scrambled form of an address we sent a setup or invite email to1 day
Everything above, for a family whose app isn't opened for 6 monthsDeleted after 6 months without the app connecting to us. We email the primary parent a month before, and opening the app keeps it. Daily digests stop after 2 weeks without the app and start again when it's opened.
Cloud Reading results24 hours
VoiceNever stored

The full schedule is in our retention schedule below. Deleting everything removes the household's data from our server at once, except for database recovery backups, which expire within 30 days.

Retention schedule

This is our written data retention policy. The rule: keep each piece of information only as long as the service needs it, then delete it automatically. A parent can delete anything sooner.

A family that stops using the app. When the app on the child's phone hasn't connected to our server for 6 months (183 days since it last synced, or since the parent confirmed if it never synced), we delete everything we hold for that household, as Delete everything would. A month before (after 153 days), we email the primary parent once with the date; opening the app before then keeps the data. Daily digests stop after 14 days without a sync and start again with the next one.

On the child's phone

InformationKept until
Assignments, Classes, Steps and Done historyThe child deletes it, a parent deletes it on the Parent page, or Delete everything
The list of changes (deleted and moved assignments)30 days after it reaches our server
Photos of homework sheets and screenshots, kept in the app's protected storage and left out of device backupsThe assignment is deleted, or Delete everything
Proof photos, kept the same wayThe assignment is deleted, or Delete everything
VoiceNot stored. Speech is turned into text on the phone.
Settings, household status and the primary parent's emailDelete everything, or the app is deleted
The child's full name, if a parent typed it (used only to hide the name before photos and homework leave the phone; never sent), kept in the phone's KeychainDelete everything, or the parent clears the field. Like the Parent PIN, it outlasts deleting the app.
The device key, the Parent PIN check and the PIN lockout, kept in the phone's Keychain on this device onlyDelete everything. These survive deleting the app, so a reinstall reconnects and keeps its PIN.

On our server

InformationKept for
Proof photos30 days, or until deleted on the phone
Assignments, Steps, Done history and changesUntil the July 1 after the due date (the school year)
ClassesUntil removed from the phone, or the household is deleted
Parent emails, roles and email choicesWhile the household exists, and at most 6 months after the app last synced
Everything for a household whose app hasn't synced for 6 months183 days after the last sync; the primary parent is emailed after 153 days
After the app is reinstalled: homework the reinstalled phone no longer has (assignments, Steps, changes, Classes and Proof photos)Until the app's first sync after the reinstall
An unconfirmed household, including the parent's email (the app sends the child's nickname only after consent; households set up with older versions of the app also hold it)7 days
The consent record: time, notice version and hashed IP addressWhile the household exists
The device key, stored only as a hashWhile the household exists
Subscription statusWhile the household exists
Cloud Reading results (assignment text, no images)24 hours
Cloud Reading photosNot stored. They're held in memory only while the request runs.
Email delivery logs90 days
Counters that limit how often requests can be madeTheir window (one hour or one day)
A keyed hash of an address we sent a setup or invite email to, to limit repeat emails to it1 day
A Delete everything confirm link asked for on the Parent page, stored only as a hash1 hour, single use
Parent page linksNot stored: each link is signed. Links work for 14 days and stop when the parent is removed, or when a parent stops old links from the app (unsubscribe links keep working).
Database recovery backupsExpire within 30 days

At service providers

ProviderWhatKept for
AnthropicRedacted sheet photos and recognized text for cloud Reading; assignment titles and Class names (text) for Steps suggestionsA limited time under Anthropic's standard terms, for safety checks, then deleted
Apple Private Cloud ComputeRedacted sheet photos; assignment titles and Class names for Steps suggestionsNot kept, per Apple
Apple App StorePurchasesUnder Apple's own policy

Deletion requests

  • Delete everything (in the app or on the Parent page) deletes every record and photo for the household on our server at once, then emails the primary parent a confirmation, and clears the phone. If the phone is offline, the phone is cleared first and the server deletion is retried until it succeeds. On the Parent page it first emails the primary parent a link, good for an hour, and deletes only when that link's button is pressed, so a forwarded email can't delete a family's data.
  • Delete one assignment on the Parent page deletes it on our server, and the phone deletes it at the next sync.
  • Email requests to smileymanhomework@gmail.com are answered within 30 days.

We review this schedule once a year and whenever the data the app collects changes.

How we protect information

We keep a written information security program. In short: the connection between the app and our server is encrypted; the phone keeps its device key in the iOS Keychain on that device only; the server stores only a hashed form of the key; Parent page links are signed, expire after 14 days, and stop working when a parent is removed or when a parent asks the app to stop old links; deleting everything from the Parent page needs a second link emailed to the primary parent; and our logs never contain homework, photos, names or email addresses.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we collect, use or share your child's information, we'll email the primary parent and ask for consent again where the law requires it.

Contact

The operator of Smiley Man Homework is Daniel Praid. For privacy or support questions, contact:

Daniel Praid
120 N. Pearl Street, Apt 407
Port Chester, NY 10573
United States

Telephone: +1 347-569-5334
Email: smileymanhomework@gmail.com