Your family's information, handled with care.

The short version

• We collect what the app needs to work: your account, your family's plan, and what you and your co-parent add to it.
• We never sell your information, show you adverts or use it to build marketing profiles.
• We never track your location. A handover "on the way" update shares only the estimate you choose to send.
• This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics or advertising trackers.
• You can delete your account from inside the app at any time.

Who we are

Shared Steps is the controller of the personal information described here, which means we decide how and why it is used and are responsible for protecting it under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018).

If your family was introduced to Shared Steps by a mediation practice, that practice is responsible for its own records. It does not see your messages, costs or day-to-day plan. It only receives what you choose to send it, such as a request to review an arrangement.

This website

This website is a simple information site. When you visit it:

• No cookies, analytics or trackers. We don't use Google Analytics, advertising pixels or similar tools. Our fonts and film are served from our own site, so your visit isn't shared with font or video services.
• Server logs. Like every website, the service that hosts this site briefly records technical details of each request, such as your IP address, browser type and the page asked for, to deliver the page and protect the site from abuse.
• Mediator enquiries. If you use the "Book a call" form, we receive your name, practice, work email, the size of your practice if you give it, and your message. We use these only to reply and to talk about working together. If the form can't send, it offers to open your own email app instead.
• Launch list. Until the app is in the App Store and Google Play, you can leave your email to hear when it is. We use it only to tell you the app is out, and you can unsubscribe from that email or ask us to remove you at any time.
• Emails. If you write to us, we keep your message and our reply so we can help you.

The Shared Steps app

When you use the app, we hold the following.

Your account

• Your email address, and the name you give us.
• If you sign in with Apple or Google, the name and verified email address they share with us. We never receive your Apple or Google password.
• Sign-in records: when you signed in, and the IP address and device type used, so we can keep your account secure.

Your family's plan and what you add to it

• Your family's name and the role each parent has in it.
• The parenting plan agreed in mediation, the care schedule and handover times and places.
• Calendar events, tasks, agreements and proposals to change arrangements, with the decisions made on them.
• Messages between you and your co-parent, and any photos you attach.
• Shared costs: what each one was for, the amount, who paid, and receipt photos.
• Photos and moments you share, and plan files you upload.
• Your profile photo, if you choose to add one instead of your initial or an illustration.
• Your calls: who called whom, whether it was a voice or video call, when, and how long each lasted, and each parent's own call settings (whether you agreed to calls and to video, your call hours and any pause). The sound and any video of a call pass live between your phones and are not recorded or kept. Phone numbers are never used.
• Records of important documents, such as a passport's expiry date. We keep only what the document is, whose it is and when it expires, never the document itself or its number.

We remove identifying details, such as where a photo was taken, from photos when you upload them.

Your subscription

If you subscribe, payment is handled by Apple's App Store or Google Play. We never see your card details. We receive confirmation that your family has an active subscription, its type and when it renews or ends.

Your phone

• Family update notifications, only if you turn them on. We keep a notification token for your phone. The alert on your lock screen says only what kind of update arrived, never who wrote it, what it says, names, child details or amounts.
• Calls, only once you have both agreed to them. We keep a call token for your phone so a call can ring it. The app uses your microphone only during a call. Video calls are off until you have both switched them on, your camera starts off in every call, and it is used only while you choose to share it and the app is open.
• Reminders for handovers and tasks are scheduled on your phone itself.
• App lock. If you turn on Face ID, Touch ID or fingerprint unlock, your phone checks it. We never receive or store biometric data.
• Drafts. Unsent messages and costs are saved on your phone so you don't lose them, and are removed when you sign out.
• Error reports. When something goes wrong, the app may send us a technical report: which part of the code failed, the app version and the phone's operating system. Error text is withheld, and reports carry no names, messages or family content. We also count a small number of events, such as "a proposal was sent" or "a setup step was finished", to understand whether the app is working well. Once you sign in, these are linked to your account by a random account number only, never your name, email address, family or child details, so we can tell how many accounts finish setting up rather than how many times a screen was opened. Before you sign in they are anonymous. Location lookup is switched off.

The app asks for access to your camera, photos or files only when you choose to add a photo or document or share your camera in a video call, and for your microphone only when you make or answer a call. It never asks for your location or your contacts.

Information about your children

Shared Steps is for parents. Children don't have their own accounts and we don't collect information from children directly.

You may choose to add details about your child: their first name and date of birth, school and year group, and, if you want them to hand, health details such as allergies, medicines, their GP and an emergency contact. Health details are "special category" information under UK law, and we treat them with extra care: they are optional, used only to show them to the parents in your family, and kept out of notifications, error reports and our routine support tools.

What your co-parent can see

Shared Steps is a shared space. Your co-parent, and anyone else you invite into your family, can see the plan, schedule, messages, proposals, costs and other records in that family, including who added each one. Please only add information that you are comfortable with them seeing.

Because a family's record belongs to both parents, it isn't rewritten when one of you leaves. See how long we keep it for what happens when you delete your account.

Why we use it, and our legal basis

We only use your information where the law allows. In particular:

To provide the app you signed up for

Creating your account, running your family's shared plan, delivering messages and managing your subscription. Our legal basis is that this is necessary for our contract with you.

To keep the service safe and working

Sign-in security, preventing abuse, fixing faults and understanding, in aggregate, whether features work. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in running a secure, reliable service, which we balance against your privacy by collecting as little as we can.

To tell you when the app launches

Your consent, given when you join the launch list. You can withdraw it at any time.

To reply to enquiries

Our legitimate interest in answering people who contact us.

Notifications

Your consent, which you can withdraw at any time in the app or in your phone's settings.

Your child's health details

Your explicit consent, given when you choose to add them. You can remove them at any time.

To meet legal obligations

For example, keeping records we are required to keep, or responding to a valid legal request.

We do not sell your information, use it for advertising, or make automated decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects. Writing suggestions in the app, where offered, are optional and never score or change what you write.

Who helps us run Shared Steps

We use a small number of trusted companies to run Shared Steps. They act on our instructions, under contracts that require them to protect your information, and may not use it for their own purposes.

We will also share information if the law requires it, or where it is needed to protect someone from serious harm. If Shared Steps were ever sold or merged, your information would pass to the new owner only under this policy, and we would tell you first.

Where your information is kept

We keep your family's information in the UK and the European Economic Area where we can. Some providers, such as RevenueCat and Expo, are based in the United States. Where information leaves the UK, we make sure it is protected by safeguards recognised under UK law, such as the UK's adequacy regulations, the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum. You can ask us for details.

How long we keep it

• While your account is open, we keep your family's information so the app keeps working for both of you.
• When you delete your account, we delete your name, email address and sign-ins straight away. If your co-parent is still using the family, what you wrote there stays in the shared record, shown as from a "Former member", so their history doesn't develop gaps. If nobody else is in your family, the whole family, including its photos and files, is deleted.
• Backups made before a deletion are overwritten in the normal course of our backup cycle.
• Sign-in records and notification tokens are removed when you sign out of that phone or delete your account.
• Subscription records are kept for as long as we need them to meet tax and accounting rules.
• Launch list addresses are deleted once we have sent the launch email, or sooner if you ask.
• Mediator enquiries are kept for as long as we are in discussion, and for no more than two years after our last contact unless we go on to work together.

Keeping it safe

Information is encrypted on its way between your phone and our servers. Files are kept in private storage that can only be reached through our servers, after checking that you belong to the family they belong to. Sign-in tokens are stored securely on your phone and only in scrambled (hashed) form on our servers. Our own staff tools are designed not to show parents' messages, photos or children's health details in day-to-day operations.

No system is perfectly secure. If something went wrong that put your information at risk, we would tell you and the Information Commissioner's Office when the law requires.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• See the information we hold about you and get a copy.
• Correct anything that is wrong. You can edit most of it in the app yourself.
• Delete your information. You can delete your account in the app under More → You, or without the app.
• Restrict or object to how we use it, including where we rely on legitimate interests.
• Take it with you in a commonly used format.
• Withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on it.

To use any of these rights, email privacy@sharedsteps.app. We will reply within one month. It is free. Some information in a shared family is also about your co-parent, so we may need to balance your request against their rights.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this policy

We will update this page when how we handle information changes, and change the date at the top. If a change matters, we will also tell you in the app before it takes effect.

Contact us

For anything about your privacy, email privacy@sharedsteps.app. For anything else, hello@sharedsteps.app.