Business Hours: privacy policy

This policy is about Business Hours, the Android app made by Weekend Bunnies, and only about the app. It explains what the app does with information on your phone, what leaves your phone and when, and what your rights are. It does not cover this website, which has its own privacy notice.

The short version

Everything the app keeps stays on your phone: your hours, your settings and the list of declined calls.
The app never sends anything to us. We have no server for it, and you never create an account.
There is no advertising, no analytics, no crash reporting and no tracking.
Only two things leave your phone, and both go to services you already use: forwarding codes go to your own mobile carrier, and purchases go through Google Play.

Who we are

Business Hours is made by Weekend Bunnies. For anything about this policy or your data, email us at developer@weekendbunnies.com.

Because the app sends us nothing, we hold no information about you from the app. If you email us, we use your message and your email address only to answer you. We keep them only as long as we need them to deal with your question, and we never add your address to a mailing list or share it.

How the app handles a call

When a call comes in, Android tells the app the caller's number, and the app works out which SIM the call is on. It decides on your phone, within moments, whether the call rings or is declined. It uses only your own settings for that, and it sends nothing about the call anywhere.

Calls that ring as normal are not recorded by the app. Only declined calls are listed, together with the rare call the app let through because something was unclear or went wrong, such as not knowing which SIM it was on.

What the app keeps on your phone

Your hours (Pro): your weekly opening hours, breaks and the time zone of your business.
Your holidays (Pro): your country and region, which public holidays close your line, your own closure days and any timed changes. The holiday list is built into the app, so it needs no internet.
Your settings: which SIM is your business line, whether the line is open or closed, your call and message options, and your forwarding choices: the forwarding number, the ring time, a voicemail number and whether strict mode is on. The app also keeps what your carrier last replied about your forwarding.
The list of declined calls: for each call, the time, the caller's number (or "hidden" for a withheld number), which SIM it was on and why it was declined.
VIP numbers (Pro): the numbers and names you enter. To check a call, the app compares a scrambled fingerprint of the number, made with a secret key that is unique to your installation and never leaves your phone.
Repeat callers (Pro, only if you switch it on): fingerprints of recently declined callers, never their numbers, with the time of their last call. They are kept for at most an hour and deleted when you switch the option off.
Your purchase: whether Pro is unlocked, as Google Play last reported it.

So that calls are handled straight after a restart, your hours, settings and fingerprints are kept in the part of the phone's storage that Android can read before you first unlock the phone. The list of declined calls and your VIP names and numbers are kept in the part protected by your screen lock. A call declined before that first unlock is noted in the first part and moved to the list once you unlock.

All of it is in the app's private storage, which other apps cannot read. Declined calls may also appear as blocked calls in your phone app's own call history. That history belongs to your phone app, and Business Hours does not read it or change it.

How long it is kept

The list of declined calls: 7 days on the free version and 1 year with Pro, with at most 10,000 calls. Older entries are deleted automatically. You can clear the whole list at any time with "Clear history".
Repeat callers: at most an hour.
Everything else: until you change it, delete it or uninstall the app.

Permissions and why the app needs them

Call screening. This makes Business Hours your phone's call screening app, so Android asks it about each incoming call. Android allows one such app at a time, so it replaces your phone app's own call screening and spam filtering while Business Hours has this role.
Contacts. Android only lets a call screening app handle calls from your saved contacts if it has access to contacts. Without it, your contacts would still ring while you're closed. The app never reads, copies or stores your contacts.
Phone: read phone state. To list the SIMs in your phone so you can choose your business line, to tell which SIM a call arrives on, and to read your SIM's country and network, so that phone numbers are read correctly and the right forwarding settings are used.
Phone: make calls (optional). Only to send standard forwarding codes to your carrier, see below. The app never makes an ordinary call. Without this permission, the app opens your phone's keypad with the code filled in, and you press call yourself.
Notifications. To tell you when something would stop the app from working, and about changes to your line, such as when Pro is no longer active.
Alarms and reminders. So your line opens and closes at exactly the right time.
Do Not Disturb (Modes) access. To create and switch the app's own Mode, which makes message notifications silent while you're closed, and to check whether another Mode would silence your calls while you're open. The app does not read your messages or notifications.
Run at startup. To set everything up again after the phone restarts.
Internet. The app's own code does not use it. It comes with Google Play Billing, the library from Google that handles purchases, see below.
Network state. This comes with Google Play Billing and with Android's own library for background tasks. The app uses it only to wait for a mobile data connection before it tries a forwarding code again, because some carriers handle forwarding codes over mobile data.
Keep awake and foreground service. These come with Android's own library for background tasks, which the app uses for small jobs such as its hourly check that everything is still set up. They give no access to any information.

What leaves your phone

Forwarding codes, to your mobile carrier

Call forwarding is a service of your mobile carrier, set with standard codes, just like codes you dial yourself. Your phone sends them to your carrier over the mobile network. The app sends these codes only:

when you use the forwarding check, which only reads your forwarding settings;
when you use the forwarding assistant (Pro), which sets or changes them. The codes then include the forwarding or voicemail number you chose;
when strict mode (Pro) is on, which switches forwarding on just before you open and off just after you close, and now and then checks that your carrier's settings are still right.

Your carrier handles these codes under its own privacy policy, as it does any call or code from your phone. Restoring a backup never sends a code.

Purchases, through Google Play

If you buy Pro, the purchase is handled entirely by Google Play. We never see your name, your payment details or your Google account. The app asks Google Play whether Pro has been bought, for example when you open it. This uses Google Play Billing, a library from Google built into the app, which is why the app has internet access. Google Play Billing may also send Google technical information about purchases. All of this is handled by Google under Google's privacy policy.

Nothing else

Nothing else leaves your phone. The app has no server of ours to talk to, and we never receive your list of declined calls, your numbers or your settings.

Backups and moving to a new phone

Cloud backup is off. Android's backup to your Google account includes nothing from this app.
Moving to a new phone. If you copy your old phone to a new one, by cable or directly between the phones, Android copies the app's settings: your hours, holidays, closure days, options and forwarding choices. The list of declined calls and your VIP names and numbers are not copied. Anything that only makes sense on the old phone, such as which SIM was your business line, is dropped on the new one. Pro itself comes back from Google Play.
Back up settings (Pro). This saves your settings to a file, including your VIP numbers and their names. It never includes the list of declined calls, your SIM or your purchase. The file is not encrypted and goes only where you save it. If you save it to a cloud drive, that service's own privacy policy applies.
Export (Pro). This saves the list of declined calls, with the callers' numbers, to a spreadsheet file. It too goes only where you save it.

Deleting your information

Clear the list of declined calls at any time with "Clear history", and remove VIP numbers one by one.
To delete everything the app keeps, clear its storage in Android's settings for the app, under Storage, or uninstall the app. Uninstalling removes everything the app stored on your phone.
Files you saved yourself, such as a settings backup or an export, stay where you saved them until you delete them.
Forwarding is kept by your carrier, not by the app. Uninstalling does not change it, so use the forwarding assistant first if you want to undo what it set, or ask your carrier.

Children

Business Hours is made for businesses and is not directed at children. The app sends us nothing, so we receive no information from children either.

Your rights

Under the UK GDPR, and the GDPR in the European Union and Iceland, you have the right to see the personal data we hold about you and get a copy, to have it corrected or deleted, to have its use limited, to take it elsewhere, and to object to how we use it.

Everything the app keeps is on your phone, under your control, so you can see, change and delete it yourself. We hold nothing about you from the app. If you have emailed us, these rights apply to your email: write to developer@weekendbunnies.com and we answer within two weeks.

You can also complain to a data protection authority. In the United Kingdom that is the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk). Elsewhere, it is the authority in the country where you live or work.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, the new version appears on this page with a new date. If a change means the app sends something it did not send before, the app tells you before it does.