AirBack Privacy Policy
The short version. AirBack has no accounts and asks for no email address. Your quiz answers, dependence score, quit date, streak, spending figures and relapse history are stored only on your phone and are never uploaded to us. Three things leave your device: your purchase status (Google Play and RevenueCat, so we know whether to unlock Premium), anonymous usage events that tell us which screens people use, and — only if you use the quit coach — your message plus a summary of your quiz profile, which is sent to an AI provider to write the reply. That last one includes health information, so section 3.3 spells it out in full. We do not show ads, we do not sell data, and we do not build advertising profiles.
1. Who we are
AirBack is published by Isaac Efraim ("we", "us"), an independent app developer. For anything in this policy, including a deletion request, contact hello@vegadigital.app.
2. Data stored only on your device
Almost everything AirBack knows about you stays in the app's private storage on your phone. We never receive it, and it is not backed up to any server we control. This includes:
- Your answers to the onboarding questions and the nicotine dependence checklist
- Your age range, first name (if you enter one), vaping device type, nicotine strength and usage pattern
- What you told us you spend on vaping, and the money-saved figures calculated from it
- Your dependence score and your generated quit plan
- Your quit date, current streak, daily pledges, panic-button uses and any relapses you log
- The transcript of your coach conversation, as it appears in the app
Because this data lives only on your device, uninstalling AirBack permanently deletes it. We cannot recover it for you, and we cannot see it.
One important exception: if you use the quit coach, the message you send and a summary of your quiz answers are transmitted in order to generate a reply. Section 3.3 explains exactly what is sent and to whom. Everything above stays on your device unless you choose to use the coach.
3. Data that leaves your device
3.1 Purchases and subscription status
When you start a free trial or buy AirBack Premium, the transaction is handled by Google Play Billing. We never see or handle your card number, bank details or billing address. To keep your Premium access working across reinstalls and to power "Restore purchase", we use RevenueCat as our subscription-management provider. RevenueCat receives:
- Your purchase and subscription history for this app (which product, trial status, renewal and expiry dates)
- An anonymous app-user identifier that RevenueCat generates, plus device and store identifiers needed to validate the receipt
No name, email address or account identity of yours is sent to RevenueCat, because AirBack has no accounts.
3.2 Anonymous usage analytics
To understand which parts of the app people actually use and where they get stuck, AirBack can send product-analytics events to PostHog. These events describe app interactions — for example, that an onboarding step was viewed, that the paywall was shown, or that a purchase was started or completed. They are tied to a random identifier the app generates on your device the first time it runs, not to your name, email or advertising ID.
Analytics events never include your free-text answers, your coach messages, your health or dependence checklist responses, or any information that identifies you personally.
3.3 The quit coach
The quit coach is a cloud service, not an offline one. When you send it a message, AirBack transmits the following over an encrypted connection to our own server function, which forwards it to an AI provider that generates the reply:
- The text of your message, and up to the last 12 messages in that conversation, so the reply makes sense in context
- A summary of your quiz profile, so the reply is specific to you. This includes your first name if you entered one, your age range, your vaping pattern and nicotine strength, your reported weekly spend, your trigger and past quit attempts, and your answers to the nicotine dependence checklist — which is health information
Our AI provider for this feature is xAI. They process the message to produce a response. We do not send them your name as an account, an email address, a device identifier or your purchase history, and there is no account linking the conversation to you.
If you would rather none of this leave your phone, do not use the Coach tab. Every other feature in AirBack — the streak, the panic button, the recovery timeline, your quit plan — works entirely on your device and sends nothing.
3.4 What we deliberately do not collect
- No account, no sign-up, no email address, no password
- No advertising identifier, no ad networks, no ad SDKs, no advertising or marketing profiling
- No precise or approximate location
- No access to your camera, photos, microphone, contacts, calendar, files or SMS
- No web-browsing history and no list of your other installed apps
- No sale of personal information to anyone, ever
4. Why we process each type of data
| Data | Purpose | Handled by |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase and subscription history | Unlock and restore Premium features; manage trials and renewals | Google Play, RevenueCat |
| Device / store identifiers tied to the purchase | Validate the receipt and match it to the right installation | Google Play, RevenueCat |
| App interaction events + a random app-generated ID | Product analytics: improve onboarding, fix drop-off, prioritise features | PostHog |
| Quiz answers, dependence score, quit data, streak, coach transcript | Generate and run your quit plan | Your device only |
| Coach message + quiz profile summary (incl. dependence checklist) | Generate a reply from the quit coach, only when you use it | Our server function, then xAI |
Where the GDPR or UK GDPR applies to you, our legal basis is performance of a contract for purchase and subscription data (we cannot deliver the paid features without it), and legitimate interests for anonymous product analytics used to improve the app.
5. Third parties we use
We use a small number of service providers. They process data on our behalf under their own privacy commitments and are not permitted to use it for their own advertising:
- Google LLC — Google Play Billing and app distribution (payment processing, subscription state)
- RevenueCat, Inc. — subscription and entitlement management
- PostHog, Inc. — anonymous product analytics
- Supabase, Inc. — hosts the server function that relays coach messages; it does not store your conversation
- xAI Corp. — generates the quit coach's replies from the message and profile summary described in section 3.3
These providers may store or process data on servers in the United States and other countries. Where required, such transfers are covered by the providers' own standard contractual clauses or equivalent safeguards.
6. Notifications
If you allow notifications, AirBack schedules a daily reminder locally on your device. No push token is created, nothing is sent to a push server, and we cannot send you messages remotely. You can turn reminders off in your Android or iOS notification settings at any time.
7. Coach chat and future features
The quit coach is cloud-based: your message and a summary of your quiz profile are sent to an AI provider to generate each reply. Section 3.3 sets out exactly what is transmitted. Using the coach is entirely optional and no other feature sends anything off your device.
8. Retention
- On-device data: kept until you delete it in the app or uninstall AirBack.
- Purchase and subscription records: retained by Google and RevenueCat for as long as needed to service your entitlement and to meet tax and accounting obligations.
- Analytics events: retained for no more than 12 months, then deleted or aggregated.
9. Your rights and how to delete your data
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export, restrict or delete the personal data we hold, to object to processing, and to complain to your local data protection authority.
To delete everything AirBack stores about you on your phone: uninstall the app, or use the reset option in Settings. This is immediate and irreversible.
To request deletion of analytics events or purchase records associated with your installation: email hello@vegadigital.app with the subject line "AirBack data deletion". Because we hold no account, please include your Google Play order ID (for purchase records) so we can locate the right entries. We respond within 30 days. Note that deleting your purchase record may end your Premium access, and that Google retains its own transaction records independently of us.
10. Security
All data transmitted by the app travels over encrypted HTTPS/TLS connections. On-device data is held in the app's private storage area, which the operating system isolates from other apps. No system is perfectly secure, but we keep the amount of data that leaves your phone deliberately small.
11. Children
AirBack is intended for adults and is not directed at children under 13. Because it addresses nicotine dependence, we target the app to users aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, contact hello@vegadigital.app and we will delete it.
12. Not medical care
AirBack supports habit change. It is not a medical device, it does not diagnose or treat any condition, and the dependence screen is a self-assessment rather than a clinical diagnosis. Health-related answers you give are stored on your device and are not transmitted to us.
13. Changes to this policy
If we make a material change, we will update the date at the top of this page and, where the change affects what we collect, surface a notice in the app. Continued use after an update means you accept the revised policy.
14. Contact
Questions, requests or complaints: hello@vegadigital.app