Curtilage

Privacy policy

Lantern privacy policy

How Lantern handles your information.

Last updated:

Summary

  • The standard version of Lantern has no internet permission, so Android does not let it connect to any network. Your journal stays on your phone unless you send something out yourself.
  • Your journal database is encrypted on your phone with a key protected by Android's Keystore. Lantern has no analytics and sends nothing to us.
  • AI help is off by default. If you turn it on, Lantern can ask our BrainTrust app on the same phone. A separate "cloud" version of Lantern can instead send a reduced summary to an AI server you choose. Either way, you see exactly what will be sent before anything is sent.

What the app collects

Everything Lantern stores is something you enter or choose:

  • Rules, practice attempts, reflections and their earlier versions, tags, feelings, notes, cards and card decks, and prompts.
  • Your settings, such as review times, app lock, and AI choices.
  • On-device usage counts, which record which parts of the app you used (for example the widget or the share sheet), never what you wrote. You can turn these off in Settings. They are stored on your phone and are never sent anywhere.
  • In the cloud version only: the AI server address, model name and API key you enter.

Where it goes

On your phone

  • Your journal is kept in a database encrypted with SQLCipher, an encrypted form of the SQLite database. The database key is created on your phone and protected by a key in Android's Keystore. If that Keystore key is lost, for example after a factory reset, the database cannot be opened again.
  • Your settings are stored in the app's private storage and are not encrypted by the app. They contain your preferences, not your journal entries.
  • In the cloud version, your AI API key is encrypted with its own Android Keystore key.
  • Android backup and phone-to-phone transfer are both turned off for Lantern, so Android does not copy its data to the cloud or to a new phone.
  • By default, Lantern blocks screenshots and screen recording of its screens.

Your own server

  • Standard version: none. The app cannot connect to any network.
  • Cloud version: if you turn on the remote AI engine, enter a server address, and read the payload preview, Lantern sends an AI request to that server. The address must use an encrypted (HTTPS) connection. The app refuses addresses on your local network or on the phone itself, and it does not follow redirects. The request contains a reduced summary of your current cycle: your active rules and a count of attempts for each one. It does not include the times, notes or outcomes of individual attempts, or anything in your inbox or archive. Email addresses, phone numbers, links and passwords in the text are always masked, and names you might have written are masked unless you turn that off.

A third-party service you choose

  • None by Lantern itself. If you use the cloud version, the AI server you enter may be run by someone else. What that server does with your request is up to whoever runs it.
  • Voice input: the microphone button hands off to your phone's own speech recognition app and asks it to work offline. Lantern does not have microphone permission and does not receive any audio, only the text that app returns. Whether that app uses the network is controlled by that app, not by Lantern.

Permissions and why

  • Notifications
    • Why the app asks: For review and reflection reminders you turn on
    • When: When you turn on a reminder (Android 13 and later)
  • Run at startup
    • Why the app asks: To set your reminders again after the phone restarts or the time changes
    • When: Always present; no prompt
  • Schedule exact alarms
    • Why the app asks: So the daily review arrives at the time you picked
    • When: You grant it under "Alarms & reminders" (Android 13 and later). Without it the reminder is set to an approximate time, and Settings says so
  • Biometric
    • Why the app asks: For the optional app lock
    • When: Only if you turn on app lock
  • Bind to BrainTrust's reflect service
    • Why the app asks: To ask BrainTrust for a reflection on your newest entry
    • When: Only if you turn on the BrainTrust option. Android allows the connection only when BrainTrust is signed by us
  • Internet (cloud version only)
    • Why the app asks: To reach the AI server you enter
    • When: Always present in the cloud version; it does nothing until you turn on the remote engine

The standard version does not request internet, network state, location, contacts, camera, microphone, calendar or storage permissions.

Analytics

Lantern has no analytics and no crash reporting. The standard version cannot send any. The usage counts described above stay on your phone, and you can turn them off.

Sharing with other Curtilage apps

Nothing is shared unless you take an action:

  • BrainTrust (AI reflections). This is off by default. When you turn it on and have read the preview, Lantern sends your newest reflection to BrainTrust on the same phone, word for word, together with the prompt you answered and its tags. It does not send your interpretation, conclusion or next step, and it sends no names or contact details as identity fields. The connection is made directly by Android between the two apps.
  • BrainTrust (send text). When you choose to send text to BrainTrust, Lantern opens BrainTrust with that text, up to 8,000 characters.
  • SpeakSharp. When you publish a card deck to SpeakSharp, Lantern gives SpeakSharp read access to that one deck file and nothing else.
  • Into Lantern. Other apps can share text or a structured file into Lantern. It lands in Capture or your inbox for you to review. Only apps signed with the same key as Lantern can send records into it in the background.
  • Calendar. If you turn on reflection calendar entries, Lantern opens your calendar app's "new event" screen with a title you chose. It never includes your reflection text, and nothing is saved until you save it in the calendar app.
  • Sharing and saving. When you share a reflection or save a session as plain text, that text leaves Lantern unencrypted. Lantern warns you before you do this.

Your choices

  • Encrypted export: Settings can write your whole journal to one file, encrypted with a passphrase you choose. Lantern does not store that passphrase, and without it the file cannot be read. You can import that file later. Your lock and privacy switches are not included in the export.
  • Import: you can import notes and card files. Imported items go to your inbox, and nothing already in Lantern is deleted.
  • Delete: you can delete individual entries. Uninstalling Lantern, or clearing its storage in Android settings, deletes everything on your phone. Because backup is off, there is no copy anywhere else unless you exported one.
  • Turn off: AI suggestions, the BrainTrust option, the remote engine, reminders and usage counts are all switches in Settings. AI and reminders start off.

Children

Lantern is not designed for children, and it has no age check.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we will post the new version on this page and update the date at the top.

Contact

Questions about this policy: https://curtilage.zone/contact