Live Aquarium privacy policy

1. The short version

• Live Aquarium does not collect, transmit, sell or share any personal information.
• There are no accounts, no sign-in, no advertising, no analytics or tracking tools and no third-party SDKs. The first fish, drawn or coloured in the app, is free; an optional subscription (Live Aquarium Plus) adds unlimited fish and fish from photos of paper drawings and is sold and processed entirely by Apple.
• The app connects only to Apple’s App Store, to show subscription prices and complete purchases. Drawings, photos and fish are processed and stored only on your device.
• Sharing, printable colouring pages, links out of the app and subscription purchases are behind a parental gate.

2. What stays on the device

To make the aquarium work, the app keeps the following data in its private storage on the device:

• drawings made in the app and photos of paper drawings the child takes or chooses;
• the fish created from them: textures, names the child gives, level, care state (such as hunger and mood) and favourites;
• aquarium decorations and their positions, the chosen underwater world and app settings such as sound and picture quality;
• daily activities and progress, such as friendship stars, whether the introduction has been shown and the current status of the Plus subscription;
• unfinished drawing drafts, so a child can continue later;
• a backup copy of the aquarium data, used to restore the aquarium after an error;
• a small technical log of app events and errors (limited to about 10 MB). It contains no drawings, photos or fish names and is never sent anywhere.

Recognising the drawing on a photo and turning it into a fish happens on the device, using Apple’s Vision framework and the app’s own processing. The 3D aquarium is drawn on the device with open-source graphics code included in the app, which makes no network connections. The app does not send any of this data anywhere, and Live Aquarium developer cannot see, receive or restore it.

3. Camera and photos

• Camera. Used only when the child taps “Take a photo” on the “From paper” screen (part of Live Aquarium Plus) to photograph a drawing on paper. The photo is used to create the fish and stays on the device.
• Choosing a photo. When the child taps “Choose a photo” (part of Live Aquarium Plus), the app uses Apple’s system photo picker. It receives only the one picture that is chosen, not the rest of the photo library.
• Saving to Photos. An aquarium snapshot leaves the app only when an adult passes the parental gate and then chooses, in the iOS share sheet, to save it to Photos or share it.
• Microphone. Live Aquarium does not use the microphone and does not record audio. Spoken hints are generated on the device by iOS speech synthesis.

Camera and photo access can be changed at any time in iOS Settings → Apps → Live Aquarium.

4. What we do not do

We do not collect names, email addresses, phone numbers, precise or approximate location, contacts, device or advertising identifiers, usage analytics or crash reports. We do not show ads, do not use behavioural advertising or tracking, do not offer chat or social features and do not include links that take a child out of the app without a parental gate. We never see payment details: subscription payments are handled by Apple under your Apple ID.

5. Sharing initiated by an adult

After passing the parental gate, an adult can share an aquarium snapshot through the standard iOS share sheet, or open the printable colouring pages (PDF files included in the app) to print them or to share or save them, for example to Files. The app does not send anything by itself. Once an adult shares content with another app or person, that destination’s own privacy practices apply.

6. Parental gate and subscription

Subscription offers, purchases, restoring and managing the subscription, links that open outside the app (support, this policy, the terms of use), sharing of snapshots and printable colouring pages open only after answering a multiplication question that a young child is unlikely to solve. Without the subscription, “Take a photo” and “Choose a photo” open an invitation for a grown-up; prices are shown only after the parental gate. Releasing a fish from the aquarium also requires an adult to hold a button for two seconds.

Live Aquarium Plus is an auto-renewable subscription sold by Apple. Apple processes the payment; we do not receive the buyer’s name, email, payment details or Apple ID. Apple sends us an automatic notification when a subscription or free trial starts, renews or ends. From it we use only the type of event, the plan, the price and currency and the App Store country; it is not linked to any person, is not stored and is used only to check that purchases work. You can manage or cancel the subscription in your Apple ID settings.

7. Children’s privacy

Live Aquarium is designed for children and is intended for the Kids category of the App Store. Because the app does not collect personal information from children, it is designed to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the GDPR provisions on children’s data (including Article 8), the UK Age Appropriate Design Code and Apple’s Kids Category guidelines. No personal information is collected, so no parental consent for collection is required.

If a child contacts us by email, we will use the message only to reply to a parent or guardian and will delete it on request.

8. Retention and deletion

• To remove one fish, open “All my fish” → the fish’s “Profile” → “Let the fish go” and hold the button for two seconds. The fish and its drawing are deleted; a just-released fish can be brought back right afterwards with “Bring back”.
• To remove all data, delete the app from the device. iOS erases everything the app has stored.
• If you back up your device to iCloud or a computer, the app’s local data may be included in that backup under your Apple Account. Live Aquarium developer has no access to such backups.

9. Parents’ rights

Parents and guardians can review everything the app holds by opening the aquarium on the device and can delete it at any time as described above. Because Live Aquarium developer does not receive or store any data from the app, there is no data on our side to access, correct, export or delete. You are welcome to ask us any question about this policy.

10. Apple

The app is distributed by Apple through the App Store. Downloads, updates and any App Store data are handled by Apple under Apple’s privacy policy. If a user has chosen to share analytics with app developers in iOS settings, Apple may provide Live Aquarium developer with aggregated, non-identifying statistics; this is controlled by Apple and the user, not by the app.

11. Changes and contact

If the app’s data practices change, we will update this policy before the change reaches users and update the effective date above. Questions: [email protected].