Privacy Policy

The short version

• You don't need an account to use the app. If you make one on this website, we keep your email, a scrambled version of your password, and your birth month and year. Accounts are for ages 13 and up.
• CritterPal only sees your screen when you tap the camera button in chat. It takes one screenshot and sends it with your message. Nothing is captured in the background.
• Chat messages (and a screenshot, if you send one) go to CritterPal's server, and from there to DeepSeek, the AI company that writes the answer. DeepSeek is based in China.
• CritterPal's server doesn't save your messages or screenshots.
• Your chat history stays on your Mac.
• No ads. No selling or sharing data for ads. No tracking of what you type.
• Please don't type or screenshot passwords, your full name, your address, your school, photos of people, or anything private.

What CritterPal collects

Only what the app needs to answer a chat message and to keep the daily limits fair. When you send a chat message, the app sends the server:

• Your messages and the recent conversation. This includes CritterPal's earlier answers, so it can follow along. It is the last part of the chat, not your whole history.
• One screenshot, only if you attached it. It is shrunk to a small JPEG first. If you ask a follow-up within about five minutes, the same screenshot is sent again. A screenshot can show anything on your screen, so close private things before you tap the camera. CritterPal's own windows are left out of the picture.
• Your critter's name and kind. They are part of the instructions that make it answer in character.
• An install ID. A random code the app makes the first time you chat. It isn't linked to your name, email or Apple ID. The server uses it to count your chats per day.
• Your answer-length setting and your daily-limit level, so the server knows how long the answer should be and which daily limit applies.

Like any website or app, the server also sees your IP address when your Mac connects. CritterPal's server uses it for one thing: limiting how many requests come from one network a minute and a day, to stop abuse.

A couple of games, such as Trivia and 20 Questions, use the same server and are handled the same way.

What CritterPal doesn't do

• No account needed for the app itself.
• No background screen capture. A screenshot is taken only when you tap the camera button or the "Look at my screen" suggestion.
• No keystroke recording. The Input Monitoring permission is used to check whether a key is Return or Enter, so your critter can spin. It never records, stores or sends what you type.
• No ads.
• No selling your data.
• No analytics at the moment (see below).

Where your data goes

CritterPal's server (hosted on Vercel)

The app talks to one server, which runs as a function on Vercel. It checks your daily limit, passes your message to DeepSeek, and streams the answer back. The server's code doesn't save the text of your messages, the answers or your screenshots. It doesn't write them to a database or to its logs. Its own log lines are short error notes, like "upstream status 402", with no message text.

The server keeps small counters in a database (Upstash Redis, added through Vercel): how many answers each install ID and each IP address has used today, and how many answers were given in total today. These counters are how the daily limits work.

Vercel, as the host, may keep its own standard logs of requests, such as the time and the IP address. That is covered by Vercel's own privacy policy, and CritterPal doesn't control it.

DeepSeek, which writes the answer

The server forwards your messages, and any screenshot you sent, to DeepSeek's service to write the reply. DeepSeek is a company based in China. Its own privacy policy says the data it collects may be stored on servers in China. Read it here: DeepSeek Privacy Policy.

That policy covers DeepSeek's own apps and website. It says that apps built on DeepSeek's service, like CritterPal, are not covered by it. CritterPal can't see or control what DeepSeek keeps or how long it keeps it. So please don't put anything in chat, or on a screenshot, that you wouldn't want an outside company to read: passwords, bank details, private messages, or other people's personal information.

What stays on your Mac

• Your chat history. Saved as text in ~/Library/Application Support/CritterPal/chat.json. It keeps the most recent 200 messages. Screenshots are not saved there, only a note that you shared one.
• Settings, coins, scores, achievements, your critter's name and your install ID. Saved in CritterPal's preferences file.

The screenshot itself is held in the app's memory only long enough to send it, and again for a follow-up within about five minutes. Starting a new chat drops it.

Website accounts

Accounts on this website aren't open yet. When they open, this is what they will use:

• Your birth month and year. We ask first, to check you are 13 or older. If you aren't, we don't ask for anything else and keep nothing.
• Your email address. To log you in, to send receipts and account emails, and to help if you forget your password.
• Your password, stored only in scrambled (hashed) form by the account service. Nobody can read it, including us.
• Your plan, such as Free, Premium Lite or Premium, so the app knows what to unlock.

This website sets no advertising or tracking cookies. The sign-up page remembers, for this browser tab only, if you said you are under 13, so the age question can't simply be tried again.

Payments

Paid plans are paid through Stripe, a payment company. Stripe handles the card details. CritterPal never sees or stores your full card number. We keep a record of what was bought and when, because tax law asks us to. If you are under 18, a parent or guardian needs to agree and pay.

How long data is kept

• On your Mac: until you press New chat in the chat window (for chat history) or delete the app's files (see below).
• On CritterPal's server: your messages and screenshots aren't stored. The daily counters expire on their own, about an hour after the day they belong to ends. The server counts days in UTC. A short per-minute request limiter also keeps brief counters for each install ID and IP address.
• Website account: until you delete it. After you ask, it is deleted within 30 days, including from backups.
• Payment records: as long as tax law requires, usually up to 7 years. Card details stay with Stripe.
• At DeepSeek and Vercel: set by their own policies, not by CritterPal.

Analytics

None at the moment. The app doesn't measure what you do, and neither does this website. If that changes, this page will say so first.

Children

CritterPal is for ages 13 and up. If you are under 18, please get a parent's or guardian's permission before you use chat, because chat sends what you write and any screenshot to an outside company.

CritterPal doesn't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. The sign-up page asks for a birth month and year before anything else, and stops if the answer is under 13. If we learn that a child under 13 has given us personal information, we delete it.

Parents and guardians can ask what we hold about their child, ask us to delete it, or ask us to stop. Email us with the child's account email, or the install ID shown in the app's Settings, and we will reply within 30 days.

How to delete your data

• Clear your chat: open chat and press the pencil button (New chat). That erases the saved chat file.
• Delete the app's files: quit CritterPal, drag it from Applications to the Trash, then delete ~/Library/Application Support/CritterPal. To also remove your settings, coins and install ID, delete ~/Library/Preferences/com.critterpal.app.plist.

The server has no copy of your messages to delete. The daily counters for your install ID and IP address expire by themselves within about a day. For anything DeepSeek holds, contact DeepSeek, using their policy above.

Keeping it safe

Everything between the app, this website and CritterPal's server travels encrypted (HTTPS). The server keeps no chat text. Account passwords are stored only in hashed form, and access to the services that hold account and payment records is limited to the people who run CritterPal. No system is perfectly safe, so if something ever goes wrong we will tell affected users as the law requires.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to show you, correct, export or delete the personal information we hold about you. Email us and we will answer within 30 days. We may ask you to confirm the request from your account email. Using these rights never changes how CritterPal treats you.

If you live in California, the EU or the UK, local law gives you these rights too, and in the EU or UK you can also complain to your data protection authority. Because chat goes to DeepSeek, your messages may be processed in China, where the law may let authorities access data.

This website doesn't respond to "Do Not Track" signals, because it doesn't track you in the first place.

Who runs CritterPal

CritterPal is made by Shengbo. The person or company legally responsible for it, and a postal address, will be listed here before accounts or paid plans open.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the "Last updated" date at the top changes too. If a change affects what is sent or stored, we will say so clearly before it starts.

Contact

Questions or a request about your data: