Privacy Policy

How the filter works

Guardly uses Android’s VPN permission to run a local DNS filter. Only DNS lookups — the step where the phone turns a name like example.com into an address — are routed into it; the rest of your traffic does not pass through Guardly at all, and nothing is sent through a remote VPN server.

A name on your blocklist is answered on the phone with an empty address, so the site cannot load. Search engines are answered with their enforced safe-search versions. Every other lookup is passed on to a family-filtering DNS resolver: Cloudflare for Families (1.1.1.3 and 1.0.0.3), or CleanBrowsing’s family filter (185.228.168.10 and 185.228.169.11) as a fallback.

What the DNS resolvers receive

Like any DNS service — including the one your phone would use without Guardly — the resolver receives the name being looked up and your network’s IP address. Cloudflare and CleanBrowsing handle that under their own privacy policies, at cloudflare.com/privacypolicy and cleanbrowsing.org/privacy. We never receive it.

What Guardly never records

The filter does not keep the names you look up, the pages you visit, screenshots or anything you type. There is no browsing history in the app, on the phone or anywhere else, and so there is nothing to report to anyone — a contact, a parent or us.

What the app stores on your phone

In the app’s private storage on the device, and nowhere else:

• Your settings: blocked categories, apps and sites, the allow list, focus windows and any pending countdowns.
• A count of blocked requests, and a log of boundary events — a site added, a removal requested, a disconnect — never the sites you visit.
• A secret generated on the device, kept in Android’s secure storage, from which the one-time codes are derived.
• Your streak and milestones, and the “why I started” note if you write one.
• Your accountability contact’s name, email and phone number, if you add one.

Accountability alerts

Alerts to your contact are prepared on the phone and sent by you, through your own messaging or email app. They say that the boundary was challenged — for example that removal was requested — and never what anyone browsed. We do not send, receive or store them.

The other things that use the network

• The clock check: to stop the 72-hour wait being skipped by changing the date, the app reads the time from the Date header of an ordinary request to cloudflare.com, google.com or apple.com. Nothing about you is sent with it.
• The home network test: when you set up your Wi-Fi, the app asks that network’s own DNS whether a few adult sites resolve, to tell you whether the router is protected.

Permissions

• VPN — to run the local DNS filter described above.
• Device administrator — for uninstall protection only. It is lifted when you complete removal.
• Notifications — to deliver your one-time code and boundary alerts. They are local notifications, generated on the phone.
• Start at boot and foreground service — so the filter is running before the phone is unlocked, and stays running when the app is closed.
• Installed apps — Guardly checks only for a fixed list of social apps (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, Snapchat and similar) so it can offer to uninstall them. It cannot see your other apps, and the result never leaves the phone.

Advertising

Guardly is free and may show ads, served by Google AdMob, which is part of Google. Ads appear only on a few settings and information screens — never on the Panic screen, during setup or while removing protection — and whether they appear at all is controlled by the app’s remote settings. Every ad request is non-personalised and limited to general-audience content.

To select and measure an ad, AdMob receives your device’s advertising identifier, your IP address and coarse information about the device and app — for example the model, the operating system version and the app version — along with whether an ad was shown or tapped. It never receives the sites you visit or anything about your blocklist. Where the law requires it (for example in the EEA and the UK), Google’s consent form asks you first. Google acts as an independent controller of that information under its own privacy policy, at policies.google.com/privacy.

Analytics and crash reporting

Guardly uses Google Firebase to know that the app works and how many people use it. Firebase Analytics records that the app was installed and opened, which of its screens were shown and how long it was used; Firebase Crashlytics sends a report when the app crashes — the error, where in the code it happened and the state of the device. Firebase Remote Config fetches the app’s remote settings, such as whether ads are on.

These services receive a Firebase installation identifier, your device’s advertising identifier, your IP address and basic information about the device and the app. They never receive the sites you visit, what was blocked, your contact’s details or your notes. Google processes this data on our behalf under its terms at firebase.google.com/terms/data-processing-terms.

What we do not do

• We do not ask you to create an account, and we do not know who you are.
• We do not see, log, sell or share your browsing — we never have it.
• We cannot unlock your phone, shorten a countdown or read your one-time codes.

Children

Guardly is used by adults for themselves and by parents for their household. It does not collect personal information from anyone, children included.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in a way that affects you, the revised version will be published on this page with a new revision date. Continuing to use Guardly after that date means the revised policy applies.