Privacy policy

29 October 2026

Stolen Minutes is a phone app that shows how long the phone has been unlocked. Most of that record stays on the phone. This page says what leaves the phone, and when.

On the phone

Unlock times, wake time, bedtime, the apps you mark as excluded, the theme, and how long the floating timer stays hidden are stored on the phone. The app can read Android usage access so it can count unlocked time and skip excluded apps. App names leave the phone only in Keep me honest reports, and only if you turn sharing on (see below).

A status message you write, and the choice of no photo, a gallery photo, or a selfie, stay on the phone until you share them. Sharing uses the phone’s own share sheet, and the photo goes only to the app you pick.

Reasons you write before opening an app, and any time limit you give them, are stored on the phone.

If you turn on focus during meetings, the app reads the calendars synced to the phone to find when your meetings start and end. It reads only times, whether an event is busy or all-day, and whether you declined it, not titles, places or guests. None of it leaves the phone.

You can export a file of unlocks. That file leaves the phone only when you send it. It does not include app names.

Weekly board

Sharing is off until you turn it on. Turning it on asks you to sign in with Google and choose a nickname. Sign-in creates an account with Firebase, Google’s service, for that Google account.

While sharing is on, finished days from the current week can be uploaded. Today is not uploaded. A day is included only when tracking was on and no excluded apps were set that day. For each of those days the app stores the date, the nickname, the unlocked time, and the phone’s timezone. Only that signed-in account can read those day records.

The weekly board entry is public. It has the nickname, the week’s unlocked time, the week, and how many days counted. The board is published on stolenminutes.app, where anyone, including search engines, can read it, and past weeks stay listed. A link for that week can show the nickname, the percentile, the rank, and the unlocked time. The link contains an account id. The page does not display that id.

Turning sharing off stops new uploads. It does not remove rows already on the board.

Keep me honest

Keep me honest pairs you with one person you choose, so they can see your phone use. You can have several pairings, one per person, and each is separate: a partner never sees another partner’s reports. It is off until you add or accept a partner. Doing so signs the app in to Firebase, Google’s service, with an anonymous account, or with your Google account if you already signed in for the weekly board.

In each pairing, each of you chooses whether to share. One of you can share and the other only watch, or you can both share. Before your phone shares anything, it shows you what will be sent, using your own numbers from the day before, and asks you to agree. While you share, the ongoing Stolen Minutes notification names the partners who receive your reports.

While you share with a partner, your phone sends them a report about twice a day: around 2pm for the day so far, and after midnight for the day that ended. A report contains:

• the date, your timezone, total unlocked time and number of unlocks;
• the time spent in each app that day, with app names (up to 40 apps);
• the apps you have excluded, and each time you added or removed one that day;
• whether tracking was on, whether usage access was allowed, and whether an excluded app was used.

Reports are end-to-end encrypted on your phone for your partner, and signed so they can’t be altered. Only your partner’s phone can read them. Stolen Minutes and Google can’t. Your names are encrypted the same way.

Reports you receive are kept on your phone for 35 days. Reports you sent are kept on your partner’s phone in the same way, and Stolen Minutes cannot delete them from there.

To stop sharing, turn off Share my phone use in the pairing, or tap Stop under “Who sees your phone use”. To end a pairing, open it and tap End Keep me honest.

Focus groups

A focus group is for focusing together. Nobody’s phone use is shared in a focus group. Any member can ask the group to focus for a while. The session’s times and strictness, and each member’s answer (joined, not this time, left early, and how many breaks), are signed and end-to-end encrypted with the group’s key, so only members can read them. Group and member names are encrypted the same way. Sessions are deleted automatically after two days.

To wake other members’ phones when a session is proposed, the app stores a Firebase Cloud Messaging token for your account; the push it sends carries only the group’s id. Tokens unused for 60 days are deleted automatically.

What Firebase sees for pairings and groups

Firebase stores, readable by Firebase and Google: which accounts are in each pairing or group and which kind it is, each member’s role, each member’s public keys, when each member’s app last synced, the time and size of each report, and who proposed or answered each focus session. Encrypted reports wait in the recipient’s mailbox until their phone collects them, then they are deleted. A report nobody collects is deleted automatically after about two weeks. Invite links and join requests work for 48 hours and are deleted automatically after that. The secret part of a link is never sent to a server.

If you uninstall Stolen Minutes without deleting your data, the other members’ phones tidy up after you. Anyone whose app hasn’t synced for 14 days is removed by the admin’s phone, and reports still waiting for them are deleted automatically within about two weeks. If the admin is the one who hasn’t synced for 14 days, the first other member whose phone notices becomes the admin and removes them. A pairing or group none of whose members has synced for 30 days is deleted automatically.

To remove all of it, open the Act tab, open Keep me honest or Focus groups, then tap Delete my Keep me honest and group data. That ends your pairings, deletes the focus groups you created, leaves the others, withdraws join requests, deletes reports waiting for you, and deletes the anonymous account.

Status images

The app downloads ready-made status images and their list from the Stolen Minutes website, which Firebase Hosting serves. Like any website, Hosting sees your phone’s IP address when it does. Nothing about you or your phone use is sent. An image leaves the phone only when you share it.

Tips

The app is free. An optional tip is handled by Google Play. Stolen Minutes does not receive your card number.

Delete the account

In the app, open Settings, find Leaderboard, and tap Delete account. That removes the Google sign-in, the nickname, the private day records, that account’s rows on the weekly board, and its Keep me honest groups as described above. Unlock history on the phone stays.

If Google asks you to sign in again, that sign-in finishes the deletion.

Children

Stolen Minutes is not directed at children under 13.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top of this page will change.

Contact

Questions about this policy can be sent to the developer contact on the Google Play listing for Stolen Minutes.