The Lowdown: Privacy policy

Welcome to The Lowdown app. This app creates a customizable slideshow displaying RSS feeds, photos, weather, and calendar events.  This app can be run from the standard launcher or used as a screensaver.

Data collected

I, Jaeson Munro (app developer), hereby state, to the best of my knowledge, that The Lowdown app will not collect any personal data. All data provided by the user to The Lowdown app is saved only on the app, and can be removed at any time by deleting the app from the device.  No data is transmitted to myself or any third party, with the exception of coarse location data, which is provided only to the appropriate weather API service in order to provide the user with local weather data in the app.

Google User Data

The Lowdown app accesses the following forms of Google user data:

  • Google Photos (Read Only): The user can select one or more photo albums from their Google Photos library, from which the app will randomly select photos to display as part of the slide show. The app only reads data from Google Photos if the user has enabled the ‘Photos’ option in the app settings.

  • Google Calendar (Read Only): The user can select one or more calendars from their Google Calendar account. If this option is enabled, the app will generate slides which display upcoming events and appointments from the selected calendars. The app only reads data from Google Calendar if the user has enabled the ‘Calendar’ option in the app settings.

  • Google User Profile Info: Used in conjunction with Google Photos and/or Google Calendar, as sign-in is required to access data from those services. The Lowdown app also displays User name, email address, and avatar on the settings page within the app, in order to identify the currently active Google account for the user.

Sharing Google User Data

We will not share your Google user data. All google user data used by the app is made available in-app only, to the user only. The Lowdown app does not transmit, or make available, user data to any third party, the developer, or anyone else.

Data Protection Mechanisms For Sensitive Data

Security procedures are in place to protect the confidentiality of your data:

  • Secure Access: All user data for The Lowdown app is accessed from Google Cloud APIs via secure protocol (https).

  • Minimal Acquisition: The Lowdown app only accesses the minimum amount of data needed to provide the functionality that the user has requested by enabling said functionality from within the app setting.

  • Minimal Retention: The Lowdown app will only retain acquired user data for the period of time where it is needed to provide the functionality that the user has requested by enabling said functionality from within the app setting. After this described time period, such data is explicitly removed from the app.

  • Zero Data Sharing: The Lowdown app does not transmit, or make available, user data to any third party, the developer, or anyone else.

Explanation of requested permissions

android.permission.INTERNET

Needed for retrieving RSS feeds, weather data, and sporting event data from the web.

android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION

Needed to provide the appropriate weather API with a coarse location in order to retrieve local weather forecasts.  Also used to filter television event listings by country.

googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.profile

Needed in conjunction with access to photos and/or calendar access, to provide the capability to display photos and/or calendar events.

  

googleapis.com/auth/photoslibrary.readonly

Needed to provide the capability to display photos from the user’s Google Photos library

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googleapis.com/auth/calendar.readonly

Needed to provide the capability to display events stored in the user’s Google Calendar