Zen Phone Lock — Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Zen Phone Lock ("the app") is published on Google Play by SarvixByte, operated by Shreyansh Raj as an individual developer in India ("we", "us"). This policy explains what data the app accesses, collects, and shares, why, and the choices you have. It applies only to the Zen Phone Lock Android app.

Contact: support@sarvixbyte.com

2. Summary

• No account, no sign-in, and no analytics of our own. We do not run any server that receives your data.
• Your settings, allowed apps, schedules, presets, and session history are stored only on your device.
• Everything the app reads through Android's AccessibilityService API is processed on your device and discarded immediately. It is never collected, stored, or shared.
• The only data that leaves your device is collected by Google's AdMob SDK, which shows the optional rewarded ads (see section 5), and Google Play Billing, which processes purchases (see section 6).
• We never sell your data.

3. Accessibility Service API — prominent disclosure

Zen Phone Lock uses Android's AccessibilityService API. This is the app's core feature: without it, the app cannot detect or block distracting apps. Before you turn it on, the app shows a disclosure explaining what is accessed and why, with two choices: "Agree" or "No thanks". Only "Agree" continues to Android's Accessibility settings. Pressing Back, tapping outside the message, or choosing "No thanks" never counts as consent, and the message never disappears on its own. If you decline, focus sessions can't be started, because they can't be enforced.

During a focus session you start, the service is used only to:

• Detect which app or screen is open (window-change events), so an app you didn't allow is replaced with a restriction screen, or a Zen Balance app is paused once it passes its time limit. During any session it also tells the home screen apart from Recent apps (using the launcher's screen-element names only), so pressing Home returns you to Zen Phone Lock's session screen, where you open apps from its own app grid, while Recent apps keeps working for switching between open apps.
• Read Chrome's address bar text (never page content), to check the site against a small on-device list. Adult sites are blocked in every mode. In Zen Focus Lock, only recognized study and work sites stay open after a short grace period. In Complete Lock, only the categories or sites you chose are blocked. Other browsers are not read.
• Detect YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels by matching each app's own internal screen-element names for its short-video player, so they stay blocked when the rest of the app is allowed. No video, comment, message, or account content is read.
• Handle floating (Picture-in-Picture) video windows of a blocked app: it detects interaction with that window and may tap the window's own close button. As a last resort, if a floating YouTube window can't be classified any other way, it takes a single on-device screenshot of just that window (Android 11 and newer) to check whether the video is vertical. The image is analyzed in memory and discarded immediately. It is never saved, shown, or transmitted.

The service never reads passwords, messages, form fields, or typed text. Nothing it reads is logged, stored, or sent off your device. You can turn it off in Android Settings → Accessibility whenever no focus session is running.

4. Other permissions and what they're used for

• Usage access (Zen Balance and the Awareness screen): reads how many minutes each app has been on screen. Computed on the fly from Android's own records, never stored or transmitted.
• Notification access (required to start a session): during a session, holds back notifications from every other app; they reappear within about two minutes of the session ending. Calls, alarms, emergency alerts, and ongoing notifications (such as a music player) are never held back. Only each notification's app name, category, and flags are checked, never its title, text, or images.
• Display over other apps (optional): shows a small status bubble over a blocked app's floating video, with your remaining time.
• Device admin (force-lock policy only): locks your screen with your own existing PIN, pattern, or biometric when a session blocks something, and makes the app harder to uninstall mid-session. No data wipe, no camera control. The app never sets or sees your lock-screen credential. Deactivate it any time in Android Settings → Security → Device admin apps.
• Call state: detects whether a call is ringing or active (without the READ_PHONE_STATE permission) so incoming calls are never blocked. Your phone number, call log, and contacts are never accessed.
• Installed apps list: shows your apps in the picker so you can choose which stay reachable. The list never leaves your device.
• Network state, notifications, boot completed, exact alarms, battery-optimization exemption: check you're online before an ad-based unlock, show the session countdown, resume an active session or schedule after a restart, start schedules on time, and stop the phone's battery manager from killing enforcement. None of these read, store, or transmit personal data.

5. Advertising (Google AdMob) — data collected and shared

Ads appear only when you choose to watch one: "watch ads to end a session early" or "watch an ad for 5 minutes of access". There are no banner or pop-up ads. The ads are served by Google AdMob, a third-party SDK that starts when the app opens and collects the following data, which is transferred to Google:

This data is encrypted in transit and governed by Google's privacy policy (policies.google.com/privacy). We never receive or see it. The app only learns whether you finished an ad, to grant the unlock.

Users in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland are shown Google's consent form (User Messaging Platform) before any ad is requested. You can reset or delete your advertising ID at any time in Android Settings → Google → Ads. Zen Premium subscribers never need to watch ads.

6. Purchases (Google Play Billing)

Zen Premium (a monthly or yearly subscription) and the optional "pay to end a session early" purchase are processed entirely by Google Play Billing. We never see or store your card, UPI, or bank details. The app only receives whether a purchase succeeded. Manage or cancel subscriptions in Google Play → Payments & subscriptions.

7. How enforcement works during a session

• Always reachable: incoming calls, emergency calling, Camera, Calendar, Calculator, and Clock, in every mode.
• Google Play Store: always reachable, in every mode.
• Always restricted in Zen Focus Lock and Complete Lock: outgoing calls from the default Phone app, social media, games, entertainment and video-streaming apps, shopping, food delivery, and quick-commerce apps. This applies to the main mode, presets, and schedules alike.
• Settings and uninstalling: Android Settings and the uninstall screen are never blocked. You can always turn off the app's permissions or uninstall it. During a session, opening either only shows a short reminder that doing so ends your session and breaks your streak.
• Temporary unlock: one rewarded ad unlocks all apps for 5 minutes, up to 2 times per hour.

8. Data retention and deletion

All app data stays on your device until you delete it. Uninstalling the app removes every setting, preset, schedule, and session record immediately. Because we hold no account or server copy, there is nothing for us to delete on our side. To uninstall, first deactivate Device admin (Settings → Security → Device admin apps). Data held by Google's AdMob or Play Billing is retained under Google's own policies. You can manage it in your Google account.

9. Security

App data is kept in the app's private storage, which other apps can't read. Data sent by the AdMob SDK and Play Billing is encrypted in transit (HTTPS).

10. Children

Zen Phone Lock is not directed at children under 13 (or the minimum age where you live), and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. If you believe a child's data was collected through the ad flow, contact us and we'll help.

11. Changes to this policy

If the app's data practices change, we'll update this page before that change ships and change the "Last updated" date above.

12. Contact

SarvixByte (Shreyansh Raj) — support@sarvixbyte.com