Arcadio — Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 13, 2026

Freund R&D (“we”, “us”, or “our”) built the Arcadio app. This Privacy Policy explains how Arcadio handles information when you use the app.

1. Information We Collect

Data you provide:

• Account information: Google Sign-In is the only sign-in method Arcadio supports. When you sign in with Google, Arcadio uses your Google account name and email address to authenticate you and personalize setup. Firebase Authentication and Google Sign-In process the sign-in.
• Observations: Text, photos, audio recordings, drawings, GPS coordinates, form field data, and related notes that you capture in the app. This data is stored locally on your device by default.
• Projects, organizations, and templates: Names, colors, logos, form templates, settings, and configuration you create to organize your observations.

Data collected automatically:

• Device location: Location is never collected automatically unless you turn on location tagging in Settings and grant location permission. You can also capture a location manually by tapping the location button on an observation. In both cases, GPS coordinates are captured only at the moment of tagging an observation, never in the background, and they stay on your device unless you export them or enable encrypted Drive backup.
• Crash reports: If the app crashes, Firebase Crashlytics may collect diagnostic information such as device model, OS version, app version, stack trace, and crash state so we can fix bugs.
• Analytics: Firebase Analytics may collect usage events such as screen views and feature usage to help us improve the app.
• Notifications: Firebase Cloud Messaging may process notification tokens and delivery metadata so Arcadio can deliver reminders and app notifications. We may send announcements to all users. When a notification is personalized (for example, showing your observation count), the personalization happens entirely on your device using locally stored data — your usage metrics are never uploaded to us or any server for this purpose.

2. How We Use Your Information

• To provide and maintain the app’s functionality
• To authenticate your Google sign-in and support onboarding
• To create encrypted Google Drive backups when you explicitly enable Drive backup or sync
• To generate on-device captions, OCR, semantic insights, summaries, and local analytics
• To export, share, or restore the records you select
• To display observation locations on maps in the app and include map images in exports you create, when you have enabled location tagging
• To fix bugs, maintain reliability, and improve the app through diagnostics, crash reports, notifications, and analytics
• To let you send an optional diagnostic report by email. The report describes app version, device model, and feature on/off status only — it contains no observation content, media, location values, or personal data, and it is sent through your own email app so you can review it first.

3. Data Storage and Security

• Local-first: Arcadio stores primary app data in the app’s private local database and private files on your device. The local database is protected by Android app sandboxing and device security, but it is not a separately encrypted database.
• Google Drive backup: When enabled, Arcadio encrypts backup data before uploading it to the Google Drive app data folder or Drive file storage associated with the Google account you choose. Freund R&D does not host or operate a separate cloud database for your observation data.
• Encryption password: Your Drive backup encryption password is required to restore encrypted backups. We cannot recover it for you.
• Authentication state: Firebase and Google manage sign-in state. Arcadio stores limited local session preferences in app-private storage and clears them on sign-out.

4. Third-Party Services

Arcadio uses the following third-party services, each with their own privacy policies:

• Firebase (Google): Authentication, Analytics, Crashlytics, Cloud Messaging
• Google Drive API: Encrypted backup storage (when enabled)
• Google Maps: Displaying observation locations on maps in the app, and generating map images for PDF and image exports of observations that have GPS coordinates
• Google ML Kit and Gemini Nano: On-device image labeling, text recognition, document scanning, and AI assistance when available

5. On-Device Machine Learning

All AI features in Arcadio — image captioning, automatic titles, OCR, document scanning, and semantic assistance — run entirely on your device using Gemini Nano and ML Kit when available and enabled. Arcadio never sends your observations, images, audio, or notes to any cloud AI provider or to a Freund R&D backend for AI processing.

6. Permissions

• Camera: To take photos for observations
• Microphone: To record audio notes and use speech-to-text
• Location: To tag observations with GPS coordinates — only when you turn on location tagging in Settings; never collected in the background
• Photos and files: To attach media, import documents, create exports, and restore backups
• Network: For Google sign-in, Firebase services, Google Drive backup/sync, Google Maps, and notification delivery
• Notifications: For sync status and reminders

7. Data Retention and Deletion

• Your observation data remains on your device until you delete it.
• Encrypted Google Drive backups can be deleted from your Google Drive account or through supported in-app backup cleanup controls.
• Uninstalling the app removes app-private local data from the device unless you restored or exported copies elsewhere.
• Exports and shared files remain wherever you saved or sent them until you delete them from that destination.
• You may request deletion of account-associated Firebase or support data by using the public deletion instructions listed for Arcadio in Google Play or by contacting us at the email below.

8. Children’s Privacy

Arcadio is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of changes by updating the “Last updated” date at the top of this policy.

10. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, contact us at:

Email: design@josephfreund.com