Privacy Policy

Effective October 24, 2026 · Updated November 9, 2026

Fish Bowl is built to stay out of your business. The short version: your slips stay on your phone, nothing about you is collected, tracked or sold, and iCloud is used only for an aquarium you choose to share with someone.

What the app stores

Your slips, the ones you've caught, your points, your fish and what they wear, your weekly album and your settings are saved in a file on your device. Nothing is sent to us or to anyone else. There are no accounts and no sign-in. Deleting the app deletes all of it.

What the app collects about you

Nothing. Fish Bowl has no analytics, no advertising, no crash reporting of its own, and no third-party tracking of any kind. The app does not use your location, contacts or camera.

Shared aquariums and iCloud

If you make a shared aquarium or accept an invitation to one, that aquarium's slips, its roster (the name you chose, your fish, and who caught what) and its settings are stored in Apple's iCloud, in the iCloud account of the person who made it, using Apple's CloudKit sharing. Only people who accept an invitation can see it; there is no public access and no server of ours in between. Since version 1.1, everything the app writes there is encrypted on your phone before it is sent (CloudKit encrypted fields), and only the people in the aquarium can open it. With Apple's Advanced Data Protection turned on, the keys exist only on your devices and theirs, and Apple cannot read it; without it, Apple holds a key as well, as it does for most iCloud data. Version 1.0 of the app reads and writes only an older form that is not encrypted on the phone. While anyone in an aquarium is still on version 1.0, every phone in it writes that older form beside the encrypted one, so that person's phone keeps working; once everyone in it has updated, only the encrypted form is written. The last copy in the older form stays in iCloud beside it. Only the people in the aquarium can reach that copy, and Apple can read it whether or not Advanced Data Protection is on. The name you give yourself in an aquarium, or the first name on your Apple Account if you don't give one, is visible to the others in it. Leaving an aquarium, or the maker taking you out of it, removes it from your phone; the maker letting it go deletes it from iCloud.

Your own bowl in iCloud (Fish Bowl Plus)

With Fish Bowl Plus, the app keeps a copy of your own bowl (your slips, fish, points, weeks and settings) in your own iCloud account, so that deleting and reinstalling the app on the same Apple Account can bring it back. It is encrypted on your phone before it is sent, the same way as a shared aquarium, and it is kept where only your Apple Account can reach it; there is no server of ours in between. With Apple's Advanced Data Protection turned on, only your devices hold the keys; without it, Apple holds one as well. You can delete that copy at any time from the app (Settings → Remove my bowl from iCloud…), and stop the app from keeping one. Without Fish Bowl Plus, nothing about your bowl leaves the phone unless you make a backup file yourself.

So that you are the same person in an aquarium on every device you own, the app keeps a random identifier and your chosen name in your own iCloud key-value storage. It is visible only to you and the app.

Apple's handling of iCloud data is covered by Apple's privacy policy.

Microphone and speech

If you turn on Listen while a timer is running, the app uses the microphone and Apple's on-device speech recognition to hear a few short phrases ("I'm starting", "I need a break", "I'm done"). Recognition happens on your phone; no audio is recorded, stored or sent anywhere. Listening is off by default, stops when you leave the timer screen, and the microphone indicator shows while it is on.

Siri, notifications and Apple Focus

Siri shortcuts and the timer's "ding" notification are handled by iOS on your device. The "Quiet while you work" setting only points you to Apple's own Focus settings; the app cannot see or change them.

Photos and sharing

When you choose Save Video, the app writes a clip of your bowl to your Photos library. It never reads your photos. Anything you share from the app (a clip, a caught card, a note to a friend, an aquarium invitation) goes only to the app or person you choose in the share sheet.

Purchases

Fish Bowl Plus is bought through Apple's App Store. We receive no payment details and no personal information from a purchase; Apple's receipt is checked on your device.

The sync log

The app keeps a short log on your phone of what it did with iCloud and Siri, to help fix problems. Its iCloud lines hold aquarium names, the first names of the people in them, counts, timestamps and iCloud's error messages, never the text of a slip. The log never leaves your phone unless you choose Send a report (below), and deleting the app deletes it.

When you contact us

If you send a message through the contact form on this site, we receive what you wrote and the email address you provided.

If you use Send a report or an idea in the app's Settings, we receive what you wrote, the email address you typed, the name you go by in the app, and the facts a bug report needs: the app's version, your phone's model and iOS version, whether iCloud is signed in, whether you have Fish Bowl Plus, how many slips and aquariums you have, your text size, and the iCloud lines of the sync log described above. The sheet shows all of it under What's included before you send, and nothing is sent until you tap Send.

Either way the message is relayed to our inbox by email through Microsoft Azure, which hosts this site. We use it only to reply and to fix the problem you reported. It is never shared or sold, and it is deleted when the conversation is done.

Children

Fish Bowl does not collect personal information from anyone, including children.

Changes

If this policy ever changes, the new version will be posted at this address with a new effective date.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Use the contact form.