Rooted – Privacy Policy

Last updated: 19 May 2026 · Effective: 19 May 2026

Rooted ("we", "us", "our") is a personal growth and habit-tracking application. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and your rights regarding your data. By using Rooted you agree to the practices described below.

1. Information We Collect

1.1 Account Information

Email address and password (secured via Firebase Authentication)
Display name and profile photo (optional)
Account creation date

1.2 Assessment & Habit Data

Responses to the initial life-assessment quiz (sleep, movement, nutrition, mental health, etc.)
Daily habit completions, streaks, and historical completion dates
Custom habits you create (titles, descriptions, frequency)
Daily intentions you set
Life Score and growth statistics

1.3 Your Life Tree & Star

Tree species preference and custom tree name
Your unique star — a real astronomical catalogue designation (e.g. HIP 71683, HD 4628, TYC 2345-678-1) assigned automatically and uniquely at account creation, drawn from publicly published catalogues (Hipparcos, Henry Draper, SAO, Tycho-2). No two active accounts share the same star.
Your star code (format ROT-XXXXXX) — a short identifier you can share with friends
Star visual properties (catalogue colour class, estimated distance)

1.4 Social / Constellation Features

Star codes of other accounts you voluntarily connect with, along with their display name and star data — stored only after you explicitly add them via the "Connect" feature
No messages, real-location data, contacts, or microphone access is collected

1.5 Technical & Device Data

App preferences (theme, language, notification settings)
Device location permission — used only to calculate local sunrise/sunset for the in-app day/night sky rendering; this data is processed on-device and never stored on our servers
Expo push notification token (only if you enable notifications)
Basic crash diagnostics (via Firebase Crashlytics, if enabled)

2. How We Use Your Data

Core service: personalised habit tracking, life-score calculation, and progress visualisation
Your Life Tree: rendering your tree growth stage, species, ambient weather, and particles
Your Star: displaying your unique star in the cosmos view and allowing friends to connect with you via your star code
Constellations: computing a Minimum Spanning Tree between you and friends you have added, drawing constellation lines in the cosmos view
AI Coaching: your habit data and assessment results are sent to the Groq API to generate coaching responses; this data is processed transiently and not retained by Groq beyond the request
Notifications: sending daily habit reminders you opt into
Service improvement: aggregated, anonymised usage analytics

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal data with third parties for marketing purposes.

3. Star Uniqueness & Reuse Policy

Each Rooted account is permanently assigned exactly one unique star. Assignments are made through an atomic Firestore transaction that increments a global counter — guaranteeing no two active accounts share the same star. If you permanently delete your account, your star index is retired and may eventually be reassigned to a future user. You may not transfer your star to another account.

4. Data Storage & Security

All user data is stored in Google Firebase (Firestore and Firebase Authentication), hosted across Google's secure infrastructure. Data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest. Firestore Security Rules ensure only your authenticated session can read or write your user document.

The global star counter document (meta/starCounter) is readable and writable by any authenticated user, solely to enable atomic unique star assignment at signup. It contains only an integer counter — no personal information.

No system is completely secure. Please use a strong, unique password.

5. Your Rights

Access: view all your data within the app at any time
Correction: update your display name, avatar, habits, and preferences from the app
Deletion: "Delete Account" in Settings permanently removes your Firebase Auth account, all Firestore data, and retires your star. This is irreversible.
Portability: contact us to request a copy of your stored data
Withdraw consent: disable notifications or delete your account at any time

EU/EEA residents have additional rights under GDPR, including the right to lodge a complaint with your national supervisory authority.

6. Children's Privacy

Rooted is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided personal data, contact us and we will delete it promptly.

7. Advertising

Rooted displays advertisements served by Google AdMob (Google LLC). Ads help keep the app free to download and use. Some features in the app (such as the AI coach) offer optional ad-supported unlocks.

To serve ads, Google AdMob may collect and process the following information on your device:

Advertising identifier (Google Advertising ID on Android, IDFA on iOS)
IP address and approximate location (country/region level)
Device type, operating system version, and app version
Ad interaction data (impressions, clicks)

This data is collected by Google and governed by Google's Privacy Policy. You can opt out of personalised advertising at any time:

Android: Settings → Google → Ads → Delete advertising ID
iOS: Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking → disable "Allow Apps to Request to Track"

We do not pass any personally identifiable information (name, email, habit data) to AdMob. Ads are shown based on contextual signals and, where permitted, device-level advertising identifiers only.

8. Third-Party Services

Firebase / Google LLC: authentication, database, hosting — Firebase Privacy Policy
Google AdMob / Google LLC: in-app advertising — Google Privacy Policy
Groq API: AI language model for in-app coaching — Groq Privacy Policy
Expo (Expo Inc.): app build and OTA update infrastructure — Expo Privacy Policy

9. Push Notifications

If you enable reminders, we store an Expo push token tied to your account to deliver daily habit notifications. You can revoke this at any time in Settings → Notifications. Tokens are not used for advertising or shared with third parties.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page will reflect any changes. Continued use of Rooted after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised policy. We will notify you within the app for any significant changes.

11. Contact Us

For privacy questions, data requests, or to report a concern:
neacsuandrei72@gmail.com