PayOwl
Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy describes how PayOwl ("we," "us," or "the Service"), operated by 4KS Studio (Lexington, SC), collects, uses, and protects information when you use our bill tracking application.
1. Information We Collect
1.1 Account Information
When you sign up, we collect your email address, optional display name, and a salted hash of your password (stored by Firebase Authentication — we never see your plaintext password).
1.2 Financial Data You Enter
Bills, revenue sources, and payment/receipt status that you manually add in the app.
1.3 Bank Data (Optional, via Plaid)
If you choose to connect a bank account, Plaid Inc. ("Plaid") collects your banking credentials directly. PayOwl never sees or stores those credentials.
Plaid provides us with: bank account metadata (institution name, account type, last 4 digits), and transaction history (date, amount, merchant, category) for up to 24 months. Plaid's own privacy policy is available at plaid.com/legal.
1.4 Subscription / Payment Data
If you subscribe to PayOwl Pro, Stripe Inc. ("Stripe") processes your payment. We receive your Stripe customer ID, subscription status, plan, and period. We never see or store your full card number.
1.5 Technical Data
Standard server logs (IP, user agent, timestamps) are retained by Google Cloud for operational purposes.
2. How We Use Your Information
We use your information solely to operate PayOwl: display your bills, match bank transactions against bills you've created, sync data across your devices, process subscription payments, and send account-related emails.
We do not sell, share with advertisers, or use your data to train machine learning models.
3. Who We Share Data With
| Provider | Purpose | Data Shared |
|---|---|---|
| Google Cloud / Firebase | Hosting, database, auth | All account & app data |
| Plaid | Bank connection | Plaid access token |
| Stripe | Subscription billing | Email, name, customer ID |
We do not share data with any other third party unless legally required.
4. Data Retention
- Active accounts: data retained while your account is active
- Deleted accounts: all personal data deleted within 30 days
- Plaid access tokens: revoked at Plaid when you disconnect a bank or delete your account
5. Your Rights
- Access: view all your data in the app anytime
- Correct: edit any bill, revenue, or profile field
- Delete: Settings → Account → Delete Account removes everything
- Disconnect banks: Settings → Connected Banks
- Cancel subscription: Settings → Subscription
EU/EEA, UK, and California residents have additional rights under GDPR and CCPA that we honor on request.
6. Security
- TLS 1.2+ encryption in transit
- AES-256 encryption at rest
- Firebase Authentication for user login
- Google Secret Manager for API credentials
- Principle-of-least-privilege access controls
- Automated dependency vulnerability scanning
7. Children's Privacy
PayOwl is not intended for users under 18. We do not knowingly collect data from minors.
8. Changes to This Policy
We will post any changes at this URL. Material changes will trigger an email notification to active users.
9. Optional AI assistance (PayOwl Pro)
PayOwl Pro offers an optional in-app AI advisor that evaluates whether a savings or debt-payoff plan is realistic for your situation. This feature is opt-in and is gated behind a separate consent prompt; the deterministic plan engine works identically without it.
What is sent. When you trigger an AI take we send a privacy-minded summary to Anthropic (the maker of Claude): bill names you typed (not Plaid merchant names), bill amounts and cadences, monthly income summary, 3-month per-category spending averages, the engine's current plan state, and your advisor profile (lifestyle floor per category, near-term expense rows, risk-comfort selection, free-text notes).
What is NOT sent. No Plaid merchant strings, no transaction ids, no account ids, no payment-card data, no email address or other directly identifying information beyond the user id that scopes the request.
Provider, retention, and training. Requests are processed by Anthropic via the Claude API. Anthropic does not train any of its models on this data. PayOwl persists at most ~20 advice responses per user for in-app history; these are pruned automatically after 30 days and deleted in full when you cancel Pro past the grace window or delete your account.
How to revoke. Decline the consent prompt at any time; turn off AI takes by withdrawing consent via account deletion or contacting us. The engine continues to honor your advisor-profile values regardless.
10. Contact
Questions or requests: hello@4ksstudio.com
Company: 4KS Studio, Lexington, SC
For Plaid-specific privacy questions, see plaid.com/legal.