Cute Split Privacy Policy

The short version: so that several people can see the same expenses, Cute Split works online. You sign in with your mobile number, and what you record is kept on our server. Your personal expenses are seen by nobody else unless you share one on purpose. There are no ads, and we never sell your data.

So that several people can see the same expenses, the app works online: you sign in with your mobile number and what you record is kept on our server, so the people you split with can see what is shared with them. This page says what we keep, who can see it, which services help us, and how to delete it.

1. What we keep

Your mobile number. To sign you in, and so friends who know your number can add you.
Your name, the one you type in the app.
What you record: the friends you add (the name or nickname you give them and their number, if you add one), groups, expenses, payments, notes and your own categories.
Invitations: who invited whom, when, and whether it was accepted.
Reminders: when you remind a friend about a payment, the time of that reminder, for one day, so a friend is reminded at most once a day. It holds no amount and no message.
Your UPI ID, only if you choose to add it in Settings, so the friends you are connected with can pay you from their own UPI app. Cute Split never takes part in the payment.
Sign-in details: the name of your phone (for example “Pixel 7”), a random installation id, and when it was last used. They keep you signed in and let you sign a phone out.
Safety: the people you block and the reports you send.

We do not collect your location, camera, microphone, photo library, your contact list or the photos in it (they stay on your phone), your text messages, an advertising id or analytics about how you use the app. There are no ads.

2. Who can see your data

You, on every phone you are signed in on.
People in a group with you see everything in that group (expenses, payments, the members’ names). If you add somebody to a group later, they see the group’s whole history, so they can catch up. They never see anybody’s personal expenses.
People you split an expense with outside a group, or share one expense with, see that expense only.
Your personal expenses are seen by nobody else unless you share one on purpose.
Your friend list is private to you. When you add somebody by their number, they get an invitation showing your name and number. Until they accept it they see nothing else of yours: no groups, expenses or payments. You can use them straight away, even before they have the app.
People you are connected with (you added each other, or one of you accepted the other’s invitation) see your name and your whole mobile number. Everybody else only sees a hidden form of it (such as +91 •••••••210). Knowing a number does not tell anybody whether it has an account.
Your UPI ID, if you add one, is seen only by people you are connected with, and never by somebody who has blocked you or whom you have blocked. You can remove it at any time.

If you add a friend by number, we keep that number in your list and in a record for that person, so that if they join later, what you shared with them reaches them. You can leave any group, and block a person so that what they add you to is hidden from you.

We never sell your data and never use it for advertising.

3. Services that help us

Cloudflare hosts the service and the database. It may also keep ordinary technical logs, such as your network address, for a short time for security.
MSG91 sends your sign-in code by WhatsApp or text message. It receives your number and the code. We never see or keep the code.
WhatsApp (Meta) delivers the code when it is sent by WhatsApp.
Google Firebase Cloud Messaging delivers notifications. The quiet “something changed” messages contain no personal data, and we do not keep your phone’s push token.

These services handle data under their own policies and may process it outside India.

4. Permissions on your phone

Internet, to sign in and sync.
Notifications, optional, so you hear when somebody adds you to a group or reminds you about a payment.
Contacts: to add a friend you choose one contact in your phone’s own picker, or type a number. That needs no permission, and only the contact you pick reaches the app. The app never uploads your contact list. Optional: if you switch on Contact photos in Settings (or say yes when asked after choosing a contact), Android asks you to allow Contacts. The app then looks up the photo you have saved for a friend, by their phone number, only when it shows that friend. The photo is held in the phone’s memory while the app is running; it is never saved by the app and never sent to us or to anybody else. Without the permission, people show their initials. You can switch it off in Settings or in your phone’s settings at any time.
Sign-in code: the app can fill in the code from the message, using Google’s “SMS User Consent”. Android asks you first and shows the app only the one message. The app cannot read your messages.
UPI apps: when you record a payment in rupees, the app asks Android which UPI apps are installed (PhonePe, Google Pay and so on), only to show buttons that open them. That stays on your phone: nothing about your apps is sent to us. When you tap one of those apps, the app copies your friend’s number to your phone’s clipboard so you can paste it there, and opens that app. You make the payment inside it with your own UPI PIN. The app never sees your PIN, does not know whether you paid until you tell it, and never handles the money.

5. How long we keep it

We keep your data while your account exists. When you delete an expense, a marker stays for up to 90 days so that your other phones and the people you share it with learn that it was deleted; then it is removed for good. For anti-abuse limits we keep a scrambled (hashed) form of your network address and counters for about a day. A short security log of sign-ins, sign-outs and account deletions (no expenses, no names) is kept for up to six months.

6. Deleting your data

You can delete your account in the app (Settings), or without the app on the delete account page, using a code sent to your number. Deleting:

signs you out everywhere and removes your number, your friend list, your categories and your blocks;
removes your personal expenses and payments (large amounts are removed in the nightly clean-up);
takes you out of every group;
keeps what is shared with other people, such as a group expense you paid, because their records of who owes whom must not change. Your name there becomes “Deleted user” and your number is gone.

7. Your rights

You can change your name, edit or delete your items, leave groups, block and report people, and delete your account at any time. You can ask us to correct or erase your data, or ask what we hold, by writing to info@rocuo.com. If you are in India, this includes your rights under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and you can use the same address for complaints.

8. Security

Everything travels over HTTPS. The server checks who is asking on every request, so you only ever receive your own data and what is shared with you. Your sign-in on the phone is kept in Android’s protected storage. No system is perfectly safe, but we keep what we hold small.

9. Children

Cute Split is for people aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly keep data of children.

10. Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we change the version number at the top and the app asks you to read and accept the new version the next time you use it. Continuing to use the app after that means you accept it.

11. Contact

Write to info@rocuo.com, or use the Cute Split page on Google Play.

Privacy policy,in plain words.