Privacy Policy

Our Core Privacy Principle

CircadianShield is built on a simple principle: your screen, health, and activity data stay on your device. The desktop app processes that data locally. Our website, licensing, purchases, and optional anonymous usage statistics use limited server-side data as described below.

What CircadianShield Accesses

Location (Optional)

CircadianShield requests your approximate location to calculate solar position (sunrise, sunset, solar elevation) for accurate circadian filtering. This data is:

• Processed entirely on your Mac
• Never transmitted to any server
• Used only for solar calculations
• Replaceable with manual city selection if you decline location access

Display Settings

CircadianShield adjusts your display's color temperature and brightness using macOS system APIs (CoreGraphics gamma ramps, Night Shift, accessibility color filters). These changes are applied locally and are fully reversible.

Ambient Light Sensor (Optional, Pro)

If enabled, CircadianShield reads the built-in ambient light sensor via IOKit to adapt screen brightness to room lighting. Sensor data is processed locally and never stored or transmitted.

Activity Detection

CircadianShield monitors keyboard and mouse activity timing (not content) to:

• Detect user inactivity for filter pausing
• Detect flow states for break deferral
• Track screen time duration

This data is processed locally and used only for app functionality. We do not record what you type, what apps you use, or what content you view.

Running Applications

CircadianShield detects the frontmost application's bundle identifier to apply per-app color profiles and smart pause features (e.g., disabling the filter during color-critical apps). We do not record application usage history or transmit this information.

What We Do NOT Collect

• No personal information (name, email, phone number)
• No screen content, recordings, or screenshots
• No browsing history collected by the desktop app
• No keystroke logging
• No cloud sync of your settings or health data
• No advertising SDKs or cross-app tracking
• No identifiable usage tracking (the optional usage statistics described below are anonymous and can be switched off)

License Validation

CircadianShield validates your license key with our self-hosted licensing server when you activate or periodically re-validate your license. This involves transmitting only your license key and a device identifier, and receiving validation status in return. No other data is shared. The licensing server is operated by Circadian Shield Inc. and does not store personal information beyond what is necessary for license management.

Anonymous Usage Statistics

The app sends optional, anonymous usage and technical diagnostics to help us understand which features are used and troubleshoot compatibility problems. Events may include a random-looking Support ID derived from a one-way hardware identifier hash, event name, app and operating-system versions, processor architecture, hardware model family, number and type of connected displays, HDR capability, permission states, license tier, and categorized display errors. We do not send the raw hardware identifier, serial number, hostname, username, email, license key, precise location, screen content, files, browsing history, or text you type. The Support ID is visible in Settings so you may choose to give it to Circadian Shield Support, allowing us to locate these anonymous diagnostics. You can switch this collection off at any time in Settings.

Website Analytics

Our website (circadianshield.com) uses Google Analytics 4, PostHog and Microsoft Clarity to understand traffic patterns and how pages are used, including interactions with the demo videos. Clarity records anonymised session activity such as clicks, scrolling and mouse movement, and masks text you type by default. Both are standard, cookie-based web analytics and are completely separate from the CircadianShield application. Within the app, the only data sent is the optional anonymous usage statistics described above, which you can switch off in Settings.

When you follow a checkout link, we also create random browser and checkout identifiers to understand which marketing source led to a purchase. We store the first and most recent CircadianShield landing paths, the referring site's host and path (not its query string), UTM campaign fields, advertising click identifiers when present, the selected product and platform, and a country code supplied by our network provider. We do not store your IP address, name, email, or a search engine's query string in this attribution record. The opaque checkout identifier is passed to Stripe, where it can be associated with your order. The browser identifier expires after 90 days of inactivity.

Data Storage

Settings, health scores, break statistics, light debt history, and screen content remain locally on your computer. Optional anonymous app diagnostics, website analytics, checkout attribution, licensing, and purchase records are stored separately as described above. Anonymous diagnostic records are used for aggregate product analytics and support troubleshooting.

Children's Privacy

CircadianShield does not knowingly collect information from children under 13. The app does not collect personal information from any user.

Changes to This Policy

We will update this page when our privacy practices materially change.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Email us at [email protected].