Privacy policy
This privacy policy explains which personal data the Mallow app and the website mallow.care handle, why, and what your rights are.
Who we are
Mallow, the app and this website, is made by Northbound, a sole proprietorship (eenmanszaak) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KvK) under number 99692260. We are responsible for the personal data described on this page. For questions, requests or worries, write to hello@mallow.care.
The app
Your duck and your nights stay on your phone
Everything you tell Mallow, and everything it keeps for you, is saved on your phone only. That includes your duck’s name, your bedtime and wake-up time, the apps you picked, your nights, dreams, stars, streak, looks and settings. The app has no accounts, and none of this leaves your phone. Delete the app and it’s gone. You can also wipe it yourself: Settings, Your data, Start over.
A new phone
If your phone backs up its apps (iCloud on iPhone, Google’s backup on Android), that backup includes Mallow’s game, so your duck comes along to a new phone. The backup is kept in your own Apple or Google account, under their privacy policies; we never see it. Mallow Plus belongs to your Apple ID or Google account: on a new phone, it comes back when you restore purchases.
Putting apps to sleep
- iPhone. Mallow uses Apple’s Screen Time to pause the apps you pick between bedtime and wake-up. You choose them in Apple’s own picker. iOS keeps your choice and tells Mallow only how many you picked, never which ones. It all happens on your phone.
- Android. Mallow uses Android’s accessibility service for one thing only: to notice which app comes to the front between bedtime and wake-up, so that if it’s one you picked, Mallow can show its sleep screen instead. The service can’t read what’s on your screen, and Mallow keeps no history of what you open. To let you choose, Mallow lists the apps on your home screen; that list stays on your phone too. You decide whether to switch the service on, and you can switch it off at any time in your phone’s settings. On phones where Android’s Advanced Protection doesn’t allow this, Mallow checks that on the phone itself and doesn’t pause apps.
Notifications
If you allow notifications, Mallow schedules them on your phone: its bedtime reminder, a quiet good morning as the night ends, and, when you start a free week, a reminder two days before it ends. No notification server is involved, and nothing is sent to us.
Mallow Plus
Subscriptions are bought and paid for through the App Store or Google Play. Apple or Google handle the payment under their own privacy policies, and we never receive your name, card or bank details. To know whether your subscription is active, the app checks it through RevenueCat, which receives what the store says about your purchase (what was bought, when, and until when) with a random ID for this install, never your name or email.
Sharing
When you share your week or your streak, your phone asks where it should go, and only what you share goes there. We aren’t involved.
Promo codes
If you were on the waitlist, the launch email gives you your own promo code. Redeeming a promo code in the app sends only that code to mallow.care, which checks it and counts how many times it has been used (a code works on up to three phones). We keep that count, with the time, for nothing else. Nothing about your duck or your nights is sent.
Anonymous usage stats
To see what works in Mallow and what doesn’t (for example, where people get stuck in the first steps, or how many come back after a week), the app sends us a few usage stats: which screens are opened, and moments such as tucking Mallow in, a morning’s reward, starting Mallow Plus or sharing, with a few numbers like the streak. Each comes with technical details, such as the app version, the type of phone, its system, screen size, language and time zone, and a random ID that the app makes up, so we can tell that two visits came from the same phone. If something in the app breaks, it also sends a report of the error, so we can fix it: what failed in the app’s code and on which screen, with the same technical details. When a purchase doesn’t go through, that report also says which plan it was and how the App Store responded (for example, whether it answered at all, or whether the phone allows purchases).
They never include your duck’s name, your times, the apps you picked or anything you type, and the random ID isn’t linked to your name, email or Apple or Google account. We don’t look up where you are. We use the stats only to improve Mallow, never for ads, and never sell or share them. They’re processed for us by PostHog, on its servers in the European Union.
You can switch them off at any time: Settings, Your data, Share anonymous usage stats. From then on the app sends nothing.
No ads or tracking
The app contains no advertising, and it doesn’t track you across other apps or websites.
Previews in a browser
A preview of the app may run in a web browser, for testing. It keeps the game in the browser’s own storage on your device, in the same way.
The website
The waitlist
If you join the waitlist, we keep your email address and the time you joined. We use it to tell you when Mallow launches and to send the occasional Mallow news, and for nothing else. Every email has a way to unsubscribe.
If you came to the site from one of our links or from another website, we also note where from, as a single short name such as “tiktok” or “instagram” (the tag on our link, or the name of the site that linked here). It tells us which of our posts bring people, and it’s stored with your address. Nothing else about your visit is kept.
Analytics and cookies
Only if you say yes, the site uses Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages people read. Until you do, nothing is loaded from Google and no analytics cookies are set. If you agree, Google Analytics sets cookies (named _ga) in your browser for up to two years and receives technical details of your visit, such as your browser, device, approximate location and the pages you open. Google processes this for us under its privacy policy; ad features are switched off. The site runs no ads.
Your answer is remembered in your browser’s local storage for a year. You can change it at any time with “Cookie settings” at the bottom of every page; saying no removes the analytics cookies.
Late at night the page nudges you to bed, once per visit. It remembers that it did in your browser’s session storage, which stays on your device and is gone when you close the tab.
Hosting
The site and the waitlist run on Cloudflare. Like any host, Cloudflare handles the technical details of each visit (such as your IP address) to deliver the site and protect it from attacks.
When you write to us
If you email hello@mallow.care, we use your message and address to answer you.
Why we may use it
- The waitlist: your consent (article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR). You can withdraw it at any time by unsubscribing or writing to us; that doesn’t affect what we did before.
- Emails you send us: our legitimate interest in answering you, or the steps you ask us to take (article 6(1)(f) and (b)).
- Website analytics: your consent (article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR), which you can withdraw at any time with “Cookie settings”.
- Keeping the site working and safe: our legitimate interest in a secure website (article 6(1)(f)).
- The app’s usage stats: our legitimate interest in understanding how Mallow is used, so we can improve it (article 6(1)(f)). We keep them anonymous and minimal, and you can object at any time with the switch in Settings.
Your duck, your nights and your apps never reach us, so we don’t process them at all.
Who helps us
We never sell or rent personal data, and we don’t share it for advertising. A few services help us run Mallow, each only for its own task and bound by a data processing agreement:
- Cloudflare hosts the website, stores the waitlist and forwards email sent to hello@mallow.care (its privacy policy).
- Google processes the website’s visit statistics through Google Analytics, which may involve transfers outside the European Union (its privacy policy).
- PostHog processes the app’s usage stats, on its servers in the European Union (its privacy policy).
- RevenueCat checks Mallow Plus purchases with the App Store and Google Play and keeps their records, with a random ID per install, on its servers in the United States (its privacy policy).
- Our email provider receives the emails you send us, and an email service may send our emails to the waitlist. We’ll name it here when we start sending.
Apple and Google handle app downloads and purchases as independent companies, under their own privacy policies.
Some of these services may process data outside the European Economic Area, for example in the United States. Where they do, the transfer is protected by an adequacy decision (such as the EU–US Data Privacy Framework) or by the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses.
How long we keep it
- The waitlist: until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove you.
- Emails with you: as long as we need to help you, and no longer than two years after our last contact, unless the law requires us to keep them longer.
- Technical visit data at Cloudflare: for the short time Cloudflare needs it, under its own policy.
- The app’s usage stats: no longer than two years, then they’re deleted.
- The app’s data: on your phone, until you delete it or the app.
Your rights
You can ask us to show you the personal data we have about you, to correct or delete it, to limit what we do with it, or to send it to you in a common format. You can also object to how we use it, and withdraw your consent at any time. Write to hello@mallow.care. We answer within a month, and may ask you to confirm it’s really you (for example, by replying from the same address).
If you’re unhappy with how we handle your data, please tell us first. You also have the right to complain to the Dutch Data Protection Authority, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, or the authority where you live.
The app’s data is on your phone, so you are always in control of it. Delete it in Settings, under Your data, with Start over, or delete the app. The usage stats are tied only to a random ID, not to you, so we usually can’t find yours by your name or email; switching them off in Settings stops them at once.
Children
The app asks no one for personal data, children included, and its usage stats are anonymous. The waitlist is for people aged 16 and over. If you think someone younger has given us their email address, tell us and we’ll delete it.
Security
We keep as little as we can, which is the best protection there is. The waitlist is stored with Cloudflare, where only we can read it. On your phone, your game is protected by your phone’s own security.
Changes
If we change how Mallow handles data, for example to add a feature that needs it, we’ll update this page and the date below. If a change matters, we’ll tell you before it applies, in the app or by email.
Last updated 26 October 2026.