Privacy policy

1. Who this policy is from

This policy covers the BIGtextSIGN mobile application ("BIGtextSIGN", "the app") and this website. Both are published by Judge Studios ("we", "us"). You can reach us at cavan@judgestudios.com.

For the purposes of the UK GDPR and the EU General Data Protection Regulation, Judge Studios is the data controller for any personal data you choose to send us — which, in practice, means the contents of a support email and nothing else.

2. Information we do not collect

BIGtextSIGN does not collect, transmit, sell, rent or share any personal information. Specifically, the app does not collect:

• your name, email address, phone number or postal address;
• the text of your signs, or any picture, GIF or sticker you add to one;
• device identifiers, advertising identifiers (IDFA), or any other persistent identifier;
• location data of any kind, precise or coarse;
• contacts, calendars, health data or files outside the app;
• usage analytics, event logs, session recordings, heat maps or crash reports of our own;
• your IP address.

We do not build profiles, we do not run advertising, and there is no behavioural tracking in the app.

3. Information stored on your device

BIGtextSIGN keeps everything it needs in local storage on your own device, inside the app's private container. This is the same place iOS stores any app's own data, and it is not accessible to us or to other apps. The one exception is the home-screen widget, described below: it reads from a storage area shared only between BIGtextSIGN and its own widget, which is still on your device and still closed to every other app.

What is stored there:

• Your three saved signs — the message text, chosen typeface, colours, arrow settings, animation, light effect, orientation, margin and sticker placements.
• Copies of pictures you choose — when you pick a photo or GIF for a background or a sticker, the app copies that file into its own storage. It does this because the system may clear the temporary location the photo picker hands files from, and a sign that loses its picture is not much of a sign.
• Which of the three signs is currently showing, and your display preferences.
• Pictures of the current sign for the home-screen widget — if you use the widget, the app draws the sign that is showing as a picture in each widget size, so the widget can display it. They are replaced each time the sign changes and never leave the device. Bear in mind that anything on your home screen can be seen by anyone who can see your screen.

None of this is transmitted anywhere. It exists only on the device it was created on.

Pictures that no longer belong to any sign are deleted automatically when you leave the Settings screen. Everything else can be cleared by resetting a sign in the app, or removed entirely by deleting the app.

If you have iCloud device backup switched on in iOS, your device backup may include the app's local data, in the same way it includes other apps' data. That backup is between you and Apple under Apple's privacy policy; we have no access to it.

4. Photos

BIGtextSIGN can put a picture behind your message and place photos or animated GIFs on the sign as stickers. To do that it asks the system photo picker for the file you selected.

• The app only ever receives the specific items you choose. It does not read, scan or index your photo library.
• Chosen pictures are copied into the app's private storage on the device.
• Pictures are never uploaded, never sent to us, and never shared with anyone. There is nowhere for them to be sent.
• You can revoke photo access at any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Photos → BIGtextSIGN. The rest of the app carries on working.

5. Permissions

The app requests exactly one permission:

BIGtextSIGN does not request camera, microphone, location, contacts, calendar, notifications, Bluetooth, local network or health access.

6. Network activity

BIGtextSIGN makes no network requests. It has no server, no API and no remote configuration. The eleven typefaces it offers are bundled inside the app rather than downloaded, which is both a privacy decision and a practical one — signs are usually needed in places with poor signal.

The app works identically in aeroplane mode. If you want to verify this, it will run with no network connection of any kind.

7. Third parties and tracking

BIGtextSIGN contains no third-party analytics, attribution, advertising or crash-reporting SDKs. No data about you is disclosed to any third party, because none is gathered in the first place.

The app does not track you across apps or websites owned by other companies, and therefore does not present the App Tracking Transparency prompt. Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, we do not "sell" or "share" personal information, and we have not done so in the preceding twelve months.

8. Information Apple provides to us

BIGtextSIGN is distributed through the App Store. Independently of the app, Apple provides developers with aggregated, anonymised reports about their listing — for example how many times an app was downloaded in a country, or an aggregate crash count. If you have opted in to sharing diagnostics with developers in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements, Apple may include your device's crash logs in what it makes available to us.

We do not receive your identity through any of this, and we cannot connect it to a person. Apple's own handling of App Store data is governed by Apple's privacy policy, not this one.

9. This website

This site is a set of static pages. It sets no cookies, includes no analytics, no tracking pixels and no embedded third-party content — the typeface it uses is served from this same site rather than from a font network.

Our web host records standard server access logs, which may include your IP address, the page requested, and your browser's user-agent string. These are generated by the hosting infrastructure for security and reliability, are not used to identify or profile visitors, and are not combined with anything else.

10. Children

BIGtextSIGN is suitable for all ages and is rated accordingly. It collects no personal information from anyone, including children under 13 (or under 16 in the EEA and UK). There is no sign-up, no messaging, no user-generated content shared with anyone, no in-app purchases and no advertising.

Because nothing is collected, there is nothing for a parent or guardian to request or have deleted. If you believe otherwise, please contact us and we will look into it promptly.

11. Your rights

Data protection law — including the UK and EU GDPR, and the California Consumer Privacy Act — gives you rights over personal data an organisation holds about you: to access it, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to its processing, and to receive a portable copy.

We hold no personal data about users of BIGtextSIGN, so in almost every case these requests are already satisfied. Two practical notes:

• Deleting what the app stores is entirely in your hands: reset a sign inside the app, or delete the app to remove all of it at once. You do not need our involvement and we cannot do it for you.
• If you have emailed us, we will hold that correspondence — your email address and whatever you wrote — for as long as it takes to resolve your question, and then for a reasonable period as a record. Ask us and we will delete it. The lawful basis for holding it is our legitimate interest in answering support requests.

You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority. In the UK that is the Information Commissioner's Office; in the EEA it is the authority for your country of residence.

12. Security and retention

The strongest security measure available to an app is not to hold your data at all, and that is the one BIGtextSIGN uses. Data stored on your device is protected by iOS itself, including the device encryption applied when you have a passcode set.

Retention on the device is entirely under your control. Support emails are retained as described above.

13. Changes to this policy

If BIGtextSIGN ever gains a feature that changes any of this, this page will be updated before that version is released, and the effective date at the top will change. Material changes will also be noted in the App Store release notes for the version that introduces them.

This policy has had no previous versions. It applies from the date shown above.

14. Contact

Questions about this policy, or about privacy in BIGtextSIGN generally:

We aim to answer any privacy enquiry within two business days, and in all cases within the one month required by the GDPR.