Last updated 30 September 2026
Depth Ecology collects nothing. There is no account and no sign-up, and your journal is never sent to us — we run no server that could receive it. It is written on your phone. On an iPhone it is also backed up to your own iCloud, which we cannot read; on Android there is no backup at all, and it stays on the phone. This page exists to say exactly that.
The app has no login and no user accounts. We do not ask for your name, your email address, or anything else, and we operate no server for your journal to be sent to. Your subscription is handled entirely by the store you bought it through — Apple on an iPhone, Google Play on Android — and we never see your Apple ID or your Google account.
Your observations, life events, depth narratives and symbols — including any place you choose to attach — are stored in the app's own private storage on your phone.
On an iPhone they are protected by iOS Data Protection, the encryption built into your phone, which keeps app data encrypted with a key tied to your device passcode. Setting a passcode matters — without one, iOS has no secret to protect the files with.
On Android they are protected by Android's own storage encryption, which ties app data to your screen lock. The same applies: set a PIN, pattern or password, or there is nothing for that encryption to be keyed to.
We want to be precise rather than flattering here: the app does not add a second layer of encryption of its own, on the phone or in iCloud, and it does not hold a separate password for your journal. What guards your entries is your device, its passcode or screen lock, and — for the iCloud backup — your Apple account.
On an iPhone the app keeps a copy of your journal in your own iCloud account — not on any server of ours — so that losing or replacing your phone does not mean losing your writing. It is saved automatically, in the background, and only when something has actually changed. When you install the app on a new device signed in to the same Apple ID, it offers to bring the journal back.
Two things worth being clear about. The copy is written to the app's private area of your iCloud container, so it does not appear in the Files app alongside your other documents. And it is your iCloud: the data is held under your Apple account, subject to Apple's terms and whatever protections you have enabled on it, and we have no access to it, no key for it, and no way to read it. We never receive a copy.
The backup does not stop when a subscription ends: we are not willing to let anyone lose a journal over a billing failure. If you would rather not have one at all, you can remove the stored copy at any time and switch iCloud off for the app — see Deleting your journal below.
There is no backup on Android yet. The journal is kept only on the phone you write it on: the app sends it nowhere, and Android's own device backup and phone-to-phone transfer are set not to include it. The honest consequence is that losing or replacing an Android phone loses the journal, so exporting a PDF now and then is worth doing.
Nothing is shared automatically, and coaches have no access to anything. Sharing happens only when you export a PDF yourself and choose to send it — produced on your device, at your instruction, to a recipient you pick.
On an iPhone, only Apple, who distribute the app through the App Store, handle your subscription, and store the iCloud backup described above under your own Apple account. On Android, only Google, who distribute the app through Google Play and handle your subscription.
Dictation uses the phone's own speech recognition, and by default it runs entirely on your phone: what you speak is transcribed on the device and your voice is not sent anywhere. Settings holds a switch called Online dictation, which is off unless you turn it on and confirm a prompt that says what it does. With it on, the audio you record while dictating is sent away to be transcribed and the text sent back — on an iPhone it is sent to Apple, and on Android to your phone's speech recognition service, which on most phones is Google's — under that company's own privacy policy. It is used for nothing else, your entries themselves still stay on the device, and you can switch it off again at any time.
The app uses no artificial-intelligence service, and sends your journal to no one: we use no other third-party services in the app, and no processor of ours touches your journal, because we have none.
Location access is optional and off until you turn it on. When you use it, the place becomes part of the entry and stays on the device under the same protection as the rest of your journal. It is not collected in the background or used for anything else. The microphone is used only while you are dictating.
Deleting the app removes the journal from the phone. There is no account to close and no copy on any server of ours to erase, because none was ever created. On Android that is everything: there is no backup anywhere else.
On an iPhone, the iCloud backup is separate, and deleting the app does not remove it. That is deliberate — it is what lets you reinstall and get your writing back — but it means erasing everything is two steps. To remove the stored copy, go to Settings › [your name] › iCloud › Manage Account Storage on your iPhone, find Depth Ecology, and delete its data. It is your iCloud account, so that deletion is yours to make and takes effect without us.
Since we hold no personal data about you, there is nothing for us to disclose, correct, export or erase on request — your journal is yours, on your device and, on an iPhone, in your own iCloud, and you can read, edit, export it as a PDF, or delete it at any time without asking us. The one thing we could not do, even if you asked, is hand over or delete your journal on your behalf: we have never had a copy of it. If you have a question about this policy, including under the UK GDPR or EU GDPR, write to contact@personalis.io.
Depth Ecology is intended for adults and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone, children included.
If this policy changes we will update this page and change the date at the top. If a future version of the app ever adds an account, a backup on Android, or sends your journal anywhere other than your own iCloud, this page will say so before that version ships.
Questions about privacy, or about this policy, go to contact@personalis.io.