Privacy Policy
Last updated: 17 October 2026
This policy explains what Halves collects, why, who it's shared with and the choices you have. Halves is a way to record shared costs with friends: who paid, who owes what, and when it's settled. Halves never moves money.
Who we are
Halves is run by Jack Pennington in the United Kingdom ("we", "us"). We are the data controller for the information described here, under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Contact us at jackcpennington@gmail.com about anything in this policy.
What we collect
Your account
- Your name, email address and a scrambled form of your password (we never see the password itself).
- If you use Sign in with Apple or Google: the account ID they give us, your email address (or Apple's private relay address if you chose Hide My Email) and, on your first Apple sign-in, your name.
- Your profile photo and colour, if you add them.
What you and your friends add
- Friends, groups and group members, including placeholders: people you add by name who aren't on Halves yet.
- Splits and payments: descriptions, amounts, currencies, dates, who paid and who owes what, notes and icons.
- Receipt photos you scan, and the text we read from them.
- Invitations, and requests to link someone's history to their account.
Bank import (only where it's switched on)
- If you connect a bank account, the account details and transactions our open-banking provider passes to us, so you can turn them into splits, and our suggestions about which card payments look shared.
Your devices
- A notification token for each iPhone, Android phone or browser where you allow notifications, so we can tell you about new splits and payments.
- Basic technical records of requests to our servers (such as time, IP address and errors), kept by our hosting provider for security and to fix problems.
We don't use advertising, analytics or tracking tools, and we don't sell your information.
Why we use it
| What we do | Our lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Run your account and the app: sign-in, balances, groups, sync between devices | Contract: we need it to provide Halves |
| Show your splits and payments to the people they involve | Contract |
| Read receipts when you ask us to, and suggest which card payments look shared | Contract |
| Send account emails (confirmation, password reset, email change) | Contract |
| Send notifications, if you allow them | Consent (you can turn them off in your phone's settings or in Halves) |
| Keep Halves secure, prevent abuse and fix problems | Legitimate interests |
| Keep records we're required to keep by law | Legal obligation |
Who can see your information
People you share with. A split or payment is visible to everyone in it, and group activity is visible to the group's members. Your name, photo and colour are shown to people you share splits, groups or friendships with. If you delete your account, splits you shared stay for the other people in them, shown as "Deleted account", so their balances still add up.
Service providers who work on our behalf, only for the purposes above:
| Provider | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Hosting, database, file storage (receipt photos), sending account emails, request logs, and the AI models that read receipt photos and suggest which card payments look shared (Workers AI: not kept after reading, and not used to train models) | Global network, including the US |
| Apple | Sign in with Apple, and delivering notifications to iPhones | US |
| Sign in with Google, and delivering notifications to Android phones (Firebase Cloud Messaging) | US | |
| Your browser's push service | Delivering notifications to the web app, if you allow them | Depends on your browser |
| TrueLayer | Open banking, only if you connect a bank (TrueLayer is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority) | UK / EU |
We may also share information if the law requires it, or to protect the rights and safety of our users.
International transfers
Some providers process data outside the UK, mainly in the US. Where they do, we rely on the UK's adequacy regulations for the US (the UK–US data bridge) for certified companies, or on the International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.
How long we keep it
- Your account and what you add: until you delete your account.
- Receipt photos that aren't attached to a split: deleted after 24 hours.
- Text read from receipts: deleted 7 days after the split is saved; the split itself stays.
- Request logs: kept by our hosting provider for a short period, for security and fixing problems.
- When you delete your account: we delete your sign-in, email, password, Apple or Google links, name, photo, friend list, notification devices, bank connections and imported transactions, and receipt photos that aren't part of a shared split, straight away. Shared splits stay for the other people in them, shown as "Deleted account".
Your rights
You can ask us to give you a copy of your information, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to how we use it, or give it to you in a portable format. You can export your history from Halves and delete your account in Settings › Delete account. For anything else, email jackcpennington@gmail.com. We reply within one month.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.
Children
Halves is for people aged 16 or over. We don't knowingly collect information from younger children; if you think a child has an account, contact us and we'll delete it.
Security
Data is encrypted in transit and stored with our hosting provider's protections. Access to production data is limited to the people who run Halves. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong password or Sign in with Apple or Google.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll tell you in the app or by email before it applies.