Privacy Policy

What we collect

Your account

• Phone number. You sign in with your phone number and a code we send by SMS. We also use it so people who have your number in their contacts can find you on Scribble (see What other people can see).
• Profile. Your display name, your username, an optional profile photo and the date you joined.
• Date of birth. Scribble asks for your birthday before you sign up, unless Apple gives Scribble your age range instead (see the next point). If you sign up, we store it with your account. Only you and our servers can read it, and it’s never shown to other users. If you’re under the minimum age, see Children.
• Age range from Apple. Where Apple’s age assurance applies to you, Scribble asks Apple for your age range during sign-up instead of asking for your birthday, and checks it again when you open the app (see Children). Apple shares only your age range (based on the ages 13, 16 and 18, or the ages your local law sets), how it was set (by you, by a parent or guardian, or checked by Apple, for example with a payment method or an ID), and whether parental controls such as Communication Limits are on. Apple never shares your birthday. Your age range stays on your iPhone and isn’t sent to us.
• Parental approvals. Where the law requires it, a teen or child needs a parent’s or guardian’s approval for significant updates before they can keep using Scribble. The app only learns whether the request was approved or declined, and that answer stays on your iPhone and isn’t sent to us (see Children).

Your scribbles

• When you send a scribble, we store the finished image, who you sent it to and when. Scribble saves your drawing as a new image, so it doesn’t carry over the original photo’s location or camera details.
• With Scribble Pro’s drawing replay, we also store the photo without your drawing and the strokes you drew, so friends can watch it come to life.
• We don’t keep the photos you take or pick unless you send them.

Friends and activity

• Your friend requests and friends, and the people you’ve blocked.
• Your streak: which days you sent a scribble, how many you sent each day, and any Streak Freezes used.
• Referral reward. Which new accounts counted as friends who joined through you, and a summary: how many friends joined through you and how many free months of Scribble Pro you’ve earned. Only you see your count in the app. If you open someone’s add-friend link while your account is at most 7 days old, we note whose link it was and, once you’re friends, that you counted towards their reward. The Terms of Use explain how the reward works.
• A few simple activity facts: how many times you’ve opened the invite sheet, whether you’ve added the Scribble widget to your Home Screen, and whether notifications are on.

How you found Scribble

• Your answer to “How did you hear about Scribble?” This optional question comes after you pick a username. The answers are a friend, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, App Store search, a news article or other. For TikTok or Instagram, you can also name the creator.
• How you joined. Whether you joined through a friend’s add-friend link or QR code.
• Apple Ads attribution. If you installed Scribble after tapping an Apple Ads ad, Apple tells us the campaign, ad group, keyword, country and date of the tap. See How we measure whether Scribble works.

Your contacts (only if you allow it)

• If you let Scribble access your contacts, the app sends their phone numbers to our servers to check which ones belong to Scribble users. Each time you open the Contacts page, it checks again for new matches.
• We don’t store your contacts’ numbers. Names and other contact details never leave your phone.

Notifications and widgets

• A push token for your device, so we can tell you about new scribbles, friend requests and free months you earn, and update your Home Screen widget.
• Streak reminders. While your streak is going, Scribble can remind you in the evening if you haven’t sent today’s scribble yet. These reminders are scheduled on your iPhone itself, and nothing about them is sent to us. You can turn them off in Profile → Streak Reminders or on the Streak page. For users under 18, they start switched off.

Purchases

• If you subscribe to Scribble Pro, Apple handles the payment. Our subscription provider, RevenueCat, tells us whether your subscription is active, which plan you’re on and when it renews or ends. We never see your payment details.

Reports

• If you report a scribble, we store who reported it, the scribble, its sender, the reason you chose and when.

Technical information

• Our servers keep short-lived technical logs, such as user IDs, usernames, request times and errors, to keep Scribble running and secure.
• To block fake apps and abuse, Scribble uses Apple’s App Attest through Firebase App Check to confirm that requests come from the real Scribble app. It isn’t used to identify you.

What we don’t collect

• No advertising identifiers, no third-party analytics or tracking SDKs, and no location data. We don’t track you across other companies’ apps or websites. To see whether Scribble works, we only use Apple’s privacy-preserving ad measurement and our own aggregate counts.
• Scribble may show Apple’s standard prompt asking you to rate the app. Apple handles ratings, and we don’t learn who rated what.

How we use it

• To run Scribble: signing you in, delivering scribbles, notifications and widget updates, friends and streaks. Legal basis: performing our contract with you (the Terms of Use).
• To help you find friends by matching phone numbers. Your contacts are checked only if you allow it, and you can withdraw that permission at any time. Legal basis: performing our contract with you, and our legitimate interest in helping people find their friends.
• To keep Scribble safe: reviewing reports, preventing abuse and spam, suspending accounts that break the rules, and keeping technical logs. Legal basis: our legitimate interests, our legal obligations, and establishing or defending legal claims.
• To check your age: making sure you’re old enough to use Scribble, setting safer defaults for younger users (for example, streak reminders start switched off for under-18s), and, where the law requires it, getting a parent’s or guardian’s approval for significant updates. Legal basis: our legal obligations, and performing our contract with you.
• To see whether Scribble works: how you heard about Scribble and how you joined, your activity facts, Apple Ads attribution and our weekly totals (see How we measure whether Scribble works). Legal basis: our legitimate interest in understanding which features and channels work, and in improving Scribble.
• To provide Scribble Pro if you subscribe. Legal basis: performing our contract with you.
• To run the referral reward: counting friends who joined through you, granting the free months you earn through RevenueCat, and telling you when you earn one. Legal basis: performing our contract with you (the referral reward terms in our Terms of Use), and, for new accounts that count towards someone else’s reward, our legitimate interest in running the program.
• To answer you when you contact us. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in responding, or our legal obligations when you exercise your rights.

We collect most of this data automatically, through the app and our servers, as you use Scribble. Some of it comes straight from you, such as your date of birth and how you heard about Scribble, and Apple Ads attribution comes from Apple. Your age range and parental approvals also come from Apple, but they stay on your iPhone. These legal bases are listed in Article 5 of Türkiye’s KVKK and Article 6 of the EU’s GDPR.

We don’t sell your personal data, and we don’t use it to target ads or build advertising profiles. Apart from the age checks described under Children, we don’t use it to make automated decisions that significantly affect you.

How we measure whether Scribble works

We count things like how many new accounts add a friend or send a scribble in their first week, using data we already hold to run Scribble. Once a week, a job on our servers works out these totals for the people who joined each week. It stores only the totals, not who did what, and it never looks at what’s in your scribbles. We only look at these numbers in aggregate (for example, “62% of people who joined last week added a friend”). We never sell them or use them to target ads.

If you tell us how you heard about Scribble, we store your answer with your account to understand which channels work. We also note whether you joined through a friend’s add-friend link or QR code.

If you installed Scribble after tapping an Apple Ads ad, Apple tells us which campaign and keyword it was (Apple’s AdServices attribution). The app gets a token from Apple, our server sends it to Apple, and Apple replies with the campaign, ad group, keyword, country and date of the tap. We don’t receive any advertising identifier, and we don’t track you across other companies’ apps or websites.

What other people can see

• Your profile. Other Scribble users can see your display name, username and profile photo, for example when they look up your username or scan your Scribble code.
• Your phone number is never shown to other users. But people who have your number in their contacts can find your profile when they let Scribble check their contacts.
• Your scribbles go to the friends you send them to. Only friends can send each other scribbles. Recipients can keep them, share them or take screenshots, and Pro members can save them to Photos, so only send what you’re happy to share.
• Notifications for scribbles you send show your name and a preview of the scribble on your friends’ devices.
• Your date of birth, your age range, your referral count, how you heard about Scribble and your activity facts are never shown to other users.

Who we share it with

We share data only with service providers that help us run Scribble. They may use it only to provide their services to us:

• Google Firebase (Google Cloud): sign-in and SMS codes, our database, file storage, server functions, push notifications, App Check and hosting for this website.
• Apple: push notifications, App Attest, App Store payments, Apple Ads attribution and, where Apple checks your age, age ranges and parental approvals. For attribution, our server sends Apple a token from Apple’s AdServices framework, and Apple tells us whether you installed Scribble after tapping an Apple Ads ad and, if so, which campaign it was. Age ranges and parental approvals go from Apple to the app on your iPhone, not to our servers.
• RevenueCat: Scribble Pro subscriptions, and the free months you earn with the referral reward, which we grant through RevenueCat by your Scribble user ID. RevenueCat knows you by your Scribble user ID, not your name or phone number.

We may also share information if the law requires it, to protect people’s safety or our rights, or as part of a merger or sale of our business. If that happens, this policy will continue to protect your data.

Where your data is stored

Our providers store and process data in the European Union, the United States and other countries. When your data is transferred outside Türkiye or the European Economic Area, we use the safeguards the law requires, such as standard contracts under Article 9 of the KVKK and standard contractual clauses under the GDPR.

How long we keep it

• Your account, profile, friends and streak: until you delete your account.
• Your date of birth: until you delete your account.
• Your age range from Apple and parental approvals: not stored on our servers. They stay on your iPhone until you delete the app.
• How you heard about Scribble, how you joined and your activity facts: until you delete your account.
• Your referral reward (which new accounts counted, whose add-friend links you opened while new, and your totals): until you delete your account.
• Apple Ads attribution: 90 days.
• Weekly totals: kept, because they’re only totals and contain no personal data.
• Scribbles you send: until you delete your account. When a friend deletes a scribble, it’s removed from their inbox.
• Your contacts’ phone numbers: not stored. They’re checked and then discarded.
• Push tokens: until you sign out, or until the token stops working.
• Reports: as long as needed for safety and legal reasons, which may be longer than the reported account exists.
• Server logs: about 30 days.

Deleting your account

Go to Profile → Delete Account in the app. This permanently deletes your account, phone number, date of birth, username, profile and photo, your friends and friend requests, your block list, the scribbles you’ve sent (including from your friends’ inboxes), your inbox, your streak, how you heard about Scribble, how you joined and your activity facts, any Apple Ads attribution, your referral reward record, and your subscription record at RevenueCat.

A few things can remain: reports that involve you, server logs until they expire, our weekly totals (which contain no personal data), copies your friends saved or took screenshots of, and free months of Scribble Pro that other people earned when you counted towards their referral reward.

Deleting your account doesn’t cancel a Scribble Pro subscription, because Apple manages billing. Cancel it in Settings → [your name] → Subscriptions. Deleting the app removes what Scribble stored on your iPhone, but it doesn’t delete your account.

Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live, including under Türkiye’s Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK, Article 11) and the EU’s GDPR, you have the right to:

• find out whether we process your data, and get information about it and a copy of it, in a portable format where applicable
• learn why we process it and whether we use it for that purpose
• know who we transfer it to, in Türkiye or abroad
• have it corrected if it’s incomplete or wrong
• have it deleted or destroyed
• have those corrections and deletions passed on to anyone we’ve transferred it to
• object to a result that goes against you and comes only from automated analysis of your data
• object to or restrict how we use it, and withdraw your consent at any time
• claim compensation if you suffer damage because we processed your data unlawfully

To use these rights, send your request:

• by email from the address you’ve given us, to hello@heyscribble.com
• in writing, to our address under Contact us
• by any other method the KVKK Authority allows

Please include your name, your Scribble username or phone number, and what you’re asking for. We reply free of charge within 30 days.

You can also complain to your data protection authority. In Türkiye, that’s the Personal Data Protection Authority (KVKK); in the EU, it’s the authority in your country.

On your iPhone, you can turn Camera, Photos, Contacts and Notifications access on or off at any time in Settings → Scribble. Scribble works without Contacts access: you can still add friends by username or QR code. The question about how you heard about Scribble is optional, and you can turn off streak reminders in Profile → Streak Reminders.

On your iPhone

To show scribbles on your Home Screen and in notifications, Scribble keeps the latest images and your friends’ names on your device. Stickers you make and your streak reminders stay on your device. Where Apple checks your age, the age range Apple shares and any parental approval or decline also stay on your device and aren’t sent to us. If the age check shows that you can’t sign up yet, the app remembers that on your device and doesn’t send it to us. Deleting the app removes all of this.

Children

You must be at least 13 to use Scribble, 15 if you live in Türkiye, or 16 if you live in Brazil, and under-18s need a parent’s or guardian’s permission (see the Terms of Use).

Before you sign up, Scribble asks for your date of birth. If you’re under 13, under 15 and signing up with a Turkish phone number, or under 16 and signing up with a Brazilian phone number, the app tells you that you can’t sign up and remembers that on your device. Nothing is sent to us in that case. If you sign up, we keep your date of birth with your account to enforce the minimum age and to set safer defaults for under-18s. For example, their streak reminders start switched off.

Age checks through Apple. In some regions, the law requires app stores and apps to check users’ ages. Apple decides where this applies. Today that includes new Apple Accounts in Texas, Utah and Louisiana in the US, and Brazil, and Apple is adding more regions, such as California from January 1, 2027. Where Apple tells Scribble that this applies to you, Scribble asks Apple for your age range during sign-up instead of asking for your birthday, and checks it again when you open the app. If Apple can’t provide your age range, you can enter your birthday instead.

We use the age range only to enforce the minimum age, to set safer defaults for under-18s, and to know when a parent or guardian must approve a significant update. It stays on your iPhone and isn’t sent to us. If it shows that you’re under the minimum age, you can’t sign up, and if you already have an account, it’s deleted.

Parental approval for significant updates. In some regions, the law requires a parent or guardian to approve significant updates to an app, for example a change to its age rating, its features or how it uses data. Where Apple tells Scribble that this applies to a teen or child, they need a parent’s or guardian’s approval after such an update before they can keep using Scribble. Scribble asks for it through Apple: the parent or guardian can approve in Messages or through Family Sharing, or in person on the teen’s iPhone with their Screen Time passcode. The app only learns whether the request was approved or declined, and that answer stays on the iPhone. Until a parent or guardian approves, Scribble can’t be used. Adults in those regions confirm significant updates in an Apple screen. If a parent or guardian withdraws consent, Apple stops Scribble from opening.

We don’t knowingly collect data from children below the minimum age. If you think a child has given us personal data, contact us and we’ll delete it.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit and protected by access rules on our servers. App Check helps block requests that don’t come from the real app. No system is perfectly secure, but we work hard to protect your data.

This website

heyscribble.com doesn’t use cookies, analytics or trackers, and it hosts its own fonts. Its App Store links carry a campaign name (such as “web”), so Apple’s App Store Connect can show us, as totals only, how many people found Scribble through this website. Our hosting provider, Google Cloud EMEA Limited (Google Firebase), processes your IP address to deliver pages and may keep it briefly in its logs.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top. If the changes are significant, we’ll also tell you in the app before they take effect.

Contact us

For questions about this policy or your data, or to exercise your rights, email hello@heyscribble.com or write to us at the address below. More ways to reach us are on our contact page.

Company

DUNA YAZILIM DANIŞMANLIK LİMİTED ŞİRKETİ

Address

Etiler Mah. İncesu Sk. No: 14/5
34337 Beşiktaş, İstanbul, Türkiye

Email

hello@heyscribble.com

Phone

+90 545 288 20 05

MERSİS No

0314159625300001

Trade Registry No

1127527

Tax ID (VKN)

3141596253