Privacy

Last updated 19 September 2026 · Eight Point Labs LLC

This policy covers Area8. For Kept and Keryx Mail, read their separate policies. This website uses Google Analytics for page views.

The short version. Area8 has no account or Area8 server and sends no activity reports to Eight Point Labs. Area8 sends nothing automatically to Eight Point Labs. We cannot read your notes, because we never receive them. Dictation uses only Android's on-device recognizer, with no online fallback. Two optional actions can pass data outside your phone: looking up coordinates for a store address and submitting a rating or review through Google Play. These happen only because you asked and are are explained below in plain terms.

1. What Eight Point Labs collects automatically

Nothing. Eight Point Labs operates no server for Area8, holds no account for you, and receives no automatic copy of anything you enter. Eight Point Labs operates no analytics or crash-reporting service. There is no no advertising SDK anywhere in the app, and nothing reports your activity to us. One honest exception: Area8's on-device writing help is built on Google's ML Kit, and those libraries ship with Google's own delivery component bundled inside them. It belongs to Google, not to us, it sends us nothing, and it cannot be removed without removing the writing help. Information reaches us only if you deliberately send a support email or, during a closed Google Play test, submit private review feedback through Google's review screen.

2. Area8 cannot reach the internet

The Area8 release build does not declare the Android INTERNET permission.

On Android, an app without that permission is blocked by the operating system from opening a network connection at all. That is enforced by the OS, not by our code, so it holds regardless of what our code does or what any library inside the app might try to do. The app also contains no HTTP client library and no WebView.

The honest qualifier. "Area8 cannot reach the internet" is a statement about the Area8 process. It is not a claim that nothing you type can ever reach a network by any route. Android lets any app hand work to a system service, and a system service runs in its own process. Area8 uses Android's speech service only through its dedicated on-device API. The one Android system-service request that may use a network is looking up a store's address (section 6), and Area8 makes that request only when you tap Find coordinates. Google Play's own review screen can separately send a rating and optional review to the Play Store, but only when you choose to submit them. Everywhere else, the missing permission is the whole story.

3. What Area8 stores on your device

Area8 stores these categories on your device:

Stores and units you set up, including any address you enter
People on your roster, including any name, phone number, email, and role you enter
Loops, follow-ups, notes, and closing notes
Photos and files you attach
Reports you generate
Your app settings

This lives in Area8's private storage area, which Android prevents other apps from reading. It is not written to your shared photo gallery, your Documents folder, or anywhere else another app can browse.

Android system backup and device transfer are disabled. The app sets allowBackup="false" and excludes every app-storage domain from both Android's legacy backup rules and its current cloud-backup and device-transfer rules. Android does not move your Area8 data automatically. Data leaves only through the explicit actions described in section 6.

Crash reports stay on your phone too

If Area8 crashes, it writes the error to a file in that same private storage. It is not uploaded, because there is no crash-reporting service to upload it to and the app could not reach one if there were. At most five are kept, and each expires after 30 days. You can turn local crash capture off at any time from Help & feedback; turning it off deletes the reports already on the phone.

A crash file holds the error's class, a bounded list of code locations, whether it happened on the main or a background thread, your device model, and the Android version. Error messages, source filenames, and suppressed errors are excluded by construction, because they can contain note text, names, store numbers, phone numbers, photo paths, or attachment names. The support screen has a button that puts a report into an email draft for you; nothing is sent unless you read the draft and send it. That is the only route by which a crash ever reaches us, and it is worth being straight about the trade: a commercial crash service would tell us about far more bugs than this will. We took the worse bug reporting on purpose.

4. Permissions, and why

Area8 declares two runtime permissions that can ask for your approval. Both are optional, both are asked for at the moment you first use the feature that needs them, and denying either leaves the rest of the app fully working. Android libraries also add non-runtime housekeeping permissions for features such as scheduled reminders and biometric authentication.

Notifications

Used to show your own reminders on your own phone at the time you scheduled them. Reminders are scheduled locally by the operating system. There is no push server, no notification service account, and nothing is sent anywhere to make a reminder appear.

Microphone

Used only for dictation, and only while dictation is active.

Area8 does not perform speech recognition itself. On Android 12 and newer, it first checks that Android has an on-device recognizer ready, then creates only that dedicated on-device recognizer. Area8 never creates Android's generic, potentially network-backed recognizer.

If the phone has no ready on-device recognizer or language pack, dictation is unavailable and Area8 offers typing instead.
On Android 11 and older, Area8 disables dictation because those versions cannot guarantee that the generic recognizer will stay on the device.
Area8 has no online speech fallback.
Area8 never writes the audio to disk. The recording is not saved, not cached, and not included in backups or exports. Only the resulting text is kept, and only in the note you were writing.

You can deny the microphone permission and type your notes instead. Nothing else in Area8 is affected.

Area8 does not request location access and does not track where you are.

5. Photos

Area8 uses Android's photo picker, so it sees only the images you select and never your whole library. When you attach a photo, Area8 copies it into its own private storage; the original in your gallery is untouched.

On import, Area8 strips privacy-sensitive EXIF metadata from the copy:

All GPS tags: latitude, longitude, altitude, timestamp, direction, speed, destination, and processing method
Camera body serial number, lens serial number, camera owner name, and artist

Orientation and capture date are kept, because the app uses them to display and sort your photos. The intent is that a photo of a walk-in door does not carry the store's coordinates into every backup and every shared report.

Honest limits. This strip is best-effort and works on standard JPEG images. If a file is in a format whose metadata cannot be edited, the copy keeps its original bytes, metadata included. We do not re-encode your photos, because doing so would visibly degrade them.

6. Things that hand data to another app, at your request

Area8 cannot send anything anywhere on its own. It can, when you tap a button, pass data to another app you chose or to an Android system service named in the action. In every case below you start the handoff. From that point on, the receiving app or service's privacy policy governs, not ours.

Add to calendar. Opens your calendar app with a pre-filled event you must confirm, carrying the loop's title, notes, store address, date, and time. Area8 holds no calendar permission and cannot read your calendar.
Share a report. Opens the Android share sheet with the single PDF you generated.
Call, text, or email a person. Opens your phone, messaging, or email app with only the number or address you stored for that person.
An address on a store. Opens your maps app with that store's address.
Find coordinates. Saving or editing a store address does not look it up. Only when you tap Find coordinates, read the disclosure, and confirm does Area8 ask Android's system geocoder to convert the address into coordinates. The system geocoder may send the typed address to its provider's online service. What is handed over is the address text you typed, and nothing else. Never your own location: Area8 holds no location permission and cannot ask where you are. Area8 keeps only the returned latitude and longitude, not the provider's raw response. You can skip lookup and save normally, and a missing or unavailable geocoder only means Area8 cannot offer a route-distance estimate.
Rate or review Area8. After enough use, Area8 may show Google Play's own review screen once. If you choose to submit, Google Play collects the star rating and any optional review text, encrypts them in transit, and uses them for a Play Store review. A public review is displayed on Google Play. Feedback submitted from a closed test can instead be shared privately with the developer. You can edit or delete a review through your Google Play Store or Google Account. Area8 does not receive a copy through its own process.
Contact support. Opens your email app with a draft you can read and edit, containing your message plus the app version, phone make and model, Android version, and last speech diagnostic. You may also attach a sanitized local crash report. All of it is visible in the draft and nothing is sent until you send it.
Export a backup. Saves an unencrypted backup file where you choose (section 7).

Shared files are exposed through a restricted mechanism that grants the receiving app one-shot access to that single file only. Your database and the photos held inside the app are not reachable this way.

7. Backup files

New Area8 backups are ordinary ZIP archives, not encrypted files. Anyone with access to a backup can read its contents. Save it in a private location you control. If you choose a cloud drive, that provider receives the file and its policies apply.

Older password-protected Area8 backups can still be restored with their original password. Eight Point Labs does not have that password and cannot recover it. Restore offers a preview and a choice to merge records or replace local records; read that choice before confirming.

8. App lock

If you enable the app lock, Area8 uses Android's standard biometric prompt. Your fingerprint or face data is held in your phone's secure hardware and is never made available to Area8. The app receives only a yes or no result.

9. Other people's information

Area8 is built for keeping notes about the managers you work with, so you will be recording information about other people. That information stays on your device under your control. You can archive someone, which keeps their history searchable, or delete them and every note about them permanently. You are responsible for what you record and for any obligations your employer or local law places on you.

10. Children

Area8 is a tool for people who manage retail or restaurant locations. It is not directed at children. Eight Point Labs does not knowingly collect information directly from children.

11. Your data rights

Area8 has no account or server and sends us nothing automatically. If you choose to send a support email, it is ordinary correspondence held by Eight Point Labs. You may ask us to delete that correspondence by writing to the privacy address below. If you submit a Google Play review, Google controls that review; you can edit or delete it through your Google Play Store or Google Account. Closed-test feedback may also be visible privately to the developer.

Your data is on your device and under your control:

Export it at any time via the backup feature.
Delete individual items in the app.
Delete everything by uninstalling Area8. Android removes the app's private storage with it. Any backup files you personally saved elsewhere are not affected, and you should delete those yourself if you want them gone.

We do not sell support correspondence or closed-test feedback, use it for advertising, or add it to a profile about you.

12. Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the revised version will be posted at this address with a new date. Material changes affecting how the app handles your information will also be noted in the app's release notes.

13. Contact

Eight Point Labs LLC
Privacy questions: privacy@eightpointlabs.com
Anything else: support@eightpointlabs.com

How to verify this yourself

You do not have to take our word for sections 1 and 2. Anyone with a copy of the Android package can check the strongest claims directly:

No internet access. Inspect the app's manifest with aapt dump permissions or any APK inspector. You will find POST_NOTIFICATIONS and RECORD_AUDIO, plus a handful of housekeeping permissions that come from Android's own libraries. You will not find android.permission.INTERNET.
No system backup. The same manifest shows android:allowBackup="false".
No trackers. Area8 can be scanned by a third-party tracker analyser such as Exodus Privacy, which reads the package and lists any known tracking library inside it.