Privacy
Lock-in for iOS · Last updated 7 September 2026
What stays on your device
- Which apps you block. iOS hands the app opaque tokens rather than app names — it is not able to read which apps you chose, only to ask the system to shield them. Those tokens are meaningless on any other device.
- Your schedules, session history, and settings. Stored in the app's own container on the phone.
- Your PIN or rotating-code secret, if you set one. Kept in the iOS Keychain, marked device-only, and never synced to iCloud.
Screen Time data
Lock-in uses Apple's Screen Time APIs to block apps. It has no access to your usage figures — how long you spend in an app, how often you pick up your phone — and Apple's design prevents any third-party app from sending such data anywhere.
Sharing a setup
Before anything is sent, the app shows you exactly what the message will say and what the link will contain. A shared setup carries your schedules, the names of your app lists, your unlock wait, your Lock Screen and Do Not Disturb preferences, and which actions a parental code guards. It never carries which apps you block, because iOS does not let an app read or send that, and it never carries your PIN, your rotating-code secret, or your approver's phone number.
One option on that sheet, History, adds a week of coarse events: a session started, finished or was cut short, a break, a schedule window, a settings change. It never includes which apps you opened or for how long, because the app cannot see that. It is sent only when you pick that option, and it lives behind the same link, with the same expiry.
There are two kinds of link. A direct link keeps the whole setup after the
# in the address, which browsers never transmit to a server, so it goes to the
person you sent it to and to nobody else. A hosted link, the kind the Share
button makes, stores that same setup on a server we run so the page can show it properly and
the message can stay short. A hosted link is reachable only by its address, which is a
128-bit random value nobody can guess or search for. It is deleted after seven
days by a job that runs daily; nothing about who opened it is recorded beyond a
count. Anyone holding the link can download what is behind it, or delete it outright, from
that page and without signing in to anything.
Ask to unlock (optional)
If you set a parental lock and name an approver, the code screens offer Ask … to unlock. Tapping it creates a request on our server and drafts a text to your approver with a link. The request contains: what is being asked (end the session, or a break of N minutes), the session's name as you typed it, how many minutes were left, the wait you configured, and a short reason if you wrote one. It also contains one-way digests of the codes that would be accepted, so the server can check what the approver types without ever holding your PIN or secret. What the approver types is checked and discarded; it is never sent to your phone. Requests expire after ten minutes and are deleted within a day. No name, phone number, or identifier for you or your approver is sent; the approver's number stays in your Messages app. We do not keep the network address a request arrives from: it is hashed on the way in, used only to count requests against a limit, and the counters are cleared daily. The server is a Supabase database in the United States, reached only through takesfocus.com.
Do Not Disturb shortcuts
If you use the optional Shortcuts integration, the app opens the Shortcuts app with the name of a shortcut you configured. No data about you is passed, and Lock-in cannot read your shortcuts.
Purchases
Any purchase is handled entirely by Apple. Lock-in receives a confirmation that a purchase is active. Apple does not share your name, email address, or payment details with us, and we do not ask for them.
Children
Lock-in is set up and operated by adults, for their own phones or a family member's. The only information that can leave a phone is the Ask to unlock request described above, which is created by a deliberate tap and contains no name or identifier. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children, and the optional reason field should be left empty on a child's phone if that is a concern.
Changes
Updated 29 September 2026 to describe Ask to unlock. If a future version sends anything more, this page will say so before that version ships, and the App Store privacy labels will be updated to match.