ShiftHabit app privacy policy

Last updated 9 October 2026

This policy covers the ShiftHabit app for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, including its widgets and its Kip stickers for Messages. It's listed on the App Store as "ShiftHabit: Shift Work Habits" and made by an independent developer, who is named as the seller on the App Store. The website's waitlist has its own notice at /privacy.

The short version

ShiftHabit has no accounts, no advertising, no analytics and no tracking. What you put into the app stays on your devices, unless you turn on one of two things yourself: iCloud sync, which keeps your devices in step through your own iCloud account, and Ask Kip, which sends what's needed to an AI that writes Kip's replies. Both are explained below.

What the app stores, and where

Your habits, check-offs, shifts and roster, your post-shift check-ins, and your settings (such as the hour your day rolls over) are stored on your iPhone or iPad.

The app shares them with its own widgets and Live Activity on that device, and with the ShiftHabit app on your paired Apple Watch through Apple's watch connection. They aren't sent to us.

When you answer "How was the shift?" with Long or Rough, the app marks that shift-day so it can't break a streak. The answer itself is deleted after 14 days; the mark stays. If you take a break (Settings → Take a Break), the app keeps the break's dates so your streaks wait for you.

iCloud sync is off until you turn it on in Settings. Then your habits and check-offs sync through your private iCloud database (Apple's CloudKit), and your shift, rollover hour, roster, shift hours, Sleep Shield setting, the shift-days marked after a hard shift and any break you've taken sync through iCloud's key-value storage. Only your Apple Account can read them; we can't.

Like other apps' data, ShiftHabit's data is included in your device's backups (iCloud Backup or a computer backup), which your Apple Account controls.

Ask Kip (optional: three free questions, then ShiftHabit Pro)

Kip is the app's companion, and you can give Kip another name in Settings. With Ask Kip you can ask about your shift, sleep, caffeine, roster or habits: three questions for free, then with Pro, which also answers your post-shift check-in and writes a short review of your week. Kip's replies are written by Claude, an AI made by Anthropic. Ask Kip stays off until you agree to it on a screen that says what's sent, and you can turn it off at any time in Settings → Ask Kip, your AI companion.

Each time Kip writes you a reply (to a question, a check-in or for the weekly review), the app sends what the reply needs to our server, which passes it to Anthropic: your question and the earlier messages of that conversation (up to five of yours), your check-in and its note, or last week's totals for the weekly review (check-offs, best day, streaks kept, rest days protected, and how many days each habit was done); the time, today's shift and its hours, and whether the Sleep Shield is on; your roster for the week; your habits' names, kinds, goals, shifts and streaks, and whether they're done today; the shift coach's plan for today; your latest check-in; the name you've given Kip; and the app's language. With Pro, it also sends Apple's signed record of your purchase (see Purchases). For a free question, it sends instead a random ID that the app keeps in your device's keychain, used only to count your three free questions. It never sends Apple Health data, your calendars, habit notes or day notes.

If the app recognises a message about self-harm, a medical emergency or driving while very sleepy, it doesn't send that message: it shows a short safety message instead, such as calling your local emergency number. If you then ask something else in the same conversation, the conversation so far, including that message, goes with your question. The app doesn't save your conversations with Kip.

Our server, which runs on Cloudflare, doesn't keep your messages or Kip's replies. To keep Kip's limits, it keeps a one-way code made from your purchase's ID: with a count of that day's messages for two days, and with a mark that this week's review was written for eight days. For free questions, it keeps a one-way code made from that random ID with how many of the three were used, for 400 days, and, so that one network can't use up everyone's free questions, a code made from your network address with that day's count of free questions, for two days. It also keeps a record of each reply's AI cost (the model and the amount of text) for 400 days, with nothing that identifies you. Anthropic keeps what it receives for up to 30 days, may review it for safety and security, and doesn't use it to train its models. Anthropic's privacy policy is at https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy.

Apple Health (optional)

If you allow it, ShiftHabit reads your sleep, step count, resting heart rate and heart rate variability from Apple Health. It shows them in the shift coach and uses them to suggest habits you might check off. Access is read-only: ShiftHabit never writes to Apple Health, doesn't keep copies of your Health data, never sends it to Ask Kip, and never uses it for advertising or marketing. You can change its access at any time in the Health app, or in Settings → Privacy & Security → Health.

Calendars (optional)

To fill in your roster from a calendar, you can let ShiftHabit read the calendars you choose. It looks at the events in those calendars (their titles and times) to work out which shift you're on each day, and keeps only that: each day's shift in your roster. If you choose to follow a calendar, the app reads the next four weeks again when you open it. ShiftHabit never changes your calendars, doesn't keep copies of your events, and never sends them anywhere. You can change its access at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Calendars.

Camera and photos (optional)

To fill in your roster, you can photograph a printed roster or choose a photo of one. The text is read on your device by Apple's built-in text recognition. ShiftHabit doesn't keep the photo, and it isn't uploaded anywhere.

Microphone and speech recognition

ShiftHabit doesn't use the microphone or speech recognition. If you dictate a question to Kip with your keyboard's microphone key, Apple's keyboard turns your speech into text before ShiftHabit sees it.

Notifications (optional)

Habit reminders and Kip's post-shift check-in are scheduled on your device as local notifications. Nothing is sent to a server to deliver them. If you add ShiftHabit to a Focus (Settings → Focus), your choice of which of its notifications come through stays on your device.

Siri, Shortcuts and Control Center

You can switch or check your shift with Siri, the Shortcuts app or Control Center. Apple handles Siri requests under Apple's own privacy policy.

Kip stickers in Messages

The Kip sticker pack in Messages is pictures only. It doesn't read your conversations and collects nothing; Messages sends the stickers you choose like any other sticker.

Purchases

ShiftHabit Pro is sold through the App Store. Apple processes the payment. ShiftHabit only learns whether Pro is active for your Apple Account; it never sees your payment details. When you use Ask Kip with Pro, the app sends Apple's signed record of your Pro purchase to our server, which checks it against Apple's public certificates. That record doesn't include your name, your Apple Account or your payment details. To manage or cancel a subscription, open Settings on your iPhone or iPad, tap your name, then Subscriptions.

Links to other websites

The shift coach's sources and Kip's safety messages link to other websites, such as the CDC and findahelpline.com. Those sites have their own privacy policies.

Crash reports, TestFlight and email

If you've chosen to share analytics with app developers (Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements), Apple may give us crash reports and usage statistics that don't identify you.

If you test ShiftHabit through TestFlight, Apple shares with us the feedback, screenshots and crash reports you send, the name or email address TestFlight has for you, and basic information such as when the beta was installed and opened.

If you email us, we use your message and address only to reply to you.

Backups and deletion

ShiftHabit backs up your habits and their history once each day you use it (Settings → Backups, where you can turn this off or back up now). Backups stay on your device, in the Files app under On My iPhone (or On My iPad) → ShiftHabit → Backups, and the newest ten are kept. They go anywhere else only if you copy them, for example to iCloud Drive. You can also export your check-offs as a CSV file (Settings → Backups → Export as CSV); the file is made on your device and goes only where you send it.

To delete your data, delete ShiftHabit from your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, which also deletes the backups on that device (copies you saved elsewhere stay where you put them). If you turned on iCloud sync, also delete ShiftHabit's data in Settings → your name → iCloud → Manage Account Storage. The random ID for free questions stays in your device's keychain, which iOS doesn't clear when an app is deleted. We don't hold a copy of your app data: Ask Kip's server keeps only the counters above, which expire within eight days, or 400 days for the count of free questions, and the cost records, which don't identify you. If you've emailed us, ask and we'll delete those emails.

Children

ShiftHabit is made for adults who work shifts, and isn't meant for children.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will appear on this page with a new date.

Contact

Questions about privacy: jorgevidvorik@gmail.com