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Privacy Policy

Effective date: September 23, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how the Power Prepper mobile application ("the App"), developed by Power Prepper LLC, handles information.

The short version

Power Prepper is offline-first. We run no server that receives what you enter, and we do not collect, sell, or share your personal data. Your searches, AI answers, photos you analyze, saved items, and everything you type stay on your device. The App goes online only when you ask it to: once on first run to download its offline library, when you download an offline map region, when you download a translation language pack from Google (the translating itself happens on your phone), when you tap Refresh in News to download public news and hazard headlines directly from their publishers, when you open the worldwide earthquake list or official alerts (public feeds, with nothing about you in the request), and — if you turn on Weather Alerts — to ask the US National Weather Service which alerts are active for your area, and — only if your phone has no offline speech recognizer and you agree — to let your phone's own online speech service turn a voice command into text. Weather Alerts is the one feature that sends your location off the device, and it goes to the Weather Service, never to us.

Two things are easy to miss, so they are stated up front. First, Android's own backup service copies some of what you save in the App to your Google account, so it can survive a reinstall or move to a new phone — see "Android backup". Second, the supply-label scanner is built on Google's ML Kit, which reads the label entirely on your phone but sends its own diagnostic and usage data to Google — see "Internet access".

Information we do NOT collect

We run no server that receives what you enter. We do not collect your name, email, location history, contacts, search queries, photos, or health readings, and the App carries no advertising, tracking, or analytics component of ours. There is no account and no sign-in.

Three honest qualifications:

Our download host, like any web server, sees the IP address your phone connects from when it fetches the library, a map region, or the file manifest. We do not use it to identify you, build a profile, or connect it to anything you do in the App.
Google's ML Kit, which powers the supply-label scanner and on-device translation, sends usage and diagnostic data to Google. That is Google's component, not ours, and the text and barcodes it reads — and any text it translates — never leave your phone. Google describes what it sends at https://developers.google.com/ml-kit/android-data-disclosure.
The optional Weather Alerts lookup sends your coordinates from your phone straight to the US National Weather Service. It never reaches us.

Data stored on your device

Some features store data on your device — for example saved passages, waypoints and your breadcrumb trail, checklists, supply inventory, your medical profile and emergency contacts, the patient log, documents you add to the vault, and learning progress. We never receive any of it. You can delete any item inside the App, and clearing the App's data or uninstalling removes it from the phone.

One important qualification: uninstalling does not remove a copy that Android's backup service may already hold. See the next section.

Android backup

Android backs up app data by default, and we deliberately leave that on: if your phone is lost, stolen, or broken, losing your emergency medical profile, contacts, and checklists is the greater harm. What that means in practice:

What is backed up. The records the App keeps in Android's app-settings storage — your medical profile and emergency contacts, patient log entries including pulse readings, waypoints and breadcrumb trail, mesh messages and your last GPS fix, checklists, supply inventory, trip plans, saved items, and app preferences — are included in Android Auto Backup to your Google account and in Android's device-to-device transfer. They can be restored onto a new phone, and uninstalling the App by itself does not delete them from that backup.
What is never backed up. The Documents vault (photos of IDs, insurance, deeds, prescriptions) is excluded from both cloud backup and device transfer, so it stays on the one phone. The downloaded library, AI models, and offline map files are excluded as well, because they are large and can simply be downloaded again.
Who can read it. That backup belongs to Android and to your Google account, not to us. Google states that Android backup data is end-to-end encrypted with your device's PIN, pattern, or password, so Google cannot read it. We never receive it, cannot read it, and cannot delete it — there is no copy on our side, and no request to us can remove one.
How to stop it, or remove it. To stop future backups: Android Settings, then Google, then Backup — turn backup off, or exclude Power Prepper if your phone offers per-app control. To delete a backup already taken: Android Settings, then Google, then Backup, select the device and delete it; you can also manage backups from your Google account on drive.google.com. Do this before you uninstall if you want nothing to survive.

Health information

Some features handle health information. All of it is entered or produced on your phone, and all of it is covered by the two sections above:

Your medical profile and emergency ID — conditions, allergies, medications, blood type, and contacts — which you enter yourself.
The patient log, a timestamped list of vitals and observations you record during an incident.
The pulse tool, which estimates a heart rate from your fingertip on the camera lens with the torch on. The estimate is computed on your phone and is written automatically into the patient log with a timestamp, so the trend is there when help arrives. It is an estimate for field awareness, not a medical measurement.

We never receive any of this. It is not sold, shared, or used for advertising. It is included in Android's backup as described above, and you can clear the log or any profile entry in the App at any time.

Device permissions

The App may ask for certain permissions to enable features you choose to use:

Camera — for photos used in on-device plant, mushroom, and creature identification; for the supply-label scanner that reads expiry dates and barcodes into your inventory; and for the pulse tool described above. Images are analyzed on your phone and are not uploaded.
Location (GPS) and sensors — for the offline compass, navigation, and coordinate features. Your location is used on-device only, with one exception you switch on yourself: Weather Alerts. If you enable it, the App sends your coordinates — rounded to four decimal places, roughly 11 metres — directly to the US National Weather Service (api.weather.gov) so it can return the alerts active for your area. That request goes from your phone to weather.gov with no server of ours in between: we never receive your location and we do not store it. The coordinates are also saved in the alert cache on your device so the alerts can be read offline. If you never enable Weather Alerts, your location never leaves your device.
Microphone — three tools listen, and only while you have their screen open. Hands-free voice search asks Android for offline, on-device recognition first; if your phone has none, the App asks you before using your phone's online speech service (see "Internet access"). Either way the words are turned into text by your phone's own speech service, not by us. The sound-level meter and the audio and ultrasonic spectrum analyzer capture a continuous audio stream at 48 kHz and analyze it in memory on your phone; that audio is never written to a file, never saved, and never uploaded — only the numbers it produces, such as the decibel level and the frequencies present, appear on screen.
Bluetooth — the Receive hub scans for nearby Bluetooth devices so it can spot off-grid gear such as a mesh node or a receiver dongle; while a scan window is open the App lists the device names and signal strengths it hears. If you pick a Meshtastic node and tap connect, the App also pairs with that one device so you can send and receive mesh messages over its radio. That traffic travels between your phone and the node you chose; none of it reaches us, and no scan result is ever sent anywhere. The permission is declared "never for location".
Nearby devices (Nearby chat) — if you open Nearby chat and turn on "Visible to nearby phones", the App uses Android's Nearby Connections service to find and link directly to other phones running Power Prepper, up to about 100 metres away, over Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy and Wi-Fi Direct. This is not an internet connection: no server, no cell network and nothing of ours is involved. Phones nearby with Nearby chat open can see the display name you choose. Phones you are linked to receive the messages you send and, only when you tap "I'm safe", "I need help" or SOS, the position your phone had at that moment; group messages can be passed on by those phones to others (up to four hops), while direct messages go only to the one phone you picked. Links are encrypted by Android's Nearby service, but anyone whose phone a group message reaches can read it. Your messages are saved only on your phone (in its app-settings storage, so Android backup covers them as described above) and on the phones they reach; you can clear your copy in Nearby chat at any time, but we cannot delete copies on other people's phones. The radio is on only while the Nearby chat screen is open. On Android 13 and later the Wi-Fi part is declared "never for location"; on Android 12 Android also requires the location permission for this scanning.
Notifications — for the trip-plan check-in reminder, and for the ongoing notice Android requires while the breadcrumb trail is recording in the background. Both are scheduled and shown by your phone.

You can deny or revoke any of these in your device settings; the related feature will simply be unavailable.

Internet access

The App is offline-first and needs no connection for its core features. There are eleven times it may use the internet. The first nine happen only when you ask; the purchase check also runs quietly at startup so an unlock you already own keeps working; and the ML Kit diagnostics ride along whenever you use the label scanner or translation.

One-time library download — on first run the App downloads its offline survival library and AI models (several gigabytes) from our content delivery service, after showing you the size and asking you to start it. This is an ordinary file download: it sends nothing about you beyond a standard web request, and once complete the library lives on your device and the App runs fully offline.
Offline map regions — when you pick a region in the offline map, the App downloads that map file from the same content delivery service, again after showing you its size. It is the same ordinary file download, and the map then works with no connection.
Google ML Kit translation model download (only when you request it) — if the App is set to a language other than English, you can download a translation language pack (about 30 MB) so AI answers and library passages can be translated into your language. The pack comes from Google's servers, and only when you tap Download in Settings or on an answer; on mobile data the App asks first. It is an ordinary file download that sends nothing about you beyond a standard web request. The translation itself runs entirely on your phone: the text you translate is never sent to Google, to us, or anywhere else.
News refresh — when you open News and tap "Refresh", the App downloads the latest articles directly from public sources (BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, USGS earthquakes, the NOAA National Hurricane Center, and the CDC). It connects only when you tap Refresh, asks for your consent the first time, sends nothing about you beyond an ordinary web request, and stores the articles only on your device. We operate no server in between.
Weather alerts — if you open Weather Alerts and tap "Enable", the App asks the US National Weather Service (api.weather.gov) which alerts are active where you are. This is the one request that includes your location: your coordinates, rounded to four decimal places, are sent to weather.gov as part of the query. Nothing happens until you tap Enable (the same one-time consent as News); after that the App checks when you open the screen or tap Refresh, and caches the alerts on your device to read offline. The request goes straight from your phone to the Weather Service, which is a US government agency with its own privacy practices — we operate no server in between and never receive or store your location.
Worldwide earthquakes — when you open Earthquakes worldwide (or pull to refresh), the App downloads the public list of recent earthquakes from our Earthquake Alert AI service (which combines public EMSC, USGS and Colombian Geological Survey data), falling back to the USGS public feed if ours is unreachable. The request contains nothing about you — no location, no identifier — only what any web request carries, such as your IP address, which our hosting provider (Cloudflare) may keep in short-lived request logs; we do not use it to identify you. Your distance and the estimated shaking where you are are calculated on your phone, from a position that never leaves it.
Official alerts outside the US — if you open Weather Alerts and tap "Enable", the App downloads public warning feeds for your country directly from their publishers: Meteoalarm (Europe), IDEAM (Colombia), INMET (Brazil), NOAA tsunami.gov, and the USGS volcano notification service. These requests do not include your location; matching warnings to where you are happens on your phone. As with every download, the App caches them to read offline.
Links and hand-offs you choose — "Find the book" opens a book search in your browser, a news headline opens the publisher's page, and Send Location or a trip check-in opens your own messaging app with the text already filled in for you to send or discard. We do not control the third-party sites or apps you hand off to.
Online speech recognition, only if you agree — hands-free voice search uses your phone's on-device recognizer. If your phone has none installed, the App asks you first, and only then hands the voice command to your phone's own online speech service (usually Google's) to turn into text. That service's provider processes the audio under its own privacy policy; we never receive the audio or the words, and if you decline, voice search simply stays off.
Google Play purchase and ownership check — when you buy the one-time unlock, and when the App checks whether you already own it (including quietly at startup, and when you tap Restore), it asks Google Play. Google Play handles the payment and tells the App only whether the unlock is owned; we never see your payment details, and we operate no server in between.
Google ML Kit diagnostics — the supply-label scanner and on-device translation run Google's ML Kit on your phone. The label text and barcodes it reads, and the text it translates, never leave the device, but the ML Kit component itself sends usage and diagnostic data to Google. That is not something you switch on separately: it happens as part of using the scanner or translation. Google describes what it sends at https://developers.google.com/ml-kit/android-data-disclosure. If you would rather it never run, do not use the label scanner or translation — every other way of adding a supply item is typed by hand, and every answer and passage can be read untranslated.

Children

The App is a general-audience survival reference and is not directed at children.

Changes

We may update this Policy from time to time. The effective date above reflects the latest version.

Contact

Questions about your privacy: powerprepperapp@gmail.com.