Songbird Alarm — Privacy Policy
Songbird Alarm (“the App”) is developed and provided by web-appli.com (Akito Haga, “the Developer”). The App does not collect any personal information from its users. The details are explained below.
Developer and contact
- Developer: web-appli.com (Akito Haga)
- Contact: otoiawase@kotorinokoe.com
Information we do not collect
The App does not obtain any of the following:
- Name, address, phone number, or email address
- Apple ID or other account information
- Advertising identifiers (IDFA) or device identifiers
- Browsing history or behavioral history
- Contacts, photos, calendar, or health data
The App contains no advertising, no analytics mechanism, and no third-party analysis services.
Information stored only on your device
The following is stored only inside your iPhone. No one — including the Developer — can see it from outside.
- Settings: wake-up time, chosen sleep sound, volume, day-of-week settings, notification times, whether “I keep the iPhone in the bed” is on or off, and so on
- Wake records: the time the sound started, the time you stopped it, how many minutes until you woke, at which stage you stopped it, which sound was playing, the volume at that time, your approximate bedtime, that day’s sunrise time, the previous evening’s sunset time, that night’s solar midnight, and the answer you chose in the morning to “How was waking this morning?” (one of seven)
- How the iPhone moved during the night: the times and durations the iPhone moved between “Good night” and morning
- Unlocks during the night: the times the iPhone was unlocked between “Good night” and morning, and how long it stayed unlocked; and “the time you tried to sleep” derived from them
- Today’s word and this week’s experiment: whether you answered “I’ll try it” or “Not now” to a suggestion from the birds, which setting is currently being tried, and the day it began
- Safety record: if you reach your wake-up time with the volume at zero, that single event (when, with which settings, at what time the alarm was set). It disappears once you next open the App and are notified
- The latitude and longitude calculated from your location
- The recordings of Last night’s sounds: the short sounds recorded between “Good night” and the morning. They stay until you delete them.
- What was identified, and the words that were heard: what that recording sounds like, how much it sounds like a human voice, and the text it was turned into.
All of this is deleted when you delete the App. Wake records can also be deleted one at a time from within the App. You can also use “Export records” to put all of them into a single file (CSV) and keep it yourself.
How location is used
The App uses your location solely to calculate today’s sunrise and sunset times. All calculation is done inside your iPhone, and your location is never sent anywhere.
- Once obtained, the latitude and longitude are stored on the device and are not obtained repeatedly
- You can refresh them any time with “Update my location” in the settings screen
- The App works even without permission. In that case it calculates using a default value (roughly the center of Japan)
How the motion sensor is used
Between the moment you press “Good night” and morning, the App uses the iPhone’s tilt sensor (accelerometer) to record when, and for how long, the iPhone moved. This is used for “the shape of last night” and “the birds’ scoring.”
- All that is recorded is whether it moved. Where you are and what you were doing cannot be known from it.
- These records are stored only inside your iPhone and are never sent anywhere.
- The sensor runs only between “Good night” and morning. When you are not using the alarm, nothing is recorded.
- If you sleep with the iPhone in the bed, turning on “I keep the iPhone in the bed” in the settings stops your turning over from being counted.
How the lock signal is used
Between “Good night” and morning, the App records the times the iPhone was unlocked and the times it locked again.
- These two signals are the only ones iOS gives an app. There is no way to know that the screen came on. Nor is it possible to know what was displayed, or which apps were used.
- From these two, the moment after “Good night” when the iPhone locked and stayed locked for 15 minutes is taken as “the time you tried to sleep,” separating the time spent looking at the screen before sleep from the time of sleep itself.
- On an iPhone with no passcode, these signals never arrive. In that case these records stay empty.
- These records, too, are stored only inside your iPhone and are never sent anywhere.
About the microphone
This app has a feature called Last night’s sounds. Between the moment you tap “Good night” and the morning, it makes a short recording only when a sound clearly louder than the room’s usual quiet is heard.
- It records only when there is a sound. It never keeps recording all night.
- One recording is at most 60 seconds (it starts about 8 seconds before the sound). The total for one night is at most 90 minutes.
- While “Good night” has not been tapped, the microphone is not connected.
- While it is recording, an orange dot appears at the top of the iPhone screen.
- Recordings are kept inside this iPhone only. They are not put into iCloud or any other backup, so they do not move with you when you change phones.
- Recordings are never deleted automatically. You can delete them at any time from the app, one by one or in bulk.
- You can switch the whole feature off in the settings.
- If someone else sleeps in the same room, their voice and their sleep-talking are recorded too. Please tell them.
About identifying sounds
When you open the recordings screen, the app uses what is built into the iPhone to see what each sound is and how much it sounds like a human voice.
This identifying is always done inside the iPhone only, and is never sent anywhere.
About turning recordings into text
A recording in which a human voice was found can be turned into text. The words are heard in the language your iPhone is set to.
- On newer iPhones, the text is made inside the iPhone only. The very first time, a part for hearing that language is fetched from Apple. Only the part is fetched; your recordings are not sent.
- On iPhones that cannot make the text inside, the recording itself (the audio) is sent to Apple’s speech recognition.
- The only purpose is to turn that audio into text.
- You are asked once before anything is sent. Nothing is sent until you answer.
- Even after you have answered “yes, you may send it”, you can withdraw it at any time in the recording settings. If you withdraw it, you are asked again the next time text is made.
- The developer, web-appli.com (Akito Haga), does not receive this audio. It is not passed to any other company.
- How Apple treats that audio after it is sent is covered by Apple’s privacy policy.
- If Apple’s speech recognition does not support your language, no text is made. The app says so on the screen.
- Nothing is ever sent automatically during the night.
About notifications and alarms
- The bedtime reminder is a local notification that stays entirely within your iPhone. No external server is used
- The “every-morning backup” registers a reservation with iOS’s alarm feature (AlarmKit). The content of that reservation stays inside your iPhone
About external transmission
Only two things ever leave the device, and both happen only when you tap them yourself.
① Turning a recording into text (on iPhones that cannot do it inside)
The recording itself (the audio) goes to Apple’s speech recognition, for the sole purpose of turning it into text. You are asked before anything is sent.
② Sending
A recording from Last night’s sounds (“Send the sound only”), or the video made from it (“Send as a video”), goes to whichever person or app you choose.
Nothing else is sent to any external server. There is no advertising, no access analytics, and no external analytics service built into the app.
If a feature that gathers statistics in order to improve the waking sounds is ever added, all of the following will be true:
- This policy will be revised beforehand, stating specifically what is gathered.
- It can be switched on and off at any time in the settings, and it is off to begin with.
- The data will not identify any individual, and location will be no more precise than a country or prefecture.
Provision to third parties
Because no information is obtained, none is provided to third parties.
Use by children
The App does not intentionally collect information from anyone under the age of 13. It does not collect information in the first place.
About revisions
If the developer changes this policy, it will be published on this page. For important changes, notification will also arrive within the App.
- Established September 8, 2026
- Revised September 14, 2026 (added the records from the motion sensor and the lock signal)
- Revised September 28, 2026 (added Last night’s sounds recordings, identifying sounds, and turning recordings into text)