Last Updated: November 6, 2026
This policy covers one app: Handyman Calc, the feet-and-inches construction calculator, on Android, iPhone and iPad. Our other apps are covered by the general Illumination Development privacy policy, which does not apply here. That policy describes accounts, reward balances and redemption records that this app does not have.
The short version
We never receive anything you calculate. There is no account and no sign-up. Every measurement you type is written to storage on your device and stays there. So is every estimate the app works out, every row in the Recent list and every set of numbers you save. There is no sync, no cloud backup of ours and no server holding a copy.
What does leave the device is advertising, anonymous usage analytics and crash reports, plus a support message if you choose to send one. Each is described in full below, along with how to limit it. This app sends more than some of our others do. It shows ads that can be personalized, and it keeps analytics. We would rather say so plainly than describe it as sending nothing.
What stays on the device
The app keeps four local stores on the phone or tablet:
- Recent calculations — up to the fifty most recent, each one
holding what you asked (such as
12' 4 3/8" + 7' 9 1/2", or a slab's length, width and depth) and the answer that came back. - Saved numbers — the forms you chose to keep under a name with “Save these numbers”, up to twenty for each calculator, so a tap can refill them.
- Jobs — estimates you chose to collect under a job name with “Add to job”, with their costs, so a whole job can be totalled.
- Your settings — whether the keypad vibrates under your finger, how finely fractions are rounded, the number held in the keypad's memory, and whether you have opened the keypad guide.
None of it is transmitted anywhere, and there is no profile. The one way anything leaves the device is when you choose to. Sharing an estimate, a history entry or a job (as text or a PDF) opens your phone's own share sheet. What happens next is between you and the app you pick. If the device backs itself up to iCloud or to Google, that copy is governed by Apple's or Google's terms and your own backup settings, and we have no access to it.
Copying a result puts it on your device's clipboard, and pasting a reading into a box uses the system's own paste. The app does not read the clipboard on its own.
You can delete a single Recent row by swiping it away, or empty the list with Clear history. You can delete a saved set of numbers from its chip. Or you can erase all four stores at once with Delete my data, described below. Because the copy on your device is the only copy there is, deleting the app removes it too.
What the app sends
None of what follows includes a measurement, an estimate or the name you gave a saved set of numbers. None of it includes your name or email address either, unless you type them into Contact support yourself.
An anonymous identifier
On first launch the app signs in anonymously to Google Firebase. This produces a random identifier for the installation. It is not a name, not an email address, not a phone number, and nothing you typed. There is no password and nothing to sign up for. It is used as the key for the installation's analytics and crash reports. It is also shown to you in Contact support (as “User ID”), so that a message you send us can be matched to the crash reports from the same device.
Usage analytics
The app reports a small set of events to Google Analytics:
- which screen is open;
- that a calculation was completed, and which calculator it came from (the keypad, concrete, tile and so on);
- that history was cleared;
- that the privacy policy was opened;
- how long the app took to start;
- when an error message was shown.
It never reports what the calculation was — not the numbers, not the result.
Alongside those, Google Analytics collects its own app-instance identifier and coarse device information, such as the model, the operating system version and the app version. It also collects an approximate location that Google derives from the IP address. The app itself never asks for location permission. We use analytics to see which calculators are used and which are not, and for nothing else.
Crash and diagnostic reports
If the app crashes or hits a handled error, Google Crashlytics sends a report: the stack trace, the app version, the device model and operating system, and the anonymous identifier above. This is how bugs get found. Analytics and crash reporting are both switched off entirely in development builds.
Advertising
The app is free and carries advertising from Google AdMob and no one else. There are two placements: a banner, and an occasional full-screen advertisement after a calculation. The full-screen one is held back on purpose. It never appears in the first six calculations after the app opens, never twice inside ninety seconds, and after that no more than once every fourth result. There are no rewarded advertisements. On Android, Pro removes them all (see below).
To serve advertisements, the Google Mobile Ads SDK contacts Google and may collect device and advertising information:
- an advertising identifier (Google's advertising ID on Android, and Apple's Identifier for Advertisers on iPhone and iPad if you allow it);
- device signals;
- an approximate location derived from the IP address;
- the request, impression and click themselves.
We never see this identifier, and it is not connected to anything you calculate.
Advertisements in this app can be personalized, where the law and your choices allow it. Unlike our games for children, this app is not child-directed. It does not ask Google to switch personalization off; the choices below are how you limit it. Google's use of the information it collects is governed by Google's own privacy policy.
On iPhone and iPad: the tracking prompt
The app shows Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt before any advertisement is requested. If you choose Ask App Not to Track, the app never receives Apple's Identifier for Advertisers and advertising continues without it. You can change your answer at any time under iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.
On Android: the advertising ID
The app does not ask for any runtime permission. The advertising-ID permission is present, because the Google Mobile Ads SDK declares it, and it is used for advertising. You can reset or delete your advertising ID, or opt out of personalized ads, in your device's settings. On most phones that is Settings → Privacy → Ads, or Settings → Google → Ads.
In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland
Where a consent regime applies, Google's consent message is shown before any advertisement is requested. It asks for your choices about personalized advertising and the storing of and access to information on the device.
You can change your answer at any time: Settings → Ad privacy options reopens the same choices. That entry appears only where Google reports that a consent regime applies, which is why people elsewhere will not see it. Your consent decision is stored on your device by Google's consent SDK.
Shopping links
Under some answers, and under a job’s shopping list, the app can show one small card linking to a tool or material for that job, such as a tape measure under a cut list. These are affiliate links, and each card says so: “Affiliate link — we may earn a commission at no cost to you.” Today the shop is Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
To know which cards to show, the app downloads one public file from our website,
illuminationdevelopment.com/app-offers.json, at most every twelve hours.
That request carries no identifier, no account and nothing you calculated. The app
keeps the last copy on your device, and Delete my data removes it.
A tap on a card opens the shop’s page in your browser. What happens there is between you and the shop, under its own privacy policy, and it may set its own cookies. We see a count of clicks and sales, never who you are or what else you bought. The app records that a card was shown or tapped, with only the card’s name and where it appeared, through the anonymous analytics described above. Cards never appear in anything you share, copy or export, and the app shows none once you have removed the ads.
Ad-free Pro (Android only)
On Android the app sells one optional purchase, Pro, a one-time payment that removes the advertisements and the shopping link cards and changes nothing else. Every feature works without it. The purchase is made and paid for through Google Play, under Google's own terms and privacy policy. We never see your card, your name or your Google account. Google tells the app only whether this Play account owns Pro, and the app keeps that yes/no on the device so the advertisements stay off when you are offline. Owning Pro also means the Google Mobile Ads SDK and its consent form are not started at all. The app records analytics events when the offer is shown, when a purchase starts or completes and when a restore runs. Google Analytics for Firebase also records the purchase itself (which product, its price and currency), never your card or name. The iPhone and iPad app sells nothing.
Contacting support
Settings → Contact support is the one place the app asks for anything about you. To send a message it needs your name, your email address, a topic and the message itself. Before you send, the form shows you exactly what else is attached, under “Included with your message”: the app name and version, your device's platform and operating system version, and the anonymous identifier described above.
All of that is delivered as an email to our support inbox. It goes through a small Google Apps Script service that exists only to forward it. Your address is set as the reply-to so that we can answer you. Your email address is used to reply to you and for nothing else.
The form is entirely optional. The app works fully without it, and if you never use it we never receive a name or an email address from you.
Delete my data
Settings → Delete my data does these things, immediately and without asking us:
- It permanently erases all four local stores — recent calculations, saved numbers, jobs and your settings. This works with no connection.
- It deletes the anonymous Firebase identifier described above. That step needs a connection. With none, everything on the device is still erased and the app tells you so. The identifier is then deleted the next time the app is online, before a new, unrelated one is created.
- It resets the Google Analytics identifiers held on the device, so later analytics start from a new app-instance identifier.
Analytics events and crash reports already sent to Google before you pressed it are kept by Google under its own retention periods. They are keyed to identifiers that no longer lead back to this installation. If you want those looked at as well, write to privacy@illuminationdevelopment.com.
Support messages you have already sent are kept in our inbox, because an email that has been delivered cannot be recalled. You can ask us to delete them at the same address.
What the app does not do
- No account, sign-in, username or profile.
- No upload, sync or export of anything you calculate or save.
- No rewards and no coins. The only thing for sale is the ad-free Pro on Android, described above.
- No chat, no user-generated content shared with anyone, and no way to reach another person through the app.
- No location permission. The only location involved is the approximate one Google derives from the IP address, described above.
- No access to contacts, photos, files, camera, microphone, calendar or health data.
- No advertising network other than Google AdMob.
- We do not sell personal information. The advertising described above may count as sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising, in the sense the CCPA and CPRA give that term. You can limit it by declining the tracking prompt, resetting or deleting your advertising ID, and opting out of personalized ads.
Children
Handyman Calc is a tool for construction and home-improvement work and is not directed at children. It is listed on Google Play for an audience of 18 and over. Its advertising requests are not flagged as child-directed, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has sent us personal information through Contact support, write to privacy@illuminationdevelopment.com and we will delete it.
Your rights
Under the GDPR, the UK GDPR, the CCPA and CPRA, and comparable laws elsewhere, you have rights to access, correct, port and delete the personal information a company holds about you. The only things this app gives us that name you are the name and email address in a support message you chose to send. Everything else is keyed to a random identifier. You can erase what is on the device yourself with Delete my data. For anything else, such as a support message or data Google already holds, write to privacy@illuminationdevelopment.com.
Information held by Google from serving advertisements, running analytics and receiving crash reports is subject to Google's privacy policy and the controls described above.
A note about this web page
The app does not display this page. Tapping Privacy Policy in Settings opens it in the device's browser, and this website uses Google Analytics to see which pages people find useful. That is described in the general policy, and it applies to your visit to this page, not to your use of the app.
Changes to this policy
If any of this stops being true, this page changes before the version that changes it reaches either store. The App Store privacy label and Google Play Data safety form change with it. Revisions are posted here with an updated date.
Contact
Email: privacy@illuminationdevelopment.com
You can also reach us through our contact and support page.