Last updated: 2026-08-03
SocialTree is a personal social memory assistant for iOS, operated as a personal project by Praneel Bhatia. This policy explains what data the app handles, when (and why) any of it leaves your device, and the controls available to you.
Your full SocialTree graph — the people you add, notes, voice memos, photos, and circles — is stored locally on your iPhone using Apple SwiftData. SocialTree does not operate an account or graph-storage server of its own. When you enable optional AI, shared-link lookup, or analytics features, the limited data described below is sent to the named service providers.
The following categories of personal data may be held on-device:
When you share a profile link, SocialTree’s Share Extension reads details supplied by the share sheet. In Safari, it also reads a narrow set of metadata locally from the open page: its URL and title, Open Graph title and description, and any structured profile name. It does not read page body text, form values, cookies, local storage, or other page state, and the extension itself makes no network requests.
If you turn on Fill in details from shared profiles, after you open SocialTree the app contacts the profile site directly, without cookies or an account, to load public details such as the person’s name, photo, employer, role, and bio. Those details are stored on your device, where you can edit or delete them. If AI Usage is also on, fetched text attached to a capture may be sent to Google through Firebase AI Logic and Gemini. Shared-link lookup controls contact with the profile site; AI Usage separately controls transfer to Google.
If you turn on “Upcoming from your calendar” (in Settings → Notifications & Calendar, or from the card in Catch Up), SocialTree reads upcoming events from your device calendar — the next 7 days of event titles, times, and attendee names and emails — to show meetings with people you already track, prepare briefings, and schedule local reminders around those meetings.
SocialTree uses Google’s Firebase AI Logic service to process capture content into structured information. Firebase AI Logic is a managed Google Cloud service that relays each request to Google’s Gemini large-language model and returns the structured response. From your perspective, you are interacting with one service (Google); from an engineering perspective, two related Google services are involved, both operated by Google LLC.
AI processing is strictly opt-in. During onboarding and anytime in Settings → AI Usage, you choose whether to enable AI. With AI off, no capture or saved-graph content is sent to Google for AI processing.
When AI is enabled, the following may be sent to Google (Firebase AI Logic → Gemini):
Every request is cryptographically attested by Firebase App Check (using Apple’s DeviceCheck framework) so that Google can verify the request came from a legitimate SocialTree install. No personal identifier is sent in this attestation — it confirms the app binary and device, not who you are.
Google’s privacy policy governs Google’s handling of that data: https://policies.google.com/privacy. Firebase-specific terms: https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy.
Google’s data-use terms: Google handles prompts and responses under the privacy and service terms applicable to the Firebase/Gemini service tier configured for SocialTree. SocialTree does not make a separate or unconditional promise about Google’s use of submitted content for model training. Review Google’s current terms using the links above.
Subprocessors: The two Google services involved — Firebase AI Logic and Gemini — are both operated by Google LLC and are the only external subprocessors that receive user content. SocialTree also sends anonymous usage analytics to Google Analytics for Firebase (Firebase Analytics, operated by Google LLC): event names such as “capture completed” or “paywall shown”, small non-identifying event details (counts, categories, coarse duration buckets), and general device statistics (app version, iOS version, device model, language). These signals never include names, note text, transcripts, or any other user content. The app never sets a user ID and uses the analytics SDK variant without advertising-identifier support — no IDFA, no IDFV, no hardware identifier; the only identifier is a random per-install app-instance ID generated by the SDK. Analytics data is retained by Google Analytics for up to 14 months, is not linked to your identity, and can be disabled at any time in Settings (“Share Anonymous Usage Analytics”). Google’s privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy. No crash reporters or ad networks are used.
While SocialTree is in its early-access period (roughly its first hundred users, spanning the TestFlight beta and the initial App Store release), every AI request — the full capture text or audio, any attached profile text, any relevant saved person/encounter excerpts included for that AI feature, plus Gemini’s full response — is logged to Firebase Studio at 100% sampling, so the developer (Praneel Bhatia) can inspect prompts and responses to diagnose extraction quality issues. This logging:
If you are not comfortable with the developer being able to see your AI capture content during the early-access period, you can disable AI in Settings → AI Usage (no capture content is sent to Google), or wait for a later release, after this logging has been significantly reduced or disabled.
If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, or another jurisdiction with comparable data-protection rights, you have the following rights regarding personal data processed by SocialTree:
For any of these rights you cannot self-serve, email praneel.business@gmail.com and the developer will respond within 30 days.
Each permission is optional; the app functions without any of them, with reduced capture options.
SocialTree is rated 4+ by Apple’s age-rating system but is not directed to users under 16. Given the app uses generative AI to process user-submitted content, the developer recommends that users under 16 not install it without a parent or guardian’s supervision. SocialTree does not knowingly collect personal data from users under 13 (COPPA). If you believe a minor under 13 has submitted data, contact the email below and the developer will delete it.
If the policy changes materially, the “Last updated” date above will change and — if you’re a TestFlight or App Store user at the time — the app will surface a notice on next launch.
Questions about this policy:
praneel.business@gmail.com