Your data stays yours.

1. What Needit stores on your device

Needit stores the items you create, who or what they’re for when you say so, their store categories, schedules, repeats, completion history, reminder state, events you plan, settings, blocked or suppressed places, and a limited cache of nearby-place results in the app’s local database on your iPhone. Notification identifiers are stored so reminders can be changed or cancelled. Your list is never uploaded in a form we can read. The exceptions, each described below, are: the settings saved to an account if you choose to create one, and an end-to-end encrypted backup of your list if you turn it on (section 2); an approximate location and the kinds of store you need when Needit looks for places, near you or near an address you chose (section 3); the places and addresses involved when you ask for directions, look near another address, save a home or view a store’s street photo (section 3); a food search you make in Eat it (section 3); a sentence you choose to have read by smart reading (section 4A); things you share with a circle, end-to-end encrypted, and what the circle’s server needs to deliver them (section 4B); an item or place you choose to share (section 7); and anonymous usage information (section 8), which never includes your own wording, who an item is for, notes, amounts, or location.

2. Your account (optional)

Needit works without an account. If you create one, in Settings → Your account, Needit stores your email address and your settings (for example reminder times and payday) with Supabase, our database provider, so your settings come back on a new phone. Your list, events, and money goals are not stored in your account; they stay on your iPhone, apart from the optional encrypted backup below, which we cannot read. You sign in with a code sent to your email address; these emails are delivered by Resend. You can change your email address, sign out, or delete your account at any time in Settings → Your account → Delete my account, which permanently removes your account and everything saved with it from our systems.

Encrypted backup (optional). If you have an account, Needit can keep a backup of your list on it so it comes back on a new phone. Your list is encrypted on your iPhone before it is uploaded, with a key that never leaves your iPhone unencrypted. To open the backup on a new phone you need a recovery code that only you hold. We never see the code or the key, so we cannot read your backup, and we cannot reset the code if you lose it. Deleting your account deletes the backup.

3. Location, stores, and directions

Location access is optional. If you enable it, Needit uses foreground or background location to tell when you are near a kind of store relevant to something on your list, and, when you set up the app, to show you stores near you for what you listed. To find stores, your approximate location (rounded to about 100 metres), the search distance, and the kinds of store your items need (for example pharmacy or pet store) are sent to UnaviaTech’s server, which asks Foursquare for nearby stores; Mapbox is used when that isn’t available. Needit does not build a location history, sell location data, or use it for advertising.

Directions and trips. Directions to one place are free; trips with several stops are part of Needit+. When you ask for directions, plan a trip, or tell Needit where you’re headed so it can plan stops on the way, your current location, the stores you’ll stop at, and your destination are sent to Mapbox to calculate the route, travel time, and live traffic. If you type or choose a destination — including the address of a calendar event you ask Needit to plan a trip to — its words are sent to Mapbox to find the place. Spoken turn-by-turn directions are produced on your iPhone.

Street photos. When you open a store in Needit, the store’s own location (not yours) is sent to Mapillary to find a street-level photo of it, and the photo is loaded from Mapillary. The photo may be several years old.

Eat it. When you search for food, Needit sends your approximate location (rounded to about 100 metres), the search distance, and the words you searched (for example “pasta”) to UnaviaTech’s server, which asks Foursquare for nearby places with their ratings, prices, photos, hours, and tips. Results are kept briefly so people searching the same area share one lookup.

Places right now. When you look for a place right now (for example a washroom or gas) or use Help, your location, or the address you chose to look near, is sent from your iPhone to Mapbox to find the closest ones.

Looking near another address. You can ask Needit to look near somewhere other than where you are, such as a friend’s address or a hotel. The words you type go to Mapbox to find the address. While Needit is looking there, place searches (Right Now places, Help and Eat it) send that area instead of your own location, in the same way as described above. Your list and its alerts keep using your own location. Needit keeps your three most recent areas on your iPhone so you can pick them again. After an hour, or when you tap Back to me, it goes back to looking near you.

Your home (optional). If you save a home, from Settings, a trip, or a store’s Other options, it is kept only on your iPhone. It is not part of your account or its backup. To point out a store on your way home, Needit compares stores it has already found against the way home. Without Needit+, that way is a straight line worked out on your iPhone. With Needit+, your current location and your home are sent to Mapbox to get the real route, as for any directions. Typing your home address sends those words to Mapbox to find it. Remove home in Settings, or Delete all items and settings, deletes it.

Help and emergency numbers. Help finds the closest emergency room, walk-in clinic, pharmacy, police station, locksmith, vet, dentist or phone repair, as described under Places right now. To show the emergency number for the country you’re in, Needit asks Apple’s location service which country your location (or the area you chose) is in. Apple handles that request under its own privacy policy, and Needit keeps nothing from it but the number on screen. Needit never places a call by itself: tapping Call hands the number to your iPhone, which asks you to confirm. Help places are never used for alerts.

Needit also uses the speed and direction reported with your location, on your device, to decide when an alert is useful — for example, holding alerts on a highway, or only suggesting stores ahead of you while driving. Speed and direction are not stored or sent anywhere. You can change location permission in iOS Settings; turning it off stops nearby alerts and directions but not the rest of the app.

4. Calendar (optional)

If you connect your calendar, in onboarding or Settings → Connections, Needit reads your upcoming events — their names, times, places, and notes — on your iPhone to ask whether you need anything for what’s coming up, to suggest things people usually get for that kind of occasion, and to remind you on the morning of an event about anything still missing. It can also add your plans to your calendar when you ask. Your calendar is read on your iPhone and is not sent to UnaviaTech or anyone else; the only exception is that, if you ask Needit to plan a trip to an event, that event’s address is sent to Mapbox as described in section 3. You can turn this off in Settings → Connections, or remove Needit’s calendar access in iOS Settings.

4A. Smart reading (optional)

This happens only if you have an account and tap Allow when Needit asks. For longer or unusual sentences, the words you typed and the time of day go through UnaviaTech’s server to Anthropic’s Claude, which works out what you need. For example, “something for canker sores” becomes canker sore relief from a pharmacy. Your location, list, calendar and contacts are never sent, and Needit doesn’t keep the words. Short, common entries are read on your iPhone only. If you choose Keep it on my phone, nothing is ever sent. Without Needit+, smart reading is limited to a few sentences a week.

4B. Circles (optional)

This happens only if you start or join a circle. A circle is a private group of up to 6 people, such as a family or roommates. People join only with an invite link that someone in the circle sends them.

What’s shared, and with whom. When you add something, you choose who it’s for: just you, the whole circle, or people you pick in it. Only those people receive it. Everyone else in the circle, and anyone outside it, never does. People in your circle see the first name you choose, what you add for them, and when you say you’re getting something or got it.

End-to-end encrypted. Before anything leaves your iPhone, the item’s words, the circle’s name and people’s first names are encrypted with the circle’s key. The key is made on the iPhone that starts the circle and travels only inside the invite link, in the part after the #. Browsers and iPhones never send that part to a server. Our server (run by Supabase) stores only encrypted text that we can’t read, and we can’t recover it.

What our server can see. To work, the server does see some things: a random circle ID for your iPhone, which circles it’s in, and whether you run one. It also sees who each item is for, who added it, who said they’re getting it, who got it, and when. If you have Needit+ Circle, it sees that too, so your circles can be unlimited, and the people in your circles can see it as well. Invite links expire after 14 days and can be turned off sooner.

Your location is never shared, with your circle or with us. Each iPhone checks for nearby stores on its own, in the same way as for your own list.

No email needed. To use circles, your iPhone gets an anonymous circle sign-in. It is separate from the optional account in section 2 and from its backup.

Notifications. When something changes in a circle, our server sends a silent notification through Expo’s push service and Apple’s Push Notification service to the people it’s for. It carries only ID numbers, never what an item says. Your iPhone then fetches the change, decrypts it and shows the words itself. For this, your iPhone’s push token is stored with your circle sign-in.

Leaving and deleting. You can leave a circle at any time, and whoever runs a circle can remove people. When you leave, things you added stay in the circle without your name, and things others added leave your list. Leaving your last circle deletes your circle sign-in, its memberships and your push token, and so does Delete all items and settings. When the last person leaves a circle, the circle and everything in it is deleted.

4C. Plan it (plans near home and trips)

Plan it plans an evening or a day near home, or a whole trip away, step by step: where, when, who’s coming, your budget, what you’re into and what’s on. Free includes a plan near home every week and one trip; Needit+ plans as many as you like.

Plans near home. When you plan near home, the area around your saved home (or around where your iPhone is, if you haven’t saved one), rounded to about a kilometre, is used as the destination, never your address. Without a saved home, Apple’s geocoder reads that area’s town name.

Finding places. The place you’re going (the words you type or pick) is sent to Mapbox to find it. Needit then looks for restaurants and sights near that destination, not near you: the destination’s approximate location (rounded to about 100 metres), a search distance and kinds of place (for example museum or park), or the words of a food search, go to UnaviaTech’s server, which asks Foursquare, as in Eat it; Mapbox is used when that isn’t available.

Arranging the days. The destination, where you said you’re staying (if you added it; its address is found through Mapbox like any address you type), your dates and the part of the day, how many people are going and whether kids are coming, your budget per person and its currency, the interests and pace you pick, any notes you type, the events you picked, and the names, kinds, ratings, prices, opening hours and locations of the places found are sent through our server (run by Supabase) to Anthropic’s Claude, which arranges them into days. For plans made without the What’s on step, if you picked sports or music, Claude first searches the web, through Anthropic’s web search, for games, fights and shows at those places on your trip dates, so they can be in the plan with a link to tickets; those searches contain only the places, the destination and the dates. Your list, your own location, your calendar and your contacts are never sent. We don’t keep the trip: the server keeps only a count of how many trips you’ve planned, to limit how often it can be asked. To call it without an email, your iPhone uses the same anonymous sign-in as circles (section 4B).

What’s on. To show events on your dates, the destination’s approximate location (or, near home, the rounded area above), its name and your dates go to our server. The server looks up events around that area with Ticketmaster and with Anthropic’s Claude using web search, and uses Mapbox to place each venue on the map. The list it finds is not tied to you: it is kept for up to 12 hours and shared with anyone else planning in the same area on the same dates, then deleted within 3 days. The server keeps only a count of lookups per anonymous sign-in, to limit how often it can be asked.

Inviting friends (optional). If you tap Invite friends on a plan, Needit makes a link that anyone you send it to can open in a browser, without the app. The plan is encrypted on your iPhone before it’s uploaded, with a key that’s only in the link (the part after the #, which browsers and iPhones never send to a server), so our server stores only encrypted text we can’t read. Friends see the plan’s title, dates, stops and times, picked events and the estimated cost per person, never your notes or where you’re staying. When a friend taps I’m in, the first name they type is encrypted in their browser with the same key. Our server sees when a link was made and when it expires, how many people said they’re in and when, and briefly the network address of each visit, to limit abuse. Links stop working a few days after the plan’s last day, and are then deleted with the names; you can stop sharing at any time. If you allowed notifications, we tell you when someone’s in through Expo’s and Apple’s push services, without their name.

A stop’s details. To show a picture of the city on a trip’s card, the destination’s name is sent to Wikipedia and Wikidata (the Wikimedia Foundation), and the picture is loaded from Wikimedia Commons. When you open a stop in a trip, that place’s own location (never yours) is sent to Wikipedia (the Wikimedia Foundation) to find its picture and a short description, which are loaded from Wikipedia, and to Mapillary for a street-level photo when there’s no other picture.

On your iPhone. Saved trips, the changes you make to them, and their reminders stay on your iPhone. Getting between stops works like directions in section 3: walking, cycling and driving times come from Mapbox, and transit directions open in Apple Maps.

5. Voice, Siri, Shortcuts, and widgets

When you tap the microphone, or open Needit from the Action Button, Apple’s speech recognition turns what you say into words on your iPhone; the audio does not leave your iPhone and is not kept. If you add an item with Siri, Shortcuts, a widget, or a Control Center control, the words are passed to Needit on your device and handled like anything you type. Apple processes Siri requests under Apple’s own privacy terms.

The Nearby widget, if you add it to your Home Screen, shows the name of a store near you and up to three things from your list. Needit writes these for the widget in storage on your iPhone that only Needit and its widgets can read. Anyone who can see your Home Screen can see them. Tapping Got it on the widget ticks the item off on your iPhone. Other widgets and Control Center controls only open Needit.

Share to Needit. When you share something to Needit from another app, it stays on your iPhone. The link, text or screenshot is turned into a line and handed to Needit’s Add screen, where it’s treated just like words you typed. For a screenshot, Apple’s on-device text recognition reads the words.

6. Notifications

If you allow notifications, Needit schedules the reminders you set up: start times, task times, money due dates, payday, event milestones, questions about events coming up in your calendar, a morning-of note about anything still missing, nearby-store alerts, daily check-ins, and follow-ups. If you have not added anything yet, Needit may send a few reminders to help you get started; they stop as soon as you add something. Notifications are scheduled on your device. The exception is circles (section 4B): when something changes in a circle you’re in, our server sends your iPhone a silent push notification with ID numbers only, and your iPhone writes the notification you see. You can turn notification features off inside Needit or in iOS Settings.

7. Service providers and sharing

We use service providers only to operate the app:

• Foursquare receives, from UnaviaTech’s server, an approximate location (rounded to about 100 metres), a search distance, and the kinds of store your items need, to find nearby stores, their hours, and whether they are open; and, when you search in Eat it or plan a trip, the words you searched or the destination’s approximate location and the kinds of place wanted. It does not receive anything that identifies you or the items on your list.
• Mapbox processes nearby-place requests when Foursquare isn’t available; address and place searches you make, including an address you look near or save as home; and route requests (your location, stops and destination, and your home as the end of the route when Needit+ looks for stores on your way home) when you use directions or trips. For What’s on, UnaviaTech’s server also sends Mapbox the names of event venues near the area you’re planning, to place them on the map.
• Ticketmaster (Live Nation) receives, from UnaviaTech’s server, an approximate area (rounded to about 10 kilometres) and dates, to find events for Plan it’s What’s on. It never receives anything that identifies you.
• Mapillary receives a store’s or trip stop’s location when you open it, to show a street-level photo of it.
• Wikipedia (the Wikimedia Foundation) receives a trip destination’s name, to show a picture of the city, and a trip stop’s location when you open that stop in Plan it, to show its picture and a short description. It never receives your own location.
• Supabase stores your account’s email address and settings if you create an account, and, if you turn it on, your end-to-end encrypted list backup, which Supabase and UnaviaTech cannot read; Resend delivers your sign-in codes. If you use circles, Supabase also stores your anonymous circle sign-in, your circles’ end-to-end encrypted items, names and first names (which Supabase and UnaviaTech cannot read), the details in section 4B that the server can see, and your push token.
• Expo (650 Industries) delivers circle notifications to Apple’s Push Notification service. It receives your iPhone’s push token and a silent message with ID numbers only, never what an item says. When a friend says they’re in on a plan you shared, it also delivers a short visible notification that doesn’t include their name.
• PostHog (PostHog Inc.) receives the anonymous usage events described in section 8, on servers in the United States.
• Anthropic receives, through UnaviaTech’s server, the words of a sentence you choose to have read by smart reading and the time of day, only if you have an account and tapped Allow. It does not receive your location, list, calendar or contacts. When you plan with Plan it, Anthropic also receives, through our server run by Supabase, the plan details described in section 4C, and, for What’s on, the area’s name and approximate location and your dates, to search the web for events.
• Apple provides app distribution, in-app subscriptions, speech recognition, on-device text recognition for screenshots you share to Needit, finding which country a location is in for the emergency number, Siri, calendar access, system permissions, notifications, TestFlight, and related platform services.

When you tap Share on a Need, Needit creates a web link (unaviatech.com/needit/share) that contains that item’s words, because you chose to share it. Opening the link, or a preview of it in a messaging app, passes those words through unaviatech.com so the item can be shown. Nothing else from your list is included. When you tap Send on a place, Needit opens your iPhone’s share sheet with that place’s name, address, hours and an Apple Maps link. Everyday places also get a line with a link to download Needit. You choose who gets it, and nothing passes through UnaviaTech. Places from Help are sent as a plain map link only.

These providers handle information under their own terms and privacy policies. Needit does not authorize them to use app information for advertising.

8. Anonymous usage analytics, advertising, and tracking

To understand what helps and improve Needit, the app sends anonymous usage events to PostHog. These include: that the app was opened and how many items are active; the general kind of item added, using Needit’s own generic name (for example “dog food” or “flowers”) and whether it was scheduled, repeating, part of an event, or for someone (yes or no only); the name and type of a store an alert named; whether an item was later marked as got, and whether that followed an alert; which kind of notification was opened; whether your calendar is connected and how you answered questions about upcoming events (counts and yes or no only — never event names, places, or notes); onboarding completion; and Needit+ trial offers and purchases.

Each device is represented by a random identifier created by the app. It is not linked to your Apple Account, your Needit account, name, email, contacts, or advertising identifier. Needit never sends your own wording, who an item is for, notes, amounts, calendar details, or location coordinates to PostHog. PostHog may infer an approximate city or region from the internet connection a request comes from.

You can turn this off at any time in Settings → Share anonymous usage. Needit does not include third-party advertising or cross-app tracking, and does not sell personal information. We may use aggregate, anonymous statistics (for example, how many people nearby added a kind of item) to describe Needit to partners; these never identify a person or device. We may also receive aggregate distribution and crash information from Apple through App Store Connect and TestFlight.

9. Subscriptions

Needit+ is purchased and managed through your Apple Account. Apple handles payment, and Needit only receives confirmation from the App Store that a subscription is active so it can turn Needit+ features on. We do not receive your payment details.

Needit+ Circle is a Needit+ subscription that also makes every circle you’re in unlimited for everyone in it. If you have it and are in a circle, your iPhone tells the circle’s server that you have Needit+ Circle (yes or no, nothing about your payment), and the people in your circles can see that their circle is unlimited because of you.

10. Retention and deletion

Data on your iPhone remains until you delete individual items, use Settings → Delete all items and settings, or remove the app. That delete action removes items, events, history, settings, cached places, and scheduled reminders from the device. You can save a copy of your data with Settings → Export my data; the file goes only where you choose, and Restore from a backup reads it back. If you have an account, your email address, saved settings and, if you turned it on, your encrypted backup remain until you delete your account in Settings → Your account, which removes them permanently. Store, Eat it and Plan it lookups are kept only briefly and are not tied to you. Plan it’s server keeps only a count of plans and What’s on lookups per anonymous sign-in, not the plans; What’s on event lists are kept for up to 12 hours, not tied to you, and deleted within 3 days; a plan you shared with Invite friends is stored encrypted, with the encrypted first names of friends who said they’re in, until a few days after its last day or until you stop sharing; saved trips stay on your iPhone until you delete them, use Delete all items and settings, or remove the app. Anonymous usage events are tied only to a random device identifier; deleting the app discards it, and PostHog retains the anonymous events under its standard retention. Your saved home and your three most recent “look near” areas are stored on your iPhone and are removed by Remove home, by Delete all items and settings, or by removing the app. Circle data on our server stays while you’re in the circle. Leaving your last circle, or Delete all items and settings, deletes your circle sign-in, your memberships and your push token. Removing the app without leaving doesn’t, so leave your circles first. Things you added stay in the circle, without your name, for the people still in it, and a circle is deleted with everything in it when its last person leaves. For any privacy question or deletion request, contact us at [email protected].

11. Security

Needit uses platform security, encrypted HTTPS connections, and the local data protections provided by iOS. Account sign-in uses one-time codes sent to your email address; there is no password to leak. No system can be guaranteed completely secure, but we limit collection and access to what is needed to provide the service.

12. Children

Needit is a general-audience utility and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided personal information, contact us so we can remove it.

13. International processing

Foursquare, Mapbox, Mapillary, Wikipedia (the Wikimedia Foundation), Supabase, Resend, PostHog, Anthropic, Expo, Apple, and their infrastructure may process information in the United States, Canada, and other countries. Applicable contractual and platform safeguards govern those transfers.

14. Changes and contact

We may update this policy as Needit develops. The effective date above changes when a revision takes effect, and material changes are also communicated in the app when appropriate. Questions, deletion requests, or privacy concerns: [email protected].