Netflation app privacy policy

At a glance

• Payam Oliver Astheimer is responsible for your personal data; contact hello@netflation.com.
• Calculations run on your phone without sending us your salary amounts or results.
• Usage analytics and crash reports help us improve the app only with your consent, which you can withdraw under Profile › Data & privacy.
• Notices about updated tax and social contribution figures use Google only if enabled under Profile › Notifications › “New figures”, where you can also stop them.
• You can exercise your data rights, including access and deletion, and complain to a data protection authority.

Who is responsible

“We” means Payam Oliver Astheimer, the controller responsible for this processing. Contact us by post at Braugasse 5, 35390 Gießen, Germany, by email at hello@netflation.com or use our contact form.

Calculating and saving on your phone

We store your salary inputs, calculations, saved results, salary history, profile first name and picture, settings and reminder times on your phone. With your consent, analytics can include fixed choices such as tax class, as explained below.

Saved results are encrypted on your phone. The app’s data is excluded from Google’s cloud backup and transfer to a new phone.

For your profile picture, Android shares only the photo you choose. New photos use your phone’s camera app. Only the cropped part is kept.

Profile › Data & privacy › “Delete all data” deletes your saved salary data, calculations, salary history, profile first name and picture. Settings remain. Uninstalling removes all app data from your phone. Neither deletes information already sent to us or our providers; see the retention periods and rights below.

Analytics, crash reports, feedback and notification registration use encrypted internet connections (HTTPS).

Sharing and exporting

Sharing or exporting sends content to the app you choose. Its provider is then responsible; we receive nothing.

Understanding how the app is used

Only with your consent do we collect usage information to improve features and see where people give up. You can consent at first launch or under Profile › Data & privacy.

PostHog Inc. handles this information for us as a processor under a data processing agreement. It is stored in Frankfurt, in the EU.

We send:

• Screens and features used, including fixed choices such as tax class, input category, yes/no settings and years; never amounts or free text.
• Installation, update and opening events, with the app version.
• A randomly generated ID linking activity from the same app installation, without your name.
• Phone make and model, including the manufacturer’s device code name, not the name you gave your phone; Android and app versions, screen size, language and time zone.
• Connection type (Wi-Fi, mobile or Bluetooth), mobile network operator, and whether the app runs on a phone or a computer simulation.

There are no recordings of taps or screens. PostHog receives your IP address with the connection but discards it without deriving a location.

Information is deleted after 13 months. Withdraw consent under Profile › Data & privacy to stop sending immediately and delete unsent events. The random ID is replaced, preventing later activity from being linked to earlier activity. Already sent events remain until their 13-month retention period ends; see “Your rights”.

Legal basis: Your consent, Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR. Storing and reading the ID on your phone also requires your consent under Section 25(1) TDDDG, Germany’s law protecting privacy in telecommunications and digital services.

Finding and fixing crashes

With your consent, we send reports when the app crashes or stops responding, to find and fix errors.

Functional Software, Inc. (“Sentry”), our processor under a data processing agreement, stores reports in Germany for 90 days.

Reports contain the error and the program steps leading to it, app version, time, phone model, Android version, and memory and storage information. They contain no screenshots or history of your actions. We remove our own and Sentry’s identifiers before sending. Sentry receives your IP address with the connection but does not store it.

Withdraw consent under Profile › Data & privacy to stop sending and delete unsent reports and Sentry’s local installation information. Already sent reports are deleted after 90 days.

Legal basis: Your consent, Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, and Section 25(1) TDDDG for information Sentry stores on your phone for its installation.

Sending feedback

Under Profile › Send feedback, choose “Report a problem” or “Suggest an improvement”. Nothing is sent until you tap send. Feedback works without analytics or crash-report consent.

We send your message, optional reply email address, whether you reported a problem or suggested an improvement, app version and edition, and time. We add no salary amounts, screenshots or device information. Anything you type is sent.

Sentry, named above, processes feedback for us and stores it in Germany for 90 days. Ask for earlier deletion using the message text or reply address to help us find it. If we reply, we use email as described below.

“Send by email instead” opens your own email app with our address. This bypasses Sentry; the email section applies.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. Our legitimate interests are answering you and improving the app using your reports and suggestions. You can object as explained under “Your rights”.

Emailing us

When you email us, we use your email address, name if given, message, time and anything else you send to answer your question or request.

Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland, processes our email through Google Workspace under a data processing agreement.

We delete correspondence once the matter is settled. Emails qualifying as business letters for tax purposes must be kept for six years from the end of the year received or sent, longer only while needed for a tax assessment that remains open.

Legal basis for answering: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR, our legitimate interest in answering messages addressed to us; you can object as explained below.

Legal basis for statutory retention: Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR together with Section 147 of the German Fiscal Code (Abgabenordnung, AO).

Notices about updated tax and contribution figures

You can receive notices when an app update brings new or corrected tax and social contribution figures, last year’s inflation figures or a calculation fix. Examples are next year’s preliminary and final figures and health insurers’ new additional contributions.

Turn them on under Profile › Notifications › “New figures”; the information button explains the feature. Until then, they stay off. Everyone who enables them receives the same notices.

Delivery uses Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging, inactive in Netflation until you enable these notices. It requires Google Play services.

Google receives:

• A randomly generated app installation ID and a delivery code for reaching your phone; neither contains your name.
• Which app you use, its version and where you downloaded it; phone make, model (including the manufacturer’s device code name) and device type; Android and Google software versions.
• Your subscription to the shared list for these notices and, with each message, the kind of change and the relevant year or month.
• Your IP address when connecting.

This service receives no name, salary inputs or results. Your phone assembles the notification text. We send messages to the shared list, never receive the delivery code and keep no list of phones.

Google LLC, Google Ireland Limited or another Google company acts as our processor under the applicable Firebase data processing terms. Storage is in Google’s data centres.

Registration lasts while enabled. Turn off “New figures” under Profile › Notifications to remove your phone from the list and delete the installation ID and delivery code from your phone. Google removes them from live systems and backups within 180 days. Turning off the notification category in Android’s settings only hides messages; it does not end registration.

Legal basis: Consent when you switch it on, withdrawn when you switch it off, Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR. Storing and reading the ID and delivery code is strictly necessary for this expressly requested service and needs no separate consent under Section 25(2) No. 2 TDDDG.

When providers handle data in the USA

PostHog and Sentry are US companies and may access information stored in the EU from the USA. Google may store and process notification and email information in the USA, including through Google LLC.

PostHog Inc., Functional Software, Inc. and Google LLC participate in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. Transfers to these certified companies rely on the European Commission’s adequacy decision under Art. 45 GDPR, recognising an adequate level of protection.

We have also agreed the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses under Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR with PostHog and Sentry. Google’s terms provide these clauses for transfers outside the framework. You can read and obtain copies of the safeguards in the PostHog agreement, Sentry agreement, Firebase terms and Google Workspace terms.

Reminders you set

Your phone schedules reminders for salary reviews, tax returns, comparing health insurers and the new tax year, using fixed texts, including after a restart. Nothing is sent to us or anyone else.

Downloading and updating through Google Play

Google Play handles downloads and updates as a separate controller, Google Ireland Limited in the EU, under Google’s privacy policy.

When updated official figures need an app update, Netflation asks the Play Store app to show it. That exchange is between the Play Store app and Google.

Google Play gives us only summary statistics about installations, crash rates and ratings that do not identify you.

Permissions on your phone

Android permissions used:

• Internet access: For analytics and crash reports with consent, feedback and notices about updated official figures. Calculating needs no connection.
• Network status: To send only when connected.
• Show notifications: On Android 13 and later, for reminders and notices about updated official figures. Android asks after you accept the app’s invitation or enable a switch in Profile.
• Start after a restart: To schedule your reminders again.
• Keep the phone awake briefly and receive push messages: Added by Google’s messaging service to receive notices about updated official figures.

No location, contacts, camera, microphone or general file storage permissions are used, nor any advertising ID. Android’s notification permission does not replace consent through the app’s switch.

Your choices and automated decisions

Providing personal data is not a legal or contractual requirement. Without consent, you can calculate as usual; analytics, crash reports and notices stay off. Without a message, we cannot answer your personal request.

We do not make automated decisions about you, including profiling, that have legal or similarly significant effects, Art. 22 GDPR.

We do not ask your age. If you are under 16, enable analytics, crash reports or notices about updated official figures only with a parent’s or guardian’s agreement, Art. 8 GDPR.

Your rights

Contact us by email, contact form or post using the details above. Subject to the GDPR’s conditions, you can:

• Ask whether we process your personal data and obtain access and a copy, Art. 15 GDPR.
• Have inaccurate data corrected or incomplete data completed, Art. 16 GDPR.
• Have data deleted, Art. 17 GDPR.
• Restrict how we use data, Art. 18 GDPR.
• Receive data you provided in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format and transfer it to another controller, Art. 20 GDPR.

Withdrawing consent

Withdraw consent at any time, Art. 7(3) GDPR: analytics and crash reports under Profile › Data & privacy; notices about updated tax and contribution figures under Profile › Notifications › “New figures”. Withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of earlier processing. You can request deletion if no other legal basis applies, Art. 17(1)(b) GDPR.

Objecting to feedback or email processing

Under Art. 21(1) GDPR, you can object at any time to our processing of feedback or email based on legitimate interests, for reasons relating to your particular situation. We must then stop unless we demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests, rights and freedoms, or need the processing to establish, exercise or defend legal claims. Contact us using the details above.

Finding the data covered by your request

We cannot link analytics IDs to your name or email, or assign crash reports to you. Where we cannot identify you, the rights under Arts. 15–20 GDPR apply only if you provide additional information that enables us to identify the relevant data, Art. 11(2) GDPR. Feedback can be found by its text or reply address. Delete salary data on your phone as explained above.

Complaining to an authority

You can complain to a data protection authority, particularly where you live or work or where the alleged infringement occurred, Art. 77 GDPR.

Our supervisory authority is Der Hessische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit, the Hessian authority for data protection and freedom of information, Wilhelmstraße 7, 65185 Wiesbaden, Germany.

Links and changes to this policy

Links open your phone’s browser, where the site’s privacy policy applies. For netflation.com, see our website privacy policy.

We update this policy when the app changes. Find the current version offline under Profile › Legal › Privacy policy and on our website.