Peace — Privacy Policy
Effective 13 October 2026 · Peace is made by Merope (merope.dev).
The short version
Peace is a local-first expense tracker. Your records, accounts, budgets, receipts and settings are stored on your phone, in the app's private storage. We do not run a server that receives them, we have no accounts, and the app contains no analytics, advertising or crash-reporting SDKs.
Nothing leaves your phone unless you turn on a feature that needs to — and each of those features is off until you do. They are listed below, with exactly what each one sends and to whom.
Features that send data off your phone
Reading with AI — Google Gemini (optional)
If you add your own Gemini API key in Settings, Peace can:
- Read a receipt you photograph or pick: the image is sent to Google's Gemini API.
- Read a bank message (see Bank notifications below): the message's text, the names of your accounts and categories, and any reading rules you wrote are sent to Gemini.
- Answer questions with Penny, the assistant, which is a separate switch in Settings: your question, the conversation so far, files you attach to it, and the parts of your ledger Penny looks up to answer (amounts, dates, notes, and the names of accounts, categories and tags) are sent to Gemini.
These requests go directly from your phone to Google, authenticated with your key. They do not pass through any server of ours, and we never see them. Google's handling of them is governed by the Gemini API terms for your key. Note that on Google's free tier, Google may use requests to improve its products; on a paid tier it does not. Your key is stored in Android's encrypted storage and is never included in a backup.
Bank notifications (optional)
If you grant Peace notification access and list the senders you want read (for example your bank's short code), Peace reads text messages arriving through your default SMS app so they can become records.
- Messages from senders you did not list are discarded on your phone the next time Peace opens; they are never sent anywhere. With an empty sender list, nothing is read at all.
- A message from a listed sender is stored on your phone and, if you have a Gemini key, sent to Gemini to be read as described above.
- Notifications from other apps are ignored.
You can withdraw notification access at any time in Android's settings.
Google Drive backup (optional)
If you connect Google Drive, Peace uploads backups of your data (your ledger and any attached receipt images) to the app-data folder of your own Google Drive, a hidden folder only Peace can read. You can choose a passphrase to encrypt backups before they leave your phone; without one, the backup is protected by Google Drive's own security but is not encrypted by us.
Peace uses Google Sign-In only to obtain permission for that one folder
(drive.appdata). It does not read your other files, and it does not send your Google account
details anywhere. Disconnecting stops backups and leaves existing backups in place; you can delete
them from Google Drive's settings (Manage apps).
Exchange rates (optional, on request)
When you record an amount in another currency and ask Peace to fill in the rate, it requests that one rate from Frankfurter, a free service publishing central-bank rates. The request contains the two currency codes and nothing else.
Update check (GitHub version only)
The version of Peace distributed on GitHub checks GitHub's public releases API for a newer version. The request contains no personal data. The version on Google Play does not do this — Play delivers its updates.
Permissions
| Permission | Used for |
|---|---|
| Camera | Photographing a receipt, only when you tap the camera button |
| Notifications | The optional daily reminder, scheduled on your phone |
| Notification access | The optional bank-message reading described above |
| Internet | The optional features above |
Your data, your control
- Export everything as CSV or as a full backup at any time, from Settings.
- Delete everything by uninstalling the app or clearing its storage. Because we hold none of your data, there is nothing for us to delete on our side; backups in your Google Drive are removed from Drive's Manage apps settings.
- Peace is not directed at children under 13.
Changes
If what Peace sends off your phone changes, this page changes with it, and the effective date at the top moves.