Privacy policy
Effective 4 August 2026. Last updated 9 September 2026.
The short version
- We collect what the app needs to run your family's hub, and nothing else.
- We never sell your information, and there is no advertising in the app.
- Your household's data is visible only to the people you invite into it.
- Calendar access is used solely to show and edit your own events.
- Hub Lock, on your child's device, collects nothing at all.
- Ask us to delete your household and we will, then confirm it's done.
Family Home Hub ("we", "us") is an Australian software project operated from Victoria, Australia. This policy explains what personal information the Family Home Hub web app and the Hub Lock Android app collect, why, where it is held, and how you can have it removed. We handle personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
What we collect
When a parent signs in
We use Google Sign-In. We receive and store your email address and a Google account identifier so we can recognise you and connect you to your household. We do not receive or store your Google password.
What your household puts into the hub
Everything you enter is stored so it can sync between your devices. That includes:
- Your children's first names, chosen avatars, chore lists, routine settings, earned screen-time minutes, pocket-money balances and savings goals.
- Calendar events you create in the hub, shopping and packing lists, notes, countdowns and meal plans.
- Photos you add for the screensaver, and images generated for children's avatars.
- Household settings, including the PIN that protects parent mode.
- The email addresses of the people you invite into your household.
Devices and notifications
If you turn on notifications, we store a notification token for that device so reminders can reach it. If you use Hub Lock, we store the pairing code for your household and a random identifier for each paired device, so the hub can show you which devices are connected. That identifier is generated by the app and is not a hardware or advertising ID.
Feedback and error reports
When you send feedback, or choose to send an error report, we receive your message, your email address, and basic technical details about what went wrong. These are readable only by the developer.
Children's information
Children do not have accounts and never sign in. Everything recorded about a child is entered by a parent, on a device the parent controls, and can be changed or removed by that parent at any time.
We do not knowingly collect information directly from children, we do not profile children, and we never use children's information for advertising or sell it to anyone. Family Home Hub does not speak to children or issue instructions to them — it displays what the household has set up.
Google Photos
Adding photos to the screensaver from Google Photos is optional. If you choose to, we use the Google Photos Picker: you pick specific photos inside Google's own picker, and only the photos you select are copied to your household's screensaver. The app never browses or searches your photo library, and it cannot see anything you did not pick. Imported photos are stored for your household only and are removed when you delete them from the screensaver.
Google Calendar and Google user data
Connecting Google Calendar is optional. If you connect it, we request access to your Google Calendar so that Family Home Hub can:
- read the calendars you choose and show their events on your family's hub screens;
- send you reminders before those events start; and
- create, edit and delete events on your behalf when you do so from the hub.
To keep the hub up to date without asking you to sign in repeatedly, we store an access credential for your household securely on our servers, along with a copy of the upcoming event details needed to display them and to send reminders on time. You can disconnect at any time from Parent mode, which stops future access; you can also revoke access from your Google Account permissions page.
Family Home Hub's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
We use Google user data only to provide the features described above, directly to you. We do not use it for advertising, we do not sell or transfer it, we do not allow humans to read it except where you have asked us to help with a support issue, where it is necessary for security purposes or to comply with the law, and we do not use it to train generalised artificial-intelligence models.
Hub Lock on your child's device
Hub Lock collects no personal information. It stores the pairing code you enter, the name of the child the device belongs to, and its own randomly generated identifier. It asks the hub for the current screen-time state and does nothing else with the device.
Hub Lock uses Android's Accessibility service for one purpose only: to detect which app is in the foreground so it can return the device to the home screen while screen time is not active. It does not read screen contents, does not record what is typed, and does not transmit anything about how the device is used.
Assistant features
Some optional features use Google's Gemini AI service — for example, turning a typed phrase like "dentist Tuesday 3pm" into a calendar entry, suggesting a packing list, or generating a child's cartoon avatar. When you use one of these features, the text or request involved is sent to that service through our server to produce the result. We do not send your calendar, your household data or your children's records to it in bulk, and these features are never used to build advertising profiles.
Where your information is stored, and who else touches it
Family Home Hub runs on Google Cloud and Firebase (authentication, database, hosting, server functions and notifications). Your information is stored on Google's servers, which may be located outside Australia, including in the United States. By using the app you consent to that overseas storage, which is necessary for the service to operate.
Our service providers are:
- Google Cloud / Firebase — hosting, sign-in, database, notifications.
- Google Calendar API — only if you connect your calendar.
- Google Photos Picker API — only when you import photos you choose for the screensaver.
- Google Gemini — only when you use an assistant feature.
We do not sell personal information, we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers, and we do not disclose it to anyone else except where required by Australian law.
Security
Access to a household's data is restricted at the database level to the members of that household, so one family cannot read another's. Sign-in is handled by Google. Server credentials are held in a managed secret store and never included in the app. A child's device holds only a pairing code, so a lost or stolen device does not expose your account.
No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise. If a data breach occurs that is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify affected users and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.
How long we keep things
We keep your household's information for as long as the household exists, because the app's job is to remember it. Photos, notes and completed chores stay until you delete them. Feedback and error reports are kept while they are useful for fixing problems.
If you ask us to delete your household, we remove its data, including any stored calendar credential, and confirm when it is done.
Your rights
You may ask us to:
- tell you what personal information we hold about you;
- correct anything that is wrong;
- send you a copy of your household's data; or
- delete your household entirely.
Email privacy@familyhomehub.au and we will respond within 30 days. Most of this can also be done in the app: Parent mode holds a data backup option, and household members can be removed there.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, you may complain to us first at the address above. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of this page, and we will tell you inside the app when the change is significant.
Contact
Privacy enquiries: privacy@familyhomehub.au
Anything else: hello@familyhomehub.au
Family Home Hub, Victoria, Australia.