AmberIQ Privacy Policy

Last updated: 15 July 2026

Data controller: Amberiq s.r.o., Slovak Republic (European Union)

Summary (not a substitute for the full policy below)

AmberIQ is a beekeeping record-keeping app. Everything you enter — your apiaries, hives, inspections, treatments, harvests, and photos — is stored only on your own device. We do not operate a server, we do not require an account, and we cannot see, access, or receive your beekeeping records. The only outside party involved is Google AdMob, which shows a small banner ad and, to do so, processes some device and advertising data under its own privacy policy. If you export a backup or contact us for support, you decide what is shared and with whom. Full details below.

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy explains how Amberiq s.r.o. ("Amberiq", "we", "us", or "our") handles information in connection with AmberIQ (the "App"), a native Android application for beekeepers that provides a seasonal beekeeping guide and lets you record and track your own apiaries, hives, inspections, treatments, and honey harvests.

We built AmberIQ around a simple principle: your beekeeping records belong to you and stay on your device. This policy is written to be as concrete and specific as possible about what actually happens with your data, rather than relying on generic boilerplate.

2. Who We Are

Data controller	Amberiq s.r.o.
Jurisdiction	Registered in the Slovak Republic, European Union
Contact e-mail	amberiqsro@gmail.com
App package name	`sk.amberiq.app`

Because Amberiq s.r.o. is established in the European Union, we are subject to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Slovak Act No. 18/2018 Coll. on the Protection of Personal Data, regardless of where you are located.

3. Scope of This Policy

This policy covers the AmberIQ Android application only. It does not cover third-party apps, websites, or services you may reach through links or share actions from within AmberIQ (for example, the app you choose when sharing an exported backup, or your own e-mail provider when you send us a support request). Those third parties have their own privacy policies, which we encourage you to review.

4. Information We Collect

4.1 Beekeeping records you create (stored locally on your device only)

AmberIQ is a local-first app. All content you enter is stored in a database and file storage area that lives exclusively on your device, using Android's standard app-private storage. This includes:

Apiaries (name, icon, notes)
Hives (identifiers, queen year/colour marking, origin, notes)
Inspection records (date, queen status, brood, colony strength, stores, Varroa mite counts, symptoms, free-text notes)
Treatment records (method, substance, dose, dates, linked hives)
Harvest records (date, honey type, quantity)
Photos you attach to a hive, apiary, or inspection (taken with the in-app camera option or chosen from your gallery)

None of this content is transmitted to Amberiq s.r.o., to our servers, or to any third party by the App itself. We do not operate a backend server for this data, and we have no technical means to view, access, copy, or recover it. If you delete the App or its data, this content is permanently lost unless you have made your own backup (see §4.3).

4.2 App settings and preferences (stored locally on your device only)

The App stores your preferences locally on your device (not transmitted anywhere), including: Beginner/Pro mode, measurement units, appearance/theme, app language, reminder settings and interval, and your default Varroa counting method.

4.3 Backup files you choose to create

AmberIQ lets you export a backup (a .zip file containing a JSON data file and copies of your photos) and import a previously exported backup. This process runs entirely on your device:

Export: the App builds the backup file locally, then hands it to Android's standard system Share Sheet. You choose where it goes next — for example, Google Drive, e-mail, a messaging app, or your device's Downloads folder. Amberiq s.r.o. does not receive a copy and has no visibility into this step.
Import: you pick a backup file using Android's standard system file picker; the App reads it locally and replaces the data on your device. No file is uploaded to us during this process.

Because the destination of an exported backup is entirely your choice, please be mindful that a backup file contains all of your beekeeping records and photos in one place — treat it with the same care you would any personal file.

4.4 Local, on-device notifications

AmberIQ can remind you when a hive inspection is due and alert you to certain colony-health signals it calculates from your own locally stored inspection data (for example, a rising Varroa mite count or a high swarm-risk indicator). These reminders are scheduled and generated entirely on your device using Android's WorkManager. We do not operate a push-notification server, and no data about your hives, your reminders, or your notification history is sent to us or to any third party for this feature.

4.5 Information collected for advertising (Google AdMob)

AmberIQ displays a small banner advertisement, supplied by Google AdMob, at the bottom of the screen. Serving this ad requires an internet connection; if you are offline, the ad simply does not load and the rest of the App continues to work normally, since AmberIQ's core features do not require the internet. To deliver, measure, and protect this advertising, Google — acting as an independent data controller for this purpose — automatically collects information such as your advertising ID, IP address, general device information (make, model, OS version), and app interaction data. Section 9 below describes this in more detail, including your choices.

4.6 Information you send us directly

The App's "About & Contact" screen includes "Report a bug" and "Send feedback" buttons. Tapping either one opens your device's own default e-mail app with a message already addressed to amberiqsro@gmail.com, with a subject line and a pre-filled message body containing your device manufacturer, device model, Android version, and the App's version number (to help us diagnose issues). Nothing is sent automatically: the message is only transmitted if and when you press "Send" in your own e-mail app, and you are free to edit or remove any part of it — including the pre-filled device information — before doing so. If you choose to send it, we receive it as an ordinary e-mail, together with your e-mail address and anything else you write. We use this only to respond to you and to improve the App.

5. Information We Do Not Collect

To be explicit about what AmberIQ does not do:

No account or registration — AmberIQ does not ask for a name, e-mail address, phone number, or password to use the App, and has no login system.
No location tracking — the App does not request device location permission and does not collect GPS or other location data.
No analytics or crash-reporting SDKs — AmberIQ does not integrate Firebase Analytics, Firebase Crashlytics, or any other analytics, telemetry, or crash-reporting service. We do not track how you use the App.
No cloud sync or server-side storage of your beekeeping data — as described above, everything you record stays on your device unless you personally choose to export and share it.
No sale of personal data — we do not sell, rent, or trade personal data to anyone, under any circumstances.

6. How We Use Information

Because almost all data described in §4.1–4.4 never leaves your device, there is correspondingly little for Amberiq s.r.o. to "use" — it is used by the App, on your device, to run the App's own features (showing your hives, calculating statistics, generating local reminders, and so on). The only categories of information that reach us or a third party, and why, are:

Information	Who receives it	Purpose
Advertising/device identifiers, IP address, app interaction data	Google (AdMob), as an independent controller	To select, serve, measure, and protect against fraud in the banner ad; to generate advertising revenue that funds free use of the App
Your e-mail address, message content, optional device/version details	Amberiq s.r.o.	Only if you voluntarily send a bug report or feedback e-mail; used to respond to you and improve the App

7. Legal Bases for Processing (EEA / UK / Switzerland)

If you are located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, the GDPR (or the equivalent UK/Swiss framework) requires us to identify a legal basis for each processing activity:

Your beekeeping records, settings, and local notifications are processed solely on your own device by software you installed and control; Amberiq s.r.o. does not process this data as a controller because it never reaches us. To the extent local, on-device processing is legally relevant at all, it is necessary to provide the App's core functionality that you requested (performance of the contract formed by installing and using a free app under our terms, and/or our legitimate interest in operating the App you asked to use).
Advertising data processed by Google is based on the legal bases Google identifies as controller for its advertising products. For users in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland, this includes your consent, collected through the in-app consent form described in §9.2 before any ad request is made, which you may withdraw or change at any time. Google also relies on its own legitimate interests for certain purposes (e.g., fraud prevention, frequency capping) as described in Google's privacy documentation.
Support/feedback e-mails you choose to send us are processed based on your consent (by voluntarily contacting us) and our legitimate interest in responding to you and maintaining the App.

We do not have a backend server, so we are not in a position to share your beekeeping records with anyone — we simply do not have them. The only recipients of any information in connection with AmberIQ are:

Google AdMob / Google Play services — for serving the in-app banner ad (see §9) and for standard Google Play services functionality that Android itself relies on to run any app (e.g., app updates and integrity checks via Google Play).
Whoever you personally choose when using Android's Share Sheet to export a backup (e.g., Google Drive, a messaging app, or an e-mail contact) — this is your choice, made outside the App, and not something Amberiq s.r.o. controls or is informed of.
Amberiq s.r.o. — only if you voluntarily send us a bug report or feedback e-mail.

We do not share information with data brokers, advertising networks other than Google AdMob, or any other third party. We do not use your data for our own advertising, profiling, or automated decision-making.

9. Advertising (Google AdMob) and Your Choices

AmberIQ uses Google AdMob to display a single anchored banner ad, shown at the bottom of the screen. Google acts as an independent data controller for the data it processes to serve this ad. We encourage you to review Google's Privacy Policy and Google's information for AdMob publishers for full details of Google's own practices.

9.1 What Google may collect for this purpose

This can include your Android advertising ID, IP address, general device and app information, and signals related to how you interact with the ad, used by Google for ad selection, delivery, measurement, frequency capping, and fraud/abuse prevention.

9.2 Consent for EEA, UK, and Switzerland users (Google-certified CMP)

AmberIQ uses Google's User Messaging Platform (UMP) SDK as its Consent Management Platform (CMP). This CMP is certified by Google and integrated with the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF), in line with Google's EU User Consent Policy. If Google determines that you are located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, AmberIQ shows you a consent form before any ad request is made, asking you to choose whether you consent to the use of cookies/local storage on your device and to the collection and use of data (such as your advertising ID) for personalized advertising. The form gives you a genuine choice — including a "Manage options" view where you can review, and separately allow or deny, individual purposes and advertising vendors, consistent with the TCF standard, rather than only a single accept/reject toggle.

Until you make a choice, and if you choose not to consent, Google serves only Limited Ads to you — ads that do not use your advertising ID or other identifiers for personalization, in accordance with Google's Consent Management Platform requirements for the EEA, UK, and Switzerland.

9.3 Your choices

Change your consent choice at any time if you were shown the consent form described in §9.2 — reopen it from the privacy/consent option in the App's Settings or About & Contact screen. Changing your choice takes effect on the next ad request.
Reset or delete your advertising ID, or opt out of personalized advertising at the device level, at any time, via your Android device settings: Settings → Privacy → Ads (the exact path varies by Android version and device manufacturer). This applies regardless of your location and works alongside the in-app consent choice described above.
Uninstalling the App stops all ad-related data collection associated with your device through AmberIQ.
The App itself does not currently offer a paid "remove ads" option. If we introduce one in the future, this policy will be updated before that feature is released, and any in-app payment would be processed by Google Play's billing system under Google's own privacy and payment terms.

10. International Data Transfers

Your beekeeping records never leave your device, so no international transfer of that data occurs. For the advertising data described in §9, Google may process and transfer data to servers located outside the European Economic Area, including in the United States, as described in Google's own privacy policy. Google has committed to appropriate safeguards for such transfers (such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses) as part of its role as an independent controller; we encourage you to review Google's documentation for current details, as international transfer mechanisms are periodically updated by regulators and by Google.

If you send us a support or feedback e-mail, it is processed via your own e-mail provider and ours (Amberiq s.r.o. is established in the EU); we do not separately transfer that e-mail outside the EU.

11. Data Retention

Data	Where it lives	Retention
Beekeeping records, photos, settings	Your device only	Until you delete it within the App, clear the App's storage, or uninstall the App — entirely under your control
Exported backup files	Wherever you chose to save/share them	Determined by you and by the storage provider or app you shared it to; we have no visibility or control over this
Advertising data	Google's systems	Governed by Google's own retention practices, described in Google's Privacy Policy
Support/feedback e-mails you send us	Amberiq s.r.o.'s e-mail mailbox	Retained for as long as reasonably necessary to address your request and for a limited period afterward for quality and reference purposes, then deleted

12. Data Security

Because your beekeeping records are stored in your device's app-private storage, they benefit from the security protections Android itself applies to app-private data (which normally cannot be read by other apps without root access or a compromised device). We recommend you use your device's own security features — a screen lock, encryption (enabled by default on modern Android devices), and keeping your device's software up to date — to further protect this data, particularly if you export a backup file, since a backup file is a regular file that inherits the security of wherever you store or send it. No security measure is perfect, and we cannot guarantee absolute security for data outside our control (i.e., once it leaves your device).

13. Your Rights

If you are in the EEA, UK, Switzerland, or another jurisdiction with similar data protection laws, you have the following rights regarding personal data that we, as a controller, hold about you (in practice, this mainly concerns any support/feedback e-mail you have sent us, since we hold no other personal data as controller):

Access — to obtain a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Rectification — to have inaccurate personal data corrected.
Erasure — to have your personal data deleted, subject to legal exceptions.
Restriction — to request that we limit how we process your personal data in certain circumstances.
Objection — to object to processing based on our legitimate interests.
Portability — to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used format, where technically feasible.
Withdraw consent — where processing is based on consent, at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.
Lodge a complaint — with your local data protection supervisory authority. In Slovakia, this is:

Authority	Úrad na ochranu osobných údajov Slovenskej republiky (Office for Personal Data Protection of the Slovak Republic)
Address	Galvaniho Business Centrum II, Galvaniho 7/B, 821 04 Bratislava, Slovak Republic
Website	dataprotection.gov.sk
E-mail	statny.dozor@pdp.gov.sk

For any data processed by Google as an independent controller (§9), please also see Google's own channels for exercising your rights, as Amberiq s.r.o. cannot access or modify data held directly by Google.

To exercise any of these rights regarding data we hold, contact us at amberiqsro@gmail.com. Since we hold very little personal data in the first place — mainly what you send us voluntarily — most requests can be resolved simply by asking us to delete a specific e-mail thread.

14. App Permissions

AmberIQ requests the following Android permissions. We list each one and exactly what it is used for:

Permission	Purpose
`CAMERA`	Optional — only used if you choose to take a new photo directly within the App (e.g., of a hive or apiary). Photos are saved to the App's private storage on your device. You can decline this permission and still use the App fully by choosing photos from your gallery instead, via Android's system photo picker (which does not require any storage permission).
`POST_NOTIFICATIONS` (Android 13+)	Used to display local, on-device reminders (inspection due dates, colony-health alerts) as described in §4.4. Requested once, with an explanation screen beforehand; if you decline or later revoke it in system settings, the App continues to work — you simply will not receive these reminders.
`INTERNET`	Required by the Google AdMob SDK to fetch and display the banner ad (§9). No other App feature requires an internet connection — beekeeping records, statistics, the seasonal guide, and local reminders all work fully offline.

AmberIQ does not request location, contacts, microphone, SMS, call log, or broad file-storage permissions.

15. Children's Privacy

AmberIQ is a general-audience app intended for beekeepers and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data (for example, through a feedback e-mail), please contact us at amberiqsro@gmail.com so that we can delete it.

16. Deleting Your Data

Because your beekeeping records live only on your device, you are always in direct control of deleting them:

Use the App's own Settings → Data → Delete all data option to erase all records while keeping the App installed.
Clear the App's storage via Android's system Settings → Apps → AmberIQ → Storage → Clear storage.
Uninstall the App to remove all of its locally stored data from your device (subject to any copy that may briefly remain in your device's system trash/cache until overwritten, consistent with normal Android behavior).
Any backup files you previously exported are separate files under your control (e.g., in Google Drive or Downloads) and must be deleted separately, wherever you saved them.

17. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time — for example, if we add a new feature, integrate a new third-party service, or need to reflect a change in law. We will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page when we do. If a change is significant (for example, if we begin operating a server that stores your data, or start using a new advertising or analytics SDK), we will make reasonable efforts to bring it to your attention within the App, such as via an in-app notice, before the change takes effect.

18. Governing Law

This Privacy Policy is governed by the laws of the Slovak Republic and, where applicable, the GDPR and other applicable European Union law, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer-protection or data-protection rights you may have under the law of your country of residence.

19. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how AmberIQ handles information, please contact us at:

Amberiq s.r.o.
E-mail: amberiqsro@gmail.com