Draft for review. Fill in the highlighted details and have this checked by someone qualified before relying on it.
The short version
- The app has no accounts, no servers and no internet access. Your transactions stay on your phone.
- You record your own expenses. If you allow it, it also reads your MTN MoMo and Ecobank texts to fill in payments, then throws the message away.
- We never see, sell or share your financial data, because it never reaches us.
- This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics.
1. Who we are
O’Budget is made by [legal name] (“we”, “us”), based in [city], Ghana. This policy covers the O’Budget Android app and this website, obudget.app.
2. What the app reads
You can record every expense yourself. If you also give permission, O’Budget reads incoming text messages from MTN Mobile Money and Ecobank on your phone. From each one it picks out the transaction details:
- the amount and any fee
- the type of transaction, such as a payment, transfer, cash out, airtime or bundle
- who the money went to or came from
- the date and time
Once those details are saved, the message itself is discarded. The full text, including your balance, is never stored. Messages from other senders are ignored and never stored.
3. What the app keeps
Alongside those details, the app keeps what you add yourself: the expenses you record, the categories you pick, how you split a cash out, your monthly budgets and your “What If” plans.
All of this is stored in the app’s private storage on your phone, where other apps can’t read it. It is deleted when you clear the app’s data or uninstall it.
4. Backups
The app only makes a backup when you ask it to, and saves it to a folder you choose. That can be on your phone, on a memory card, or in a folder synced to a cloud service such as Google Drive. If you pick a cloud folder, that service’s own privacy policy applies to the file.
Treat backup files like a bank statement: anyone who can open one can see your transactions.
5. Permissions the app asks for
- SMS: to notice and read MoMo and Ecobank messages as they arrive. Without it, the app can’t record transactions automatically.
- Notifications: to ask where a payment went and to show how much of your budget is left.
You can turn either permission off at any time in your phone’s settings.
The app doesn’t ask for internet access, so it has no way to send your data anywhere. It contains no analytics, advertising or crash-reporting tools.
6. Google Play
You download O’Budget through Google Play, which handles information about your download under Google’s privacy policy. Google gives us anonymous statistics such as install counts and device models. If you have allowed your phone to share usage and diagnostics, Google may also pass us anonymous crash reports. None of this includes your transactions.
7. This website
The website has no accounts, sets no cookies and runs no analytics. Everything it needs, fonts included, loads from our own server. There are two ways information about you can reach us through it:
- Server logs. Our host, [hosting provider], may record standard technical details such as your IP address, browser and the pages you request, to deliver the site and protect it from abuse.
- Contact form. If you send us a message, we receive your name, email address and what you wrote. The form is delivered through [form service]. We use it only to reply, and delete it after [retention period].
8. What we don’t do
We don’t sell, rent or share personal information, show you ads, or build a profile of you. Because the app never sends us your financial data, we have nothing to hand over to anyone, including if asked.
9. Your rights
Under Ghana’s Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843), you can ask to see, correct or delete personal information we hold about you. In practice, that is only contact form messages, and you can ask about them through the details below.
Everything in the app is already in your hands: you can delete transactions in the app, clear its data, or uninstall it. If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, you can complain to the Data Protection Commission of Ghana.
10. Security
Keeping your data on your phone means there is no server for anyone to break into. Your data is only as safe as your phone, so we recommend using a screen lock and keeping backup files somewhere private.
11. Children
O’Budget is meant for adults managing their own mobile money. We don’t knowingly collect information from children.
12. Changes to this policy
If we change how O’Budget handles data, we will update this page and the date at the top. For significant changes, such as the app starting to use the internet, we will also say so in the app’s release notes before the change takes effect.
13. Contact us
Questions about privacy? Use the contact form or email [contact email].