Privacy Policy — Data Saver

Data Saver does not collect, transmit, store off your device, or share any personal information. There is no account, no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising and no server.

This is not a promise about our intentions. The app is built without Android’s INTERNET permission, which means the operating system will not allow it to open a network connection at all. The source code is public and you can verify this yourself in under a minute — see “How to check this yourself” below.

Who we are

Data Saver is published by Anubis Productions, an independent developer based in Egypt. You can reach us at anubisproductions.studio@gmail.com.

What the app reads, and where it stays

Data Saver shows you how much mobile and Wi-Fi data each app on your phone has used, and lets you stop apps from using the network. To do that it reads information that already exists on your device:

What is read	Why	Where it goes
Per-app data usage counters	To show which apps used how much data, split into foreground and background	Read from Android on demand. Never copied off the device
The list of apps installed on your device	To show you a list you recognise, and attribute usage to the right app	Read from Android on demand. Never copied off the device
Whether you are on Wi-Fi or mobile data	So a rule you set for mobile does not also apply on Wi-Fi	Used in memory only
Your settings — which apps you restricted, your monthly data bundle, your billing cycle start day	So your choices survive closing the app and restarting the phone	Saved in the app’s own private storage on your device

Everything in that table stays on your phone. It is not uploaded, backed up to us, synchronised, sold, or shared with anyone — including us. We have no way to receive it.

We never see or ask for

Your name, email address, phone number or any account identifier
Your location
Your contacts, messages, photos, files or call history
Advertising identifiers or any other device identifier
The contents of your network traffic, or which websites you visit

The VPN permission, and what it is not

To stop an app from using the network without root access, Android offers exactly one mechanism to ordinary apps: VpnService. Data Saver uses it, so Android shows a key icon in your status bar while restrictions are active. That icon worries people, so here is precisely what is happening.

Data Saver is not a VPN in the ordinary sense. There is no remote server. Your traffic is not routed anywhere, not tunnelled, not proxied, and not decrypted. Nothing is sent to us, because the app cannot send anything to anyone.

The app uses VpnService in what Android calls package-list mode: it names the apps you chose to restrict, and only those apps are pointed at a local dead end inside your own phone. Every other app on your device is untouched and keeps using the network directly, at full speed, exactly as before — their traffic never passes through Data Saver at all. For the restricted apps, Data Saver reads only the minimum needed to reply “no network here”, and that reply is generated on your device.

The key icon means a local connection exists. It does not mean traffic is leaving through anyone’s server.

Permissions the app requests

Permission	What it is for
Usage access `PACKAGE_USAGE_STATS`	The only way Android exposes per-app data figures. You grant it yourself in Settings and can revoke it at any time. Without it the app can show you nothing
VPN service	The local connection described above, used to restrict apps. You approve it with Android’s own confirmation dialog
Query installed apps `QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES`	To list the apps on your phone and match usage figures to them. An app-by-app data manager cannot work without seeing which apps exist
Network state `ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE`	To tell whether you are currently on Wi-Fi or mobile data, so per-network rules apply correctly. It reports connectivity status only and grants no network access
Notifications `POST_NOTIFICATIONS`	Android requires a visible ongoing notification whenever a VPN service is running, so you always know it is active. If you decline it, blocking still works — the notification simply does not appear
Foreground service	To keep restrictions enforced while you use other apps, instead of the service being killed in the background
Run at startup `RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED`	To restore your restrictions after you restart your phone, so they do not silently stop working

Notably absent: INTERNET. Data Saver does not request it and cannot obtain it without you installing a different version of the app.

Advertising and purchases

Data Saver contains no advertising, and no advertising or analytics libraries of any kind.

The app contains no in-app purchases and no paid tier. There is nothing to buy, so no payment is ever processed and we never see payment details of any kind. This is a deliberate decision rather than a stage: adding a purchase would require adding the internet permission to the app, and the app is built not to have one.

Children

Data Saver is a general-purpose utility, is not directed at children, and does not knowingly collect information from anyone — children included — because it does not collect information at all.

Your rights, and what they mean when nothing is collected

Laws such as the GDPR and the CCPA give you the right to access, correct, export, delete and object to the processing of your personal data, and the right not to be discriminated against for exercising those rights. We honour all of them. In practice there is nothing for us to produce or erase, because we hold no data about you: we cannot identify you, and we do not sell or share personal information — we have none to sell.

The settings the app stores are held on your own device, under your control. To erase them, either clear the app’s storage in Settings → Apps → Data Saver → Storage, or uninstall the app; either removes them completely and permanently. Revoking Usage access in Settings stops the app reading usage figures immediately.

Data breaches

There is no server holding your information and no database of users, so there is no central store that could be breached. Your data is as safe as your phone is.

How to check this yourself

You do not have to take our word for any of the above.

On your phone: open Settings → Apps → Data Saver → Permissions, or view the permission list on the Google Play listing. There is no network or internet permission.
In the source: read app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml. Every permission the app can ever hold is listed there, in full.
On the built app: run aapt dump permissions against the APK, or open it in any APK analyser, and compare the result with the table above.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the updated version will be published at this address with a new “last updated” date, and the change will be recorded in the public repository’s history, so every edit is visible and dated. If a future version of the app ever collects anything at all, we will say so here plainly, and before that version ships.

Contact

Questions, or a privacy request you would like to make: anubisproductions.studio@gmail.com. Issues and corrections can also be raised publicly on GitHub.