Privacy Policy
Effective 5 August 2026
We build tools meant to help you steady yourself and move on — so we're built to hold as little of your data as possible, by design. Where an app can keep your information on your own device, it does. Where something has to leave your device to work, we tell you plainly what, why, and to whom.
We don't sell your data, and we don't use it for advertising.
1.Who we are
These apps are operated by Gareth Hines, trading as Aperture Studio ("Aperture Studio", "we", "us"), based in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand. We handle your information under the Privacy Act 2020 and, where it applies, the Health Information Privacy Code 2020.
This policy covers our apps Torna, FIRSTLIGHT, and hush.
Contact: hello@aperturestudio.app
2.Our approach to your data
Some of what you share with our apps — about your mood, anxiety, or wellbeing — is health information, the most sensitive kind. We treat it that way: collected only to make the app work for you, never sold, never used for advertising. Wherever possible, your information stays on your own device and never reaches us at all.
3.Purchases
Where an app offers a paid purchase or subscription, payment is handled entirely by the Apple App Store. We never see or receive your card details, billing address, or Apple Account credentials.
To know what you've unlocked, we use RevenueCat (based in the United States) to validate your purchase receipt and manage your entitlement. This means:
- Your purchase receipt and an anonymous app user ID generated by RevenueCat are transmitted off your device.
- This is used to confirm your purchase, restore it if you reinstall or change device, prevent fraud, and give us aggregate sales figures.
- The anonymous ID is not linked to your name, email, or any account — we have no accounts, so we cannot identify you from it.
- This data is not used for advertising or cross-app tracking, and is not shared with data brokers.
Nothing you write inside an app is ever sent to RevenueCat.
4.Ari and AI processing
Ari (Ariadne) is an AI companion — not a person, counsellor, or therapist. Ari is available in some of our apps but not all; FIRSTLIGHT contains no AI companion and makes no AI requests.
Where Ari is present, the words you send are transmitted to our AI provider, Anthropic (based in the United States), which produces the response.
- Anthropic does not use this text to train its AI models (this is set by its commercial terms, which govern our use).
- Anthropic automatically deletes these inputs and outputs from its systems within 30 days, except where it must retain them to enforce its usage policy.
- Whether we also store your Ari conversations depends on the app — see below.
By using Ari, you consent to your conversation text being processed this way, including transfer to the United States. If you don't want this, please don't use Ari.
5.How this applies to each app
Torna
Torna is built to keep your information on your device:
- Your voice recordings are stored only on your device and are never uploaded to us.
- Your scripts and anchor details (titles, patterns, chosen voice, mood scores) are stored only on your device and never uploaded to us.
- Your conversations with Ari are not stored by us. Torna keeps no database and no record of them — on our side they exist only momentarily to produce a reply, and are gone when you refresh. To generate each reply, the text you send is transmitted to Anthropic as described above (not used for training; deleted within 30 days). The conversation text does leave your device in transit for this purpose.
- Torna has no accounts, no sign-in, no email, and no analytics. We do not know who you are.
- Purchase receipts are processed as described in section 3.
FIRSTLIGHT
FIRSTLIGHT holds everything you write on your own device and sends none of it anywhere:
- Everything you enter — your rules, triggers, early warning signs, playbook, reflections, and progress through the levels — is stored in local storage on your device only. It is never transmitted to us or to anyone else.
- FIRSTLIGHT has no accounts, no sign-in, no email, no analytics, no AI companion, and no server-side database. It works fully offline.
- The only data that leaves your device is your purchase receipt, handled as described in section 3.
- Because your content never reaches us, deleting the app or clearing its data removes it permanently. We cannot recover it for you.
hush.
hush. processes your photos on your device:
- Photo scanning and face detection happen entirely on your device. Your photos are never uploaded to us or to any third party.
- Your archive, vault, and journal entries are stored on your device.
- Where you use Ari in hush., conversation text is processed by Anthropic as described in section 4.
- Purchase receipts are processed as described in section 3.
6.Your rights
Under the Privacy Act 2020 you can ask to access the information we hold about you and correct it. Where an app holds your data on our servers, you can also have it deleted. For apps like Torna and FIRSTLIGHT we hold nothing that identifies you, so there is nothing on our side to access, correct, or delete — that information is on your device and in your control. To make a request, contact hello@aperturestudio.app.
7.Sending information overseas
Purchase receipts are processed by RevenueCat in the United States (section 3). Where Ari is used, your conversation text is processed by Anthropic in the United States (section 4). As required by the Privacy Act 2020 (Information Privacy Principle 12), we rely on these providers' contractual protections and, for Ari, your consent.
8.Security
We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect information, and — by keeping so much of it on your device and so little on our servers — we reduce the risk to you in the first place. No system is perfectly secure. If a notifiable privacy breach occurs, we will act as required under the Privacy Act 2020.
9.Children
Our apps are intended for adults and older teenagers, in line with each app's App Store age rating, and are not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information from children.
10.People outside New Zealand
Our apps can be downloaded internationally. If you are in the EU/UK, California, Australia, or elsewhere, additional privacy laws may give you further rights. Contact us and we will help where we can.
11.Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. Material changes will be notified in the app or by email, and the effective date above will change.
12.Contact
Privacy questions or requests: hello@aperturestudio.app. You may also contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner: privacy.org.nz / 0800 803 909.