Fin AAC Privacy Policy
Effective October 7, 2026
Fin AAC ("Fin") is a picture-based communication app made by Divergent Solutions Collective LLC ("we", "us"). Fin is used by families: a parent or caregiver sets it up and a family member, often a child, taps pictures to speak. This policy explains what information Fin handles and why. We wrote it to be read, not skimmed past.
- There are no accounts. We never ask for a name, email address or phone number.
- What your family taps, the profile you enter (age, interests and similar), and your photos stay on your device, and your voice is never sent to us.
- Some information is sent to our server so Fin can work: your location (to recognise the kind of place you're in), words that need a picture, and searches. None of it is used for advertising, and we never sell it.
- Fin has no ads and no third-party analytics or tracking.
What stays on your device
These are stored only on your phone or tablet and are never sent to us:
- The words your family taps, and your tap history.
- The profile a caregiver enters in Settings, such as age, gender and interests. Fin uses it on the device to choose better words.
- Boards, pinned words, blocked words and settings.
- Photos you take or choose as pictures for words.
- Voice search audio is never sent to us. Fin uses your device's own offline speech recognition when it has one; on an iPhone without it (for example with Dictation turned off), the word you say is turned into text by Apple's speech recognition service under Apple's privacy policy.
- The places Fin has learned you visit, such as home.
Word suggestions are worked out by a model that runs on the device.
What is sent to our server, and why
Fin talks to our server over an encrypted connection (HTTPS). The first time it opens, the server issues a random installation identifier so it can protect the service from abuse and apply fair-use limits. This identifier is not tied to your name, email or any other account.
| Information | Why | What happens to it |
|---|---|---|
| Your device's location, when you allow it | To recognise the kind of place you're in (for example, a restaurant or a park) so Fin can suggest words that fit. | Our server sends the coordinates to Google Places to look up nearby places. We keep the looked-up place list, filed under a rounded location, for up to 180 days so we don't repeat lookups. It is not linked to your installation. |
| The name and type of a place Fin has recognised, and the city | To learn what that place offers (for example, a restaurant's menu) so the words fit. | Sent to an AI service (Anthropic) that can search the web. The result is kept for up to 24 hours and is not linked to your installation. |
| A word that needs a picture | To draw a picture for it, or find the official picture for a named show or character. | Sent to AI image and safety-check services (Anthropic, OpenAI or fal.ai) and, for named shows and characters, to YouTube, TMDB and Google Gemini. Pictures are stored on our server and shared by everyone who uses the same word. |
| A searched word that Fin doesn't already know | To match it to the right picture and related words. | Sent to OpenAI to calculate a word match, then stored with the word only. |
| Searches | To learn which words and places need better coverage. | The search text, the kind of place (such as "restaurant", never its name), the time of day and the words shown are stored without your installation identifier or any profile information. |
| Crash reports | To find and fix bugs. | The error details, the app version and the operating-system version, with the installation identifier. No device model, advertising ID or contacts. |
Please avoid typing personal details, such as a person's full name, into search.
Purchases
Fin is free to use, with nothing locked. Any optional support purchase is handled entirely by Google Play or the App Store. We never receive your payment details.
Sharing
We do not sell information, share it for advertising, or use it to build profiles of people. We share it only with the service providers listed above, and only for the purposes listed, plus Google Cloud, which hosts our server. We may disclose information if the law requires it.
Children
Fin is set up and managed by parents and caregivers. We do not ask for or knowingly collect personal information from children: the profile a caregiver enters stays on the device, and nothing Fin sends to our server identifies a person. If you believe a child's personal information has reached us, email us and we will delete it.
Keeping and deleting information
- On your device: Settings → Reset app deletes everything Fin has stored on the device. Uninstalling Fin does the same.
- On our server: location lookups are kept for up to 180 days and place descriptions for up to 24 hours. Pictures, word matches and anonymous searches are kept to improve Fin; they are not linked to you. Crash reports are kept only as long as we need them to fix problems. Backups of our database are kept for up to 14 weeks.
- Resetting or uninstalling Fin removes the installation identifier from your device, which ends any link between that device and the crash reports sent from it. You can also email us with any deletion request and we'll do our best to help; because we don't collect names or emails, we may not be able to tell which server records came from your device.
Security
Information in transit is encrypted with HTTPS, access to our servers is restricted, and installation credentials are stored in your device's secure storage.
Changes
If we change this policy, we'll update this page and the effective date above. If a change affects what Fin sends off your device, we'll say so in the app's release notes.
Contact
Divergent Solutions Collective LLC
354 Franklin St, San Mateo, CA 94402, USA
support@divergentsolutionscollective.com