Privacy Policy
Effective date: August 12, 2026
The short version
- Your recordings never leave your device. Video and audio are encrypted as they are captured and are never uploaded to us or to anyone else.
- The encryption key lives in your device's secure hardware and cannot be exported — uninstalling the app or resetting the phone destroys every recording permanently, with no recovery path.
- A notification stays visible the entire time the camera is active, and it is how you stop a recording.
- The app is free. Watching a recording in the app is always free and works offline; saving a decrypted copy to your device's gallery takes one rewarded video ad (Google AdMob).
- Serving those ads involves a third-party SDK (Google AdMob) that accesses advertising identifiers and related signals, as described in Section 4.
- Recording people without their knowledge is illegal in many places. Complying with the law where you are is your responsibility — see Section 9.
1. Who this policy covers
ShadowCam ("the app", "we", "our") is an Android app that records video in the background and stores it encrypted on your device. This policy explains what information the app accesses on your device, how it is used, what a third-party advertising SDK accesses on our behalf, and your choices. The app has no server or backend of its own — the only outside party involved is Google, through the AdMob SDK described in Section 4.
2. Information the app accesses
Everything below is created by you when you record, and stays on your device. None of it is transmitted to us or to any third party — the app makes no network connections other than the ad requests described in Section 4, and those never carry your recordings or anything about them.
| Data | Why it's accessed | Where it's stored |
|---|---|---|
| Video you record | The core function of the app. | Encrypted as it is captured, into app-private storage on your device. Unencrypted video is never written to disk except when you deliberately export a copy (see Section 7). |
| Audio you record (optional) | Captured alongside video only when you enable "Record audio" and grant microphone access. | Encrypted into the same file as the video. Turning the setting off, or denying the microphone permission, records video only. |
| Thumbnail still | One small still image per recording so the in-app list has something to show. | Encrypted separately in app-private storage, with the same key as the recording. |
| Recording details | Creation time, duration, dimensions, whether audio was captured, and whether you have exported it — used to list and play your recordings. | A local database on your device. See Section 8 for a note on this database. |
| Capture settings | Your chosen camera, quality, and whether audio is recorded. | Local device preferences storage. |
| Earned saves | A count of saves you have paid for by watching a rewarded ad but not yet used. | Local device preferences storage; persists across restarts, cleared by uninstalling. |
3. Device permissions we ask for
| Permission | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Camera | To record video. This is the app's core function and it cannot work without it. |
| Microphone | Only used when you have enabled "Record audio". Deny it, or leave the setting off, and the app records video only. |
| Notifications | Required, and not optional. Android mandates a visible indicator whenever an app uses the camera in the background, and that notification is also your stop control — it cannot be dismissed while the camera is live. |
| Foreground service (camera & microphone) | Lets recording continue when the screen is off or the app has been closed, which is the point of the app. |
| Prevent device from sleeping | Keeps the encoder running for the duration of a recording so a session doesn't silently stop when the device dozes. |
| Internet / network state | Used only to request and display rewarded ads. Recording, playback, encryption, and deleting all work with no connection at all. |
| Advertising ID | Used by the Google AdMob SDK to request and measure ads — see Section 4. |
You can grant or revoke any of these from your device's system settings. Revoking camera access stops the app from recording; revoking notifications prevents recording from starting at all, because Android will not allow a background camera session without a visible indicator.
4. Advertising & third-party SDKs
ShadowCam is free and funded by optional rewarded video ads instead of a purchase price or a subscription. Ads gate exactly one thing: saving a decrypted copy of a recording out to your device's gallery. Watching a rewarded ad to completion earns one save. Playing a recording inside the app is always free, works offline, and never involves an ad — your own footage is never held behind one.
Ads are served by Google AdMob, a third-party advertising SDK we embed but don't control. To request, deliver, and measure ads, Google's SDK can access and process:
- Device and advertising identifiers, including the Android Advertising ID.
- An approximate location derived from your IP address — the app itself requests no location permission and has no access to your precise location.
- Interaction signals relating to ad requests and impressions.
- Diagnostic and performance information about ad delivery.
Google collects this data and processes it as a third party for advertising, analytics, and fraud prevention. None of it is collected, stored, or seen by us directly — it is handled inside Google's SDK under Google's own privacy policy, available atpolicies.google.com/privacy. Data sent by the SDK is transmitted over a secure connection.
You can limit how this identifier is used at any time from your device's system settings, underSettings → Privacy → Ads, where Android lets you reset your advertising ID or delete it entirely. Deleting it means you will still see ads, just less targeted ones.
Aside from AdMob, the app uses no other third-party SDKs, no analytics, and no crash-reporting service. Your recordings, audio, thumbnails, and recording details are never sent to Google or to anyone else — that data stays on your device as described in Section 2.
5. What we don't do
- We don't require an account, sign-in, or email address to use the app.
- We don't operate a server, so there is nowhere for your recordings to be uploaded to.
- We don't collect analytics, crash reports, or usage statistics of our own.
- We don't sell, rent, or share your recordings — we have never had access to them.
- We don't request location, contacts, or access to your existing photos and videos.
- We don't include an in-app browser or load remote content beyond the ads described in Section 4.
6. Children's privacy
ShadowCam is intended for adults and is distributed to an audience of 18 and over. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone — no recording ever leaves the device. Rewarded ads are requested and displayed through Google AdMob under Google's own policies.
7. Data retention & deletion
Everything the app stores lives on your device only, for as long as the app is installed. You can remove it at any time by:
- Deleting an individual recording from the in-app gallery, which removes both the encrypted file and its entry, or
- Using your device's app-storage / clear-data option, or
- Uninstalling the app, which removes every recording, thumbnail, setting, and earned save.
Deletion is irreversible. Because the encryption key is bound to your device and is never backed up or exported, uninstalling the app or resetting the device destroys every recording permanently. There is no cloud copy and no recovery path — this is deliberate, and it is disclosed in the app before you record anything.
We hold no account and no server-side data about you, so there is nothing for you to request deletion of from us and no process for doing so — the controls above are the complete set. If you export a copy of a recording to your device's gallery, that copy is an ordinary unencrypted video file that lives outside the app; managing or deleting it is up to you, using your gallery or file manager.
8. Security
Recordings are encrypted as they are captured, not encrypted afterwards, so unencrypted video is never written to storage during a recording. The app uses an AES-256 data key to encrypt the stream, and that key is itself wrapped by an AES-256 key held in the Android Keystore — hardware-backed, and stored in a secure element where the device provides one. That key cannot be exported off the device. Each recording's ciphertext is additionally bound to its own identity, so swapping encrypted files on disk causes decryption to fail rather than silently serve the wrong video. Automatic backup is disabled for the app, so none of this is copied to the cloud.
Two limitations are worth stating plainly rather than leaving you to assume otherwise:
- The database of recording details described in Section 2 — creation times, durations, and file names — is not encrypted. Someone with root access to your device, or with a device backup extraction, could learn that recordings exist and when they were made, though not what they contain.
- A recording you export to your gallery is an ordinary, unencrypted video file from that moment on, readable by any app with access to your media. Exporting is the one action that takes a recording out from behind the app's encryption, and it only ever happens when you ask for it.
As with any app, we recommend keeping your device's operating system up to date and using a device passcode, since device-level encryption and the secure hardware this app relies on are strongest when a passcode is set.
9. Recording responsibly
Recording people without their knowledge or consent is illegal in many jurisdictions, and two-party consent laws apply across much of the United States and Europe. ShadowCam gives you a tool; it does not give you permission. You are solely responsible for complying with the laws that apply where you are, including any rules about recording in private spaces, in workplaces, or of people who have not agreed to it. This is stated in the app before you record anything, and downloading or using the app does not transfer that responsibility to us.
10. Changes to this policy
If ShadowCam's data practices change in the future — for example, if a new online feature, analytics service, or additional third-party SDK is added — this policy will be updated and the effective date above will change accordingly. Continued use of the app after an update constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.
11. Contact us
Questions about this policy or the app's data practices can be sent toavtukalaz@gmail.com.
ShadowCam records and encrypts video entirely on your device; its only data collection beyond that device happens inside the embedded Google AdMob SDK, as described in Section 4. This policy describes the app's actual behavior as implemented; it is provided as a starting point and has not been reviewed by a lawyer — consider a legal review before publishing to an app store, especially given the recording-consent obligations described in Section 9.