Privacy Policy

Effective October 12, 2026

Who we are

FamilyCove is made by Harborline ("we", "us", "our"). You can reach us at harborlineapps@protonmail.com.

What the app stores on the phone

All of the following is stored only on the phone where FamilyCove is installed, in FamilyCove's own private storage. None of it is sent to us or to anyone else, and none of it is included in Android cloud backups or device-to-device transfers.

Kept in preferences encrypted with a key held in the phone's Android Keystore:

• Your allowed and blocked sites, and whether "Only sites on the list" is on.
• Your child's waiting requests to open a page (the address and when it was asked).
• The YouTube channels and single videos you approved (their IDs, titles and channel names), and whether Shorts are hidden.
• Your Parent PIN, and an optional second parent PIN, each stored as a salted hash (PBKDF2), never as the PIN itself.
• Your one-time recovery code, stored only as a salted hash. The code itself is shown once and never kept.
• Your optional backup question, and its answer as a salted hash.
• The count of wrong PIN tries and any wait that follows them.
• Whether setup is done, the light or dark theme, whether FamilyCove shares its PIN with FamilyLock, and whether you were already asked to make FamilyCove the default browser.

Kept in FamilyCove's private app storage:

• History: the pages, searches and videos opened, what was blocked and why, and what your child asked for, each with the page title and time. It keeps roughly the latest 2,000 to 3,000 entries. Your child can read it and is told a parent can too. Only the Parent PIN clears it.
• A cache of the video lists from the channels you approved (titles, lengths and dates), so Videos can show more than the latest few. What may play is always checked against your approvals, not this cache.
• What any web browser keeps: websites' cookies, cached pages and site data, kept by the browser engine (Mozilla GeckoView, the engine of Firefox for Android). FamilyCove has no private browsing mode.

Who the app talks to

FamilyCove is a web browser, so it has to reach the internet. It has no Harborline server to talk to. It connects only to:

• The websites your child opens, and what those pages load, just like any browser. Each site receives the ordinary details of a web visit, such as the phone's IP address, and handles them under its own privacy policy. Strict tracking protection blocks known trackers on every page.
• DuckDuckGo, for every search. Searches typed in the address bar, or started on Google, Bing or another engine, are sent to DuckDuckGo with strict SafeSearch on, no AI answers and no ads. DuckDuckGo handles them under its own privacy policy.
• YouTube, only for Videos. To find a channel you add and to list its uploads, FamilyCove reads YouTube's public channel pages and feeds (youtube.com) and loads thumbnails (i.ytimg.com). Videos play in YouTube's privacy-enhanced player (youtube-nocookie.com) with third-party cookies off. There is no YouTube sign-in and no API key, and the requests carry no account or identifier of your child. YouTube handles them under Google's privacy policy.
• Safe Browsing. The browser engine keeps lists of dangerous sites and trackers up to date, from Mozilla and Google's Safe Browsing service, so it can check pages on the phone. When a page looks like a match, the engine may ask Safe Browsing about a short, partial code made from the address, not the address itself.

If you tap a link in FamilyCove's Help to another Harborline app, it opens that app's page in Google Play.

What the app never collects

• No account or sign-in. We have no name, email or identity tied to your use of the app.
• No analytics, crash reporting or usage statistics sent to us.
• No advertising and no ad software.
• No location, contacts, photos, camera or microphone.
• Nothing your child browses, searches or watches ever reaches us.
• We never sell or share data, and we never pass it to data brokers.

Why the app asks for the permissions it does

• Internet and network state. To open web pages, search and play approved videos, and to notice when the connection comes back. No other permission is asked for.
• Keeping the screen on and controlling sound, added by the browser engine without a prompt, so videos and page media can play.
• Seeing FamilyLock. FamilyCove checks whether one other app, FamilyLock, is installed, so Setup and Help can offer to work with it. It can't see the list of other apps on the phone.
• Default browser (optional). Setup offers, once, to make FamilyCove the browser that opens web links from other apps. Those links go through the same rules.

Sharing your PIN with FamilyLock

If FamilyLock, Harborline's parental controls app, is on the same phone, you can choose to use one Parent PIN for both apps. Only when you choose it, and only after the PIN of the app being asked is typed, the two apps hand each other the salted hashes of the parent PINs, the recovery code and the backup answer, along with the backup question's text. This happens on the phone, directly between the two apps; nothing is sent over the internet, and neither app can read the PIN itself from a hash.

Children's privacy

FamilyCove is a browser for children. A parent or guardian installs it, sets it up with a Parent PIN and decides which sites it opens. We collect no personal information from children, or from anyone, through the app. The History it keeps stays on that phone, the child can see it, and it is never sent to us.

The websites your child opens, DuckDuckGo and YouTube are run by others and have their own privacy policies. FamilyCove limits which of them open, but it can't control what they collect once they do.

The beta sign-up form on this website is meant for parents and guardians, not for children.

Deleting your data

Uninstalling FamilyCove removes everything it stored. Clearing its storage in Android's settings does too, after the Parent PIN is typed. There is no copy anywhere else, so there is nothing to ask us to delete.

This website

This site is hosted by Netlify. Like any web host, Netlify's servers see the ordinary technical details of a visit, such as your IP address, when they deliver a page. We don't use analytics, tracking or advertising on this site. The light or dark theme you pick is remembered only in your own browser. Fonts and images are served from this site, so your browser doesn't contact Google Fonts or any other third party.

The beta sign-up form. If you sign up for the beta, the details you enter (your Google account email, and your first name and device if you give them) are received and stored by Netlify's form service and delivered to us by email. We use them only to add your email to FamilyCove's tester list in Google Play Console, which is how Google Play lets you install a closed test, and to email you about the beta. We never share them with anyone else and never sell them. Email harborlineapps@protonmail.com to have your sign-up deleted.

Google Play

You install FamilyCove through Google Play, which handles installation, and the beta tester list, under its own privacy policy. FamilyCove is free, with no purchases.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new effective date. Because the app has no way to contact you, this page is the place to check.

Contact

Questions about this policy: harborlineapps@protonmail.com.