Privacy

Overview

Burrow (“we,” “us,” or “our”) is a sleep tracking app for iOS and Android. This policy explains what data Burrow accesses, what stays on your device, what we send to our server or to partners, and what choices you have.

The short version: your sleep recordings, motion data, and session history live on your phone. A small set of features — an optional account, in-app feedback, the AI summary and chat, label sharing, and basic usage analytics — involve sending data to our server (hosted on Railway) or to third parties. Those are described section by section below.

Data that stays on your device

The following are stored and processed locally on your phone and are not transmitted to any server by default:

• Phone microphone audio, recorded for sleep sound detection and classification.
• Phone motion and accelerometer data.
• Heart rate on iOS, via Apple Watch if paired during a session.
• Apple Watch motion data on iOS, if paired.
• Sleep-related biometrics read from Apple Health after a session, such as HRV, SpO2, respiratory rate, and resting heart rate, where available and permitted on iOS.
• Sleep stage data and night summaries written to Apple Health by other trackers (for example Apple Watch native sleep tracking, Oura, or Whoop) imported through HealthKit, if you grant access.
• Your full session history and any saved highlights or audio clips.
• Your first name, if optionally entered in Settings, used to personalize the morning summary greeting.

Sound classification is powered by YAMNet and runs entirely on-device. Raw audio recordings never leave your phone.

Optional account

You can use Burrow without creating an account. If you choose to create one, we store the following on our server:

• Your email address.
• A hash of your password (the password itself is never stored or readable by us).
• Optionally, your name.
• Your subscription or access tier (see “Subscriptions and billing” below).

The account lets your settings and any premium entitlements carry across phones. Your night history is not synced to our server — it always lives on the device. You can request deletion of your account and any associated server-side records by emailing us; see the Account & Data Deletion page for the full process.

Account email addresses are kept while your account is active and deleted within 30 days of a deletion request.

Apple Health integration (iOS only)

On iOS, Burrow can read sleep-related biometrics from Apple Health after a session, with your permission, and can write Burrow's own sleep session data back to Apple Health so it appears alongside your other health information. You control which data types Burrow may access through your iPhone's Health app permissions. You can revoke access at any time in Settings › Privacy › Health. Data Burrow writes to Apple Health is stored by the Health app, not by Burrow, and must be deleted separately through Settings › Health › Data Access & Devices › Burrow.

Usage analytics and diagnostics

Burrow sends a stream of app-usage events and crash reports to our server so we can understand how the app is being used and find bugs. These are tied to a per-install identifier — not to your name, your account, or your email. They include:

• The install identifier, app version, OS platform, and device model.
• Event names and small JSON payloads describing which features were used (for example, “session_started,” “timeline_viewed”).
• Crash and diagnostic logs uploaded after a crash or when you opt to send a diagnostic report.

None of your sleep recordings, audio, motion data, heart rate, or session content are included in analytics or diagnostic uploads. You can turn analytics and diagnostics off at any time using the Help improve Burrow toggle in the Profile screen; the app continues to function normally with them disabled.

In-app feedback

When you submit feedback from inside Burrow, your message text, the install identifier, the app version, and any attachments you include (such as a screenshot) are sent to our server and emailed to hello@burrowsleep.com. If you optionally provide an email address so we can follow up, that email is included. Feedback records and any contact email you provide are retained for up to 12 months and then purged.

AI summary and AI chat

Burrow includes an optional AI summary and AI chat feature. Neither runs automatically; both require you to tap a button. When you do, aggregated sleep data — such as motion trends, heart rate patterns, and session-level statistics, not raw recordings or individual event timestamps — is sent to Anthropic's API (Claude Haiku) to generate a response. If you have entered your name in Settings, it may be included in the request to personalize the greeting. No other personally identifiable information is sent. Data sent to Anthropic is subject to Anthropic's Privacy Policy.

Separately, our server records the text of each AI chat message you send and a short sentiment classification (positive, negative, neutral, confused, engaged), keyed to your install identifier. This is used to understand what users are asking and to improve the feature. Your IP address is used only for short-term per-day rate limiting on AI requests and is not retained in our logs.

You can use Burrow without engaging the AI features; the timeline and session data are fully accessible without them.

Label sharing (opt-in)

If you turn on Contribute to Research in the Profile screen, label corrections you make are shared with us. When you correct or confirm the label on a detected audio event — for example, marking something as snoring or as background noise — Burrow uploads a small set of derived acoustic features for that event (15 numeric values describing duration, loudness, spectral shape, and the first three MFCC coefficients) so we can improve the global classifier. Raw audio is not uploaded. These feature vectors are tied to your account so we can attribute and, if you request it, remove your contributions. Research contribution is off by default; toggling it off stops further uploads immediately.

Subscriptions and billing

Burrow offers a free tier and a paid subscription tier. Paid subscriptions are billed through the App Store (iOS) or Google Play (Android). We do not see or store your payment-card details — only Apple and Google receive that information, subject to their own privacy policies. Our server stores your subscription tier, the source of the tier (paid subscription, redeemed access code, or test grant), and its expiration date, linked to your account.

Free-tier access can also be granted via redeemable access codes. When you redeem a code, we store the code, your account, and the timestamp of the redemption.

Sub-processors

Burrow relies on the following third parties to operate. None of them receive your sleep recordings or audio.

• Anthropic — processes AI summary and AI chat requests (aggregated session data and chat text).
• Apple and Google — handle App Store and Google Play subscription billing.
• A US-based cloud hosting provider that runs our backend server and database (account data, profile, analytics, diagnostics, feedback, AI chat logs, and label-sharing feature vectors).
• A separate cloud provider that hosts the burrowsleep.com website and serves static assets.

Data we do not collect

• We do not upload your raw audio recordings, motion data, or heart-rate streams.
• We do not sell your data to anyone.
• We do not use third-party advertising SDKs or cross-app trackers.
• We do not share your data with advertisers or data brokers.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or receive a portable copy of the personal data we hold about you, and to object to or restrict certain processing. To exercise any of these rights, email hello@burrowsleep.com from the email address associated with your account. We will respond within 30 days. We will not discriminate against you for exercising these rights.

California residents have additional rights under the CCPA, including the right to know what personal information is collected and the right to opt out of any “sale” or “sharing” of personal information. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Data retention

• On-device data — kept until you delete a session or uninstall the app.
• Account email and profile — kept while your account is active; deleted within 30 days of a deletion request.
• Analytics events and crash reports — retained for up to 24 months for trend analysis, then deleted or aggregated.
• Feedback records (including any contact email you provided) — purged after 12 months.
• AI chat message logs — retained while we are actively improving the feature; can be deleted on request alongside an account.
• Label-sharing feature vectors — retained until you delete your account, after which your contributions are removed.

Microphone access

Burrow requests microphone access to detect and classify sleep sounds such as snoring and coughing. Audio is recorded locally on your device. Real-time classification runs while the app is in the foreground; background recordings are classified when you open the app after a session. Raw audio recordings are never uploaded. You can revoke microphone access at any time in Settings › Privacy › Microphone.

Children

Burrow is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided information to us, please email us so we can delete it.

Changes to this policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Any changes will be reflected on this page with an updated date.

Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy, contact us at hello@burrowsleep.com.