Privacy Policy

Last Updated: July 21, 2026 | Effective Date: July 21, 2026

Privacy at a Glance

Northward ("we", "our", or "us") is committed to protecting your personal data and privacy. We do not sell your personal data to third parties or advertisers. All your focus sessions, goals, and journal entries belong strictly to you and are stored securely using enterprise-grade encryption.

1. Information We Collect

We collect information to provide, maintain, and improve our productivity operating system. The personal data collected includes:

Account & Identity Information:When you sign up or log in (including via Google OAuth), we collect your name, email address, profile picture URL, unique authentication identifier (UID), last sign-in time, and your device's time zone (for example "Asia/Kolkata"), which we use so that "today" and "this week" follow your local time.
Productivity & App Usage Data: Focus timer sessions, custom focus categories, task titles, daily journal reflections, goal progress, activity logs, and scratchpad/brain-dump notes.
Technical & Device Telemetry: Anonymized usage analytics, browser type, operating system, IP address, and standard web server access logs collected by our hosting providers.

2. Lawful Basis & Purpose of Processing

We process your data strictly under the following lawful bases pursuant to the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (India) and Article 6 of the EU GDPR:

Consent & Performance of Contract

To authenticate your identity, synchronize your data across devices, and deliver core features (Pomodoro timers, goal tracking, and productivity analytics).

Legitimate Interest & Security

To detect and prevent fraudulent activities, ensure system security, prevent unauthorized access, and optimize application performance.

3. Third-Party Sub-Processors & Data Sharing

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data. We utilize reputable third-party sub-processors strictly for cloud infrastructure and service delivery:

Sub-Processor	Purpose	Data Handled	Location
Google LLC (Firebase)	Authentication, Cloud Database & Analytics	Auth credentials, user profile, app data	United States & Global Edge
Vercel Inc.	Application Hosting & Edge Deployment	Web traffic logs, IP address, edge cache	Global Edge Network

Google Sign-In integration complies fully with the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

4. Data Security & Storage

Your data is secured using industry-standard measures:

All network transmissions are encrypted in transit via Transport Layer Security (TLS 1.3 / HTTPS).
Database storage is encrypted at rest using AES-256 on Google Cloud infrastructure.
Strict Firestore Security Rules ensure that users can only read, write, or access their own authenticated documents.

5. Your Legal Rights (DPDP Act 2023, GDPR & CCPA)

Regardless of your geographical location, Northward grants you full control over your personal data:

Right to Access & Portability

You can download a copy of everything Northward stores for your account at any time, as one JSON file, from Settings → Your Data → Export.

Right to Erasure ("Right to be Forgotten")

You can delete your account yourself from Settings → Your Data → Delete account. This removes your focus sessions, activity logs, journal entries, goals, profile and login.

Right to Correction & Rectification

You can update or rectify inaccurate profile information within the app settings.

Right to Withdraw Consent

You can revoke authentication consent at any time by signing out or contacting us.

6. Data Retention

We retain personal data for as long as your account remains active. When you delete your account in Settings, your records are deleted from our database immediately and your login is removed; this cannot be undone. Our providers (Google Firebase) may take a short additional time to purge deleted data from their internal systems and logs. If you cannot use the in-app option, contact us and we will delete your data within 30 days, except where retention is mandated by law.

7. Grievance Officer & Contact Information

In accordance with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (India) and applicable global privacy laws, if you have questions, concerns, or wish to exercise your data protection rights, please contact our designated Grievance Officer:

Grievance Officer: Northward Data Protection Team

Location: New Delhi, India

Email: privacy@proos.app