Elsewhere
Elsewhere privacy policy
Elsewhere is an Android home-screen launcher that blocks apps and websites when you've decided they should be blocked. This page explains what it keeps on your phone, what it sends, and to whom. Elsewhere has no accounts, shows no ads and sells no data.
Who is responsible
Elsewhere is made by Michael McAdam. Questions or requests: support@elsewherelauncher.com.
What stays on your phone
Elsewhere keeps the following only on your phone. It is never sent anywhere:
- Your installed apps, home screen layout, rules, schedules, limits and settings.
- How long you've used blocked apps today, and a week of judge history (counts only).
- Places and Wi-Fi network names you add to rules, and your location when a rule depends on a place. Elsewhere checks your location only to know whether such a rule is on; the location stays on the phone.
- Notifications. With notification access, Elsewhere reads notifications to hide, delay or let them through according to your rules.
- What's on screen. With the accessibility service, Elsewhere sees which app is open and reads the address bar of supported browsers, so it can cover a blocked app or site with the block screen. It doesn't record or send any of it.
Uninstalling Elsewhere deletes all of this.
Convince me: your pleas
When you ask the judge for time, Elsewhere sends what you wrote, the app or site you want, the rules that block it, and counts of today's earlier pleas and grants to Anthropic, whose Claude model decides. They pass through Elsewhere's server on Cloudflare (judge.elsewherelauncher.com), which forwards them and does not store or log them.
With each plea the app also sends:
- a random judge ID, created on your phone, so the server can count today's pleas and limit them. The server keeps that count for the day; it isn't linked to you, your Google account or your usage stats.
- a Google Play Integrity check, so the server only answers genuine copies of Elsewhere on real phones. Google receives information about the app and device to make this check.
Anthropic handles pleas under its commercial terms, which don't allow using them to train its models. It deletes them within 30 days, except that a plea its safety systems flag as breaking its usage policy can be kept for up to 2 years. Nothing is sent unless you plead. Don't put anything in a plea you wouldn't want to send.
The judge is an AI. Its replies are there to decide your plea; don't rely on anything factual it says without checking.
Usage stats
Unless you turn it off (Settings › Launcher › Privacy › Share usage stats), Elsewhere sends anonymous usage counts to TelemetryDeck, an analytics service that doesn't keep IP addresses. They help improve the app. They include:
- a daily summary of your setup: whether Elsewhere is your home app, which permissions are on, how many rules there are and what kinds, strict mode, the theme;
- settings you change, rules you save (their shape, not their names, apps, sites, places or networks), strict mode actions;
- each plea's outcome, minutes and how long the judge took (not what you wrote), and each block screen (app or site, its group and strictness, not which one);
- crashes and where in Elsewhere's code they happened;
- with every event: the app and Android version, phone model, language, and a random ID that is forgotten when you turn usage stats off.
Usage stats never include what you write, the judge's replies, which apps or sites you use or block, rule names, people, places, Wi-Fi networks or notifications.
Who receives data
| Service | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | Pleas and their context | To decide each plea |
| Cloudflare | Pleas in transit; judge ID and today's count | To run Elsewhere's judge server and limit use |
| Play Integrity check | To make sure the app is genuine | |
| TelemetryDeck | Anonymous usage stats, if on | To improve the app |
Google Play also handles installs and any purchases under Google's own privacy policy.
Your choices
- Turn off usage stats in Settings › Launcher › Privacy. Its random ID is forgotten at once.
- Don't use Convince me if you don't want pleas sent.
- Forget judge history in Settings › Blocker › Judge history.
- Uninstall Elsewhere to remove everything on your phone.
Because Elsewhere doesn't know who you are, it can't look up data about you on its server. If you have a question or request, write to the address above.
Children
Elsewhere is not directed at children under 13.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date.