Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 19, 2026

Benbow Labs is the app-publishing division of Mapleworx Services Inc., a Canadian federal corporation located in Ontario, Canada. "Benbow Labs", "we", "us" and "our" in this policy mean Mapleworx Services Inc. carrying on business as Benbow Labs.

This policy covers the apps we publish under the name Benbow Labs, on any kind of device. It covers what an app does with information about you, whether that information stays on your device or leaves it, and what we hold when you buy something or contact us.

What this policy and the app pages say an app does is true of official copies of our apps, which come only from an app store we publish the app on, or directly from us. A copy from anywhere else may have been altered, and we can't vouch for what it does with your information. Section 1 of our Terms of Use explains.

A separate notice covers our websites, such as benbowlabs.com: see Website Privacy Notice. If an app or a purchase is offered on one of our websites, this policy covers that app or purchase.

This policy is available in English and French.

Every app we publish has its own app page on this site: a privacy notice for that app alone. It is linked from inside the app and from the list in section 9.

This policy sets out what applies to every app: the commitments we make, how purchases work, your rights, and how to reach us. An app's page states the facts for that app, plainly:

• what the app collects, or that it collects nothing;
• why, who receives it, and how long it is kept;
• which permissions the app asks for, and why;
• whether the app uses the internet;
• what your device's backup copies, if the app takes part in it;
• how to delete the app's data.

Each app page also has an About this app section with facts about the app itself, such as which devices it runs on, what it costs and how to get support.

An app collects nothing that isn't listed on its page. Where an app's page states a fact that is different from, or more specific than, this policy — such as what the app collects, who receives it or how long it is kept — the app's page is the one that is correct for that app. An app's page can add protections, but it cannot reduce any protection in this policy. If the two ever conflict about a protection, whichever protects you more applies.

These words mean the same thing in this policy and on every app page.

• Personal information is information about you as an identifiable person.
• Collect means an app sends information off your device: to us, to a service provider working for us, or to anyone else. This follows the meaning the app stores use. Information an app keeps and uses only on your device is not collected. Some apps also use information on your device for our own purposes, for example to run a free trial. Where an app does, its page says so, and your rights in section 6 apply to that information too.
• Stored on your device means kept by an app on your device, in its own storage or in a place you chose. We can't see it.
• Share means we pass information that was collected to someone other than a service provider working for us.
• Service provider means a company that handles information for us, on our instructions and only for the job we gave it, such as our email provider.
• Platform backup means a backup that your device's operating system makes to your own backup account with the platform provider, such as Android's backup to your Google account or iCloud Backup to your Apple account. The operating system makes it, not the app, and it goes to your account, not to us. The same goes for a copy the operating system makes when you move your apps straight from an old device to a new one. A copy an app sends to us or to our service providers is not a platform backup: the app's page lists it as information the app collects.
• Permission means access to part of your device, such as Bluetooth, notifications or your location, that your device or browser lets you allow or refuse. You can usually change your answer later in its settings.
• The store means the app store you got the app from, such as Google Play, if you got it from one. If an app is sold another way, its page names who processes the payment.
• Sell means giving personal information to someone else for money. A business transfer (section 8) is not a sale. Some privacy laws use a wider meaning, which also covers giving information to an advertising or analytics partner in exchange for a service; section 3 says what we do about that.

Whatever an app does, and whatever its page says:

• We never sell or give personal information to data brokers.
• We never sell the personal information we hold about you, such as your emails to us and your purchase records.
• Advertising and analytics are always disclosed. An app sends information to an advertising or analytics partner only if its page names the partner and says what it receives and why. Where the law requires your consent, the app asks for it first; where the law gives you a right to opt out, the app lets you.
• We use personal information only for the purposes stated in this policy or on the app's page. Before we use information we already hold for a new purpose, we ask you first, unless the law requires us to use it.
• An app does not start collecting something new without telling you first. Section 10 explains how.
• Information from our apps and support stays with Benbow Labs. Mapleworx Services Inc. has other businesses. They do not receive or use it.
• We protect what we hold, and we give notice if a breach puts you at real risk: to you directly where we can, and publicly where we can't. Section 7 explains how.

We are the seller of our apps, everywhere. If you buy through an app store, the store takes your payment and handles your payment details under its own terms and privacy policy. On Google Play, in some countries, mostly in the European Union, the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, Google acts as our agent and is the "merchant of record" for tax and payment purposes. Everywhere else, including Canada and the United States, we are the merchant of record, and a Google payments company collects the payment for us. Another store may arrange this differently; if so, the app's page says how. Either way, we are responsible to you for the app. If an app is sold another way, its page says who processes the payment.

We never receive your full card number or security code. For each purchase, the store or payment processor gives us a record of the order. What that record contains depends on the store, and each app's page lists what its store gives us. We use these records to keep our accounts, to meet our tax obligations, and to answer questions and refund requests about a purchase.

An app may check with the store whether you have bought something, so it can unlock what you paid for. Each app's page says what the app keeps about that, and where.

The store may also give us statistics about installs, and crash and performance reports that your device or the store gathers, if you allowed that in your device's settings. These come to us from the store, not from the app. We use them to understand how our apps are used and to find and fix problems.

For refunds, see section 4 of our Terms of Use and our Support page.

Unless an app's page says otherwise, our apps are made for a general audience, they are not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If we ever make an app for children, its page will say so and explain the extra protections that apply. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

Information stored on your device is under your control. You can see it, change it and delete it there. Uninstalling an app usually removes what it kept in its own storage; the app's page says if anything remains. Files you saved somewhere yourself stay where you put them until you delete them, and a platform backup stays in your backup account until you delete it there or the platform provider removes it. Each app's page says how this works for that app.

Where we hold personal information about you — for example, because you emailed us, because the store gave us a record of your purchase, or because an app's page says it collects something — you have the right to:

• access the information we hold about you and know how we use it;
• correct anything inaccurate;
• delete it, and withdraw any consent you gave, unless the law requires us to keep it, as it does for purchase records we must keep for tax purposes. The store keeps its own record of your purchase, which we cannot delete; ask the store about it;
• restrict our use of it while a question about it is being settled;
• object to our using it where we rely on our legitimate interests (see section 7);
• receive a copy in a portable format;
• complain to us and to a privacy regulator (see section 11).

These rights also apply to information an app uses on your device for our purposes, where its page says so (section 2), even though we never receive it.

Depending on where you live you may have further rights under local law — for example, under Quebec's Law 25, the UK and EU GDPR, or a US state privacy statute. We extend the rights listed above to everyone, wherever you live, rather than sorting people by jurisdiction.

To exercise any of them, email [email protected]. We will respond within 30 days. We may ask you to confirm the email address you're writing from, or an order number; we will not ask for identity documents for a request we can honour without them.

This is what we hold about you as a company, apart from anything an app collects. For each kind of information, the "legal basis" is the ground that EU and UK privacy law asks us to name for using it.

• Your emails to us. What: your email address, your name if you give it, what you write, and anything you attach. Why: to answer you and to keep a record of what we did. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in answering you, or, where you write about a purchase, performing our contract with you. How long: up to 24 months after our last message on the matter, unless the law requires us to keep it longer or it relates to a dispute.
• Purchase records. What: the order record the store or payment processor gives us (section 4). Why: to keep our accounts, meet our tax obligations, and answer questions and refund requests. Legal basis: our legal obligations under tax law, and performing our contract with you. How long: six years after the end of the tax year they relate to, as Canadian tax law requires.
• Store statistics and crash reports. What: install statistics, and crash and performance reports, if you allowed them (section 4). Why: to understand how our apps are used and to find and fix problems. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in keeping our apps working. How long: we view them in the store's own developer console, and the store decides how long it keeps them. We keep no copies of our own except while we work on a specific problem.

How long we keep anything an app collects is set out on that app's page.

We protect the information we hold with access controls and encryption in transit, and we keep no more of it than we need for the purposes we state.

If a breach of security affecting your personal information puts you at real risk of significant harm, we will notify you and the regulators, as the law requires. We notify you directly where we have a way to contact you. Where we don't, or where notifying you directly isn't practical, we publish a notice on our website and, where an app can show one, in the app. We keep a record of every incident affecting personal information, whatever its size.

We use a small number of service providers to run our business:

• Microsoft, whose Microsoft 365 email service carries our support email and our other correspondence;
• OVHcloud, whose servers in Canada our websites run on;
• Cloudflare, which runs the DNS for our websites and the network that serves and protects them, so it handles the IP addresses of visitors and the details of their requests;
• Anthropic, described below.

They handle information only on our instructions and only for the purpose we engaged them for, and they must protect it to the same standard as this policy. Anyone at Mapleworx Services Inc. who handles it for Benbow Labs protects it to the same standard too. Where an app sends information to a service provider or to anyone else, that app's page names them.

AI help with support email. As our support email grows, we may use an AI assistant to help us read it and draft replies: Claude, provided by Anthropic, PBC, in the United States. When we do:

• a person on our team reviews every reply and sends it. The AI assistant never replies to you itself;
• a person on our team makes every decision about refunds, accounts and your data;
• Anthropic handles your message only as our service provider, under terms that don't allow it to use your messages to train its models, and deletes it within 30 days, except where Anthropic has to keep it longer by law or to investigate misuse of its service;
• if you ask us to handle your email without AI tools, we will.

The stores handle your store account and your payments under their own privacy policies; they are not our service providers for that.

If our business changes hands. If Benbow Labs, or Mapleworx Services Inc., is merged, sold or reorganised, the information we hold may pass to the business that takes over. That is not a sale. The new owner must keep to this policy for that information.

International transfers. Our websites are hosted in Canada. Microsoft holds our email in Canada or the United States, and Anthropic and Cloudflare are in the United States. Cloudflare's network also handles requests to our websites in the other countries where it operates, usually the one nearest the visitor. Information transferred out of your country may become subject to the laws of the country it is held in, including lawful access requests by that country's authorities. We protect these transfers with contracts that require our providers to protect it to the standard of this policy. For information about people in the EU or the UK: the European Commission and the UK recognise Canada as providing an adequate level of protection for organisations under Canadian federal privacy law, which covers information you send to us; and for our providers outside Canada we rely on the data processing terms each of them gives us, which use the European Commission's standard contractual clauses (with the UK addendum) or, where the provider is certified, the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and its UK extension.

• Time Aloud — Android — com.benbowlabs.timealoud — benbowlabs.com/privacy/time-aloud
• Octothorpe — Android — com.benbowlabs.octothorpe — benbowlabs.com/privacy/octothorpe

This policy and each app's page are dated, and changed, separately. The "last updated" date at the top of each always reflects the current version. If you'd like a previous version, email us and we'll send it.

Adding a page for a new app does not change anything for the apps you already use.

Before an app starts collecting something it didn't collect before, or uses information in a new way, we update its page and tell you in the app before the new collection or use starts. Before we use information we already hold for a new purpose, we ask you first, unless the law requires us to use it.

If we change this policy, or an app's page, in a way that reduces your protection, we give notice at least 30 days before the change takes effect: prominently at the top of the page, and in each app the change affects, where the app can show it. The notice shows the old wording, the new wording, and the date the change takes effect. For each app, the change doesn't apply to you until that app has shown you the notice. If an app can't show it, for example because we have stopped updating it, the change never applies to you for that app. A change like that applies only to information we collect after it takes effect, unless you agree otherwise.

Privacy questions and requests: [email protected]
Person accountable for privacy: our Privacy Officer, who is also our person in charge of the protection of personal information for the purposes of Quebec's Law 25, reachable at [email protected].

Mail:
Mapleworx Services Inc. (Benbow Labs)
350 Bay Street, Suite 1300B
Toronto, Ontario M5H 2S6, Canada

We have not appointed a representative in the European Union or the United Kingdom. Wherever you live, you can contact us directly at the addresses above.

If you want to complain about how we have handled your personal information, write to our Privacy Officer at [email protected]. We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 business days and give you a written answer within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may complain to:

• the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada — priv.gc.ca
• the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec, if you live in Quebec — cai.gouv.qc.ca
• your local data protection authority, if you live in the EU or the UK.