Privacy Policy
Effective October 5, 2026 · Version 1.4 (posted October 5, 2026)
Julienne Studios LLC, a New Jersey limited liability company (“we,” “us,” or “Company”) built Catena as a gamified focus app. This Privacy Policy explains what data we collect, why we collect it, how we use it, and your rights. This policy explains our practices; it does not replace a permission or consent choice shown in the app.
Privacy questions? Email us at team@juliennestudios.com.
1. What We Collect and Why
We collect only what we need to run Catena. Here is each category, what it includes, and why we collect it.
Account Information
What: Your email address, authentication identifiers, display name, profile preferences, and any bio you provide. Account records may also include optional age, age-range, or gender information you previously provided.
Why: To create and manage your account, show your chosen profile, save your preferences, and communicate with you about your account. The current app does not require a date of birth at signup.
Focus Session Data
What: Session length, session completion, break patterns, streak counts, and café progress.
Why: This is the core of the app — we use it to calculate your streaks, display your café, show your progress history, and sync your data across devices.
Device Information
What: Device type, operating system version, app version, and a unique device identifier.
Why: To ensure the app works correctly on your device, diagnose crashes, and deliver push notifications.
Screen Time and App Blocking (iOS)
What: If you turn on App Blocking, Catena uses Apple's Screen Time (Family Controls) framework to shield the apps you choose during a focus session. Your app selection and any usage totals it shows you are processed on your device by Apple's framework. Catena cannot read which apps you selected or your usage of other apps, and none of that information is sent to our servers.
Why: To let you block distracting apps while you focus. App Blocking is optional and can be turned off in Settings.
Usage and Analytics Data
What: Which features you tap, how long you spend in different parts of the app, and general interaction patterns.
Why: To understand which features are working well, which are hard to find, and how to prioritize improvements. Usage analytics is processed through PostHog and Firebase Analytics. Contact us for help with historical analytics data.
Payment Information
What: We do not store your payment card details. Purchases in the iOS app are processed by Apple In-App Purchase, and purchases in the Android app are processed by Google Play Billing. RevenueCat processes purchase receipts or transaction information, app user identifiers, and entitlement status so the app can confirm and restore access.
Why: To activate, manage, and restore your Catena Pro subscription or one-time lifetime purchase.
In-App Reward Data
We store virtual coins, ingredients, recipes, decorations and experience to maintain your café progress. The current iOS and Android releases do not collect in-person café partner redemption data.
Communications
What: If you email us or contact support, we keep a record of that communication.
Why: To respond to your request and maintain support history.
Contacts and Invitations
Clarified September 25, 2026: The following describes the current app's contact processing.
Contacts access is optional. If you choose Find Friends or Invite from your contacts and grant access, Catena reads available contact names, email addresses and phone numbers on your device. Contact email addresses are sent over HTTPS to our backend hosted on Google Firebase to find existing Catena accounts. Names and phone numbers are not sent for this matching step. The matching function does not save the submitted email list; it maintains a daily lookup count for rate limiting.
When you choose an individual contact to invite, we save their name and, where available, email address and phone number in your private invitation history in Firebase Firestore, along with invitation and reminder dates, channel and join status. This lets you see whom you have invited, send a reminder and see whether they have joined. Other app users cannot access this history. You can remove individual entries from your invitation list; account deletion also removes this history through our backend cleanup process.
Invitations are initiated one person at a time through your Messages app or the iOS share sheet. Catena does not automatically message your contacts. Opening the SMS composer can create an invitation-history entry even if you later cancel the message; the entry is not proof of delivery.
You can decline Contacts permission and continue using Catena, including adding friends by username or sharing your invite link. You can revoke Contacts permission in your device's Settings; this stops future contact reads but does not automatically erase previously saved invitation history. Remove those entries in the app or delete your account to erase that history.
Google Firebase processes this information as our backend service provider. We do not sell contact data or use it for advertising or cross-app tracking. Contact names, email addresses and phone numbers are not sent to PostHog; invitation analytics use an opaque invitation identifier. Contact matching and safety screening are separate features; contacts are not sent to Google's moderation checks.
Public Content and Safety
Public profile names, usernames and bios, group names and descriptions, room and guest names, and uploaded group photos are processed to operate social features. Before sending candidate public text to Google Cloud Natural Language or group photos to Google Cloud Vision for automated checks, we explain the processing and ask for your agreement. Declining cancels that submission. Flagged content is held privately for support review. Reports, blocking choices and moderation decisions help us investigate abuse. Private timer notes and contacts are not sent to these checks. Automated decisions can be mistaken; contact team@juliennestudios.com with the review reference to request reconsideration.
2. How We Use Your Data
We use your data only for the following purposes:
- To operate the Service — running focus sessions, calculating streaks, displaying your café, syncing across devices
- To personalize your experience — remembering your settings and preferences and adapting the app to how you actually use it
- To improve the app — analyzing feature usage to fix bugs, improve UX, and prioritize what to build next
- To communicate with you — sending session reminders, account notifications, and product updates (you can opt out of marketing emails at any time)
- To process payments — activating and managing your Catena Pro subscription
- To verify age eligibility — confirming you meet our minimum age requirement and applying protections and consent requirements for accounts belonging to minors
- To keep the app safe — detecting fraud, abuse of gamification features, or unauthorized account access
- To comply with law — responding to lawful requests from authorities when required
We do not use your data for advertising. We do not sell your data. We do not share your data with third parties except as described in Section 3.
4. Data Retention and Account Deletion
We retain account data while it is needed to provide the service. In-app deletion removes your Catena account and app data through our backend cleanup process. Purchase records held by Apple or Google, historical analytics or entitlement records held by service providers, and safety or support records may require separate handling; contact us with a data request.
How to Delete Your Account
Open Catena, go to Settings, and tap Delete Account. If you no longer have the app, email team@juliennestudios.com from the email address on your Catena account with the subject “Delete my account.” We will confirm the request came from that address before deleting the account, and complete the deletion within 30 days. Full steps are on our account deletion page. Section 12 of our Terms and Conditions says the same thing.
Deletion Timeline
Deletion begins when the backend accepts your request. There is no recoverable 30-day grace period. Failed cleanup operations are retried. Deleting your Catena account does not cancel an App Store or Google Play subscription; manage any recurring subscription through your Apple or Google Play account before or after deleting Catena.
We may retain deletion-job records, safety reports, moderation decisions, and records required for security or legal obligations. Candidate moderation evidence expires after 30 days and is removed by scheduled cleanup, which is not instantaneous. When staff reject content, the original text or photo is removed from that decision record and a restricted hash-based record can remain to prevent repeated publication until staff reverse the decision. Support correspondence and report records are handled separately. Contact us to ask about retained information or appeal a moderation decision.
5. Your Privacy Rights
Regardless of where you live, you can:
- Access your data — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
- Correct your data — ask us to fix inaccurate information
- Delete your data — delete your account in the app or by email from your account’s address (see our account deletion page), subject to the retention details described in Section 4
- Opt out of marketing emails — use the unsubscribe link in any email we send
- Opt out of push notifications — change notification settings on your device at any time
To exercise your access or correction rights, email team@juliennestudios.com. We will respond within 30 days. To delete your account, follow the steps in Section 4.
California Residents (CCPA)
If you are a California resident, you have additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act. You have the right to know what personal information we collect and how we use it, the right to delete your personal information, the right to correct inaccurate personal information, the right to limit the use of sensitive personal information, and the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information. We do not sell or share your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we do not collect sensitive personal information. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.
To submit a CCPA request, email team@juliennestudios.com with the subject line “Privacy Request — California.”
Other U.S. State Residents
If you are a resident of Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, or another state with a comprehensive privacy law, you have similar rights to access, correct, delete, and port your personal data. You also have the right to opt out of targeted advertising and profiling — we do not conduct targeted advertising and we do not profile users for decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects. Email team@juliennestudios.com to exercise your rights.
6. Children’s and Teen Privacy
Children Under 13
Catena is not directed to children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child under 13 has created a Catena account, please contact us at team@juliennestudios.com and we will delete the account and all associated data promptly.
Teen Users (13–17)
Users between 13 and 17 may use Catena with the permission of a parent or legal guardian. For accounts we know or believe to belong to a user under 18:
- We do not use their data for advertising, sell it, share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, or use it for targeted advertising or profiling.
- We collect only the data needed to run the app and meet our legal obligations.
- We may restrict or disable social and competitive features — including public leaderboards, display-name and profile-image sharing, milestone sharing, and Café Partner reward redemption — where we determine that doing so is appropriate or is required by law.
Where required by applicable law, we will obtain verifiable parental consent before permitting a minor to create or continue using an account, and we will provide parents or guardians with a way to review, request deletion of, and withdraw consent for their child’s data. Contact us at team@juliennestudios.com to make such a request; we may need to verify your relationship to the account holder before acting.
Age Signals from App Stores
Several U.S. states have enacted or are phasing in laws requiring age verification and parental consent for minors’ app downloads and in-app purchases, and requiring app stores to pass age category and consent signals to developers. Where Apple or Google makes such signals available to us, we may use them to determine a user’s age category and parental-consent status, to apply the protections described above, and to satisfy our obligations under those laws. We use these signals for age assurance and legal compliance only.
7. How We Protect Your Data
We use commercially reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your data, including encrypted data transmission (HTTPS/TLS), Firebase’s built-in security infrastructure, and access controls that limit who on our team can access user data.
No method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to protect your data, we cannot guarantee absolute security. If you suspect your account has been compromised, contact us immediately at team@juliennestudios.com.
8. Push Notifications and Communications
We may send you push notifications for focus session reminders, streak alerts, and product updates. You can disable push notifications at any time through your device settings.
We may send you emails about your account, subscription, and product updates. You can opt out of non-essential emails by clicking the unsubscribe link in any email we send.
9. Third-Party Links
Catena may contain links to third-party websites or services, including Café Partner websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties. We encourage you to read their privacy policies before providing any personal information.
10. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. For minor changes, we will update the effective date at the top of this page. For material changes that affect how we use your data, we will provide at least 14 days’ notice via in-app notification or email before the changes take effect.
Your continued use of Catena after changes take effect means you accept the updated policy.
11. Contact Us
For any privacy questions, data requests, or concerns, contact us at:
Julienne Studios LLC, a New Jersey limited liability company
Email: team@juliennestudios.com
Website: juliennestudios.com