Rowan, by Animum Rege LLC. Last updated 2026-10-01.
Your vault is encrypted on your phone. To connect you with your circle, Rowan now uses a small server of ours (a “relay”). It stores only encrypted pieces it can’t open, plus a random account number and a notification address for your phone. We don’t have your name, email, phone number, or the names of anyone in your circle. No analytics, no tracking, no ads.
To connect your circle, our relay stores:
Your phone has one notification address, shared by all your circles on that phone, so our server can tell that those accounts are on the same phone. The server also keeps short-lived request counters (a few minutes) to block replayed requests.
We don’t store IP addresses. Our server uses your connection’s IP address only in its working memory, to slow down abuse (for example, too many invitation attempts), and never writes it to its database or its logs.
Our service logs keep errors and timings, not your account identifier or notification address, for 30 days.
Apple (on iPhone) and Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging (on Android) deliver our notifications. We never send them what’s in your plan or anyone’s name. Each notification carries only a fixed sentence and a code for its kind. On iPhone, Rowan replaces even that sentence on your phone before you see it. Apple and Google can see when phones get Rowan notifications, which could hint that those phones are connected. On Android, Google’s notification service also gives the app an installation identifier of its own.
Microsoft Azure hosts our relay in the United States (its East US 2 region), under Microsoft’s data protection terms for its cloud services. Apple delivers our notifications on iPhone, and Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging) on Android. They handle only what this policy describes. We don’t sell or share your information with anyone else.
Your vault, your letters, your photos and recordings, and the names of anyone in your circle. Names stay on your phones. When someone joins your circle, their name travels to you encrypted, and our server can’t read it.
In this version, nobody can open your plan, and our server refuses to start an opening. Opening comes in a future update: your circle opens your plan together, only when as many of them agree as you chose, after a waiting time in which you can stop it. We’ll update this policy before that update ships.
Notifications can be delayed or silenced by your phone’s settings, Focus modes, or a phone that’s off.
Everything you add to Rowan (vault items, your circle and your plan) lives on your phone, inside the app. Rowan encrypts your vault on your phone as soon as you set up your Recovery Kit: 12 words that Rowan shows you once, to write on paper. Until you confirm your Recovery Kit, its words are kept encrypted on this phone only, so you can finish later. They never leave the phone and are not in your backups. Once you confirm them, Rowan no longer stores them, and we can’t recover them for you. Your phone’s backups (for example iCloud Backup or a computer backup on iPhone, or Google backup on Android) include only the encrypted vault, and restoring it on a phone needs your Recovery Kit words.
Rowan also keeps a small encrypted recovery copy with your phone’s own cloud backup service (iCloud on iPhone, Google’s Block Store on Android), so a new phone can find your vault. The copy can only be opened with your Recovery Kit words. Neither we nor Apple nor Google can read it.
Before version 1.3.0, and on later versions until you set up your Recovery Kit, Rowan’s data is protected by your phone’s lock screen and, like other app data, is included in your phone’s backups. Anyone who can restore those backups could restore Rowan’s data with them. That is also true of any backup made before you updated to 1.3.0, until the backup is replaced or deleted.
You can add photos, videos and voice notes to your vault. Rowan uses the camera and the microphone only when you choose to take a photo or video, record a voice note, or scan the code on a circle member’s phone. What you record goes straight into your vault, encrypted on your phone. If your plan gives it to someone in your circle, an encrypted copy goes to our relay for them, and we can’t open it. On Android, photos, videos and voice notes are not included in your phone’s backups. On iPhone, they are part of the encrypted vault in your backup.
Rowan doesn’t sell anything in this version. If you subscribed to an earlier version, Apple or Google Play handles that subscription. You can see, restore or manage it in Settings, and we never see payment details.
Rowan is for adults (18+).
Wherever you live, you can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, and ask for a copy of it. If you are in the European Union, the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, the GDPR and the UK GDPR also give you the right to restrict or object to how we use it, and to move it to another service.
If we change this policy, we’ll post the new version here with a new date, and we’ll update it before any version of Rowan that changes what it keeps.
Rowan is made by Animum Rege LLC (registered as ANIMUM REGE L.L.C.), a Louisiana limited liability company, PO Box 430, French Settlement, LA 70733, United States. Contact: support@animumrege.com. This policy is governed by the laws of the State of Louisiana, without taking away any protection the law where you live gives you.