Privacy Policy

tide · last updated 17 October 2026

The short version. Use tide without an account and every payout stays on your iPhone. Sign in and your payouts are also saved to your account, so losing your phone doesn't lose your income history. Either way tide sells nothing to anybody and runs no analytics or advertising trackers.

If you use tide without an account

Your payouts, meaning the amount, who paid, the source and the date, are stored only on your iPhone, in the app's local database. So is the reserve percentage you choose. None of it is uploaded, backed up to tide, or readable by us. If you delete the app, it is gone.

The state and income type tide asks for when you first open it stay on your iPhone whether or not you have an account. They are used only to suggest a starting percentage, they are never uploaded, and both questions are optional.

The tax jar is a calculation, not an account. tide does not hold, move, or have access to any of your money.

If you sign in, your payouts are saved to your account

So that a new phone can pick up where the old one left off, signing in saves your payouts to tide's server, stored against your account. That covers the amount, who paid, the source, the date, and the reserve percentage you chose. The amount, who paid, the source and the date are encrypted by tide before they are stored, so a copy of the database on its own does not reveal them. Your device keeps its own copy and keeps working offline; the two are kept in step.

Payouts you logged before signing in are moved into the account you create, so nothing you have already entered is lost.

This is the only thing tide stores about your income, it is never sold or shared, and it is not used for advertising. Deleting your account deletes it.

If you sign in

Signing in with Apple or Google is optional; tide works fully as a guest. When you do sign in, the app stores your name, email address and the identifier your provider issued, on your device.

• tide never stores your password, and never keeps the sign-in token your provider issues.
• If you use Sign in with Apple with a private relay address, tide only ever sees the relay address.
• tide's server stores only an opaque identifier derived from your provider account, used to attach your payouts and any bank connection to you. It does not store your name or email.

If you connect a bank

Bank connections are handled by Plaid, which is subject to its own privacy policy. You enter your bank credentials with Plaid, never with tide, which never sees them.

• tide asks Plaid for one thing: your recent transactions. It does not ask for Plaid's identity information, and no name, email address, phone number or postal address from your bank reaches tide or is stored by it. Plaid's own consent screen lists the categories Plaid is able to share for a transactions connection, which is broader than what tide asks for; what tide receives for each deposit is the date, the amount, a merchant or account label, and the bank's own reference for that transaction.
• Before the bank connection screen opens, tide asks for Face ID, Touch ID or your device passcode, so that someone holding your unlocked phone cannot connect a bank on your behalf. iOS answers yes or no and nothing more. tide never receives, stores or sends your fingerprint or face data, and no biometric information ever leaves your device.
• Plaid returns an access token. It is held only by tide's server, never sent to the app, and is what allows deposits to be read.
• Recent deposits are fetched when you ask for them and shown to you to choose from. Only the ones you pick become payouts, and from then on they are treated like any other: kept on your device, and saved to your account if you are signed in. The bank's own reference for each transaction stays on your device, where it stops the same deposit being offered twice; it is never sent to tide's server.
• Disconnecting a bank in tide tells Plaid to release the connection, and reading stops immediately. The stored access token is encrypted throughout, is retired at the same moment so nothing can use it, and is held only until the release is confirmed with Plaid. If that call fails, keeping it is the only way to try again, rather than leaving a connection open that nobody can close.

If you subscribe

tide Pro is sold through Apple's In-App Purchase. Apple processes the payment; tide never sees your card, billing address, or Apple Account details. To confirm a subscription is genuine, the app sends the cryptographically signed receipt Apple issues to tide's server, which checks Apple's signature. It contains the product and its expiry date, and no payment information.

What tide does not do

• No analytics or usage-tracking software of any kind.
• No advertising, and no advertising identifiers.
• No selling or sharing of your data with anyone.
• No copy of your payouts anywhere but your device unless you sign in. As a guest, nothing about your income leaves the phone.

Deleting your data

• Payouts: delete them in the app. If you are signed in, the deletion reaches your account too. Deleting the app removes only the copy on this device.
• Bank connection: disconnect it in the app.
• Your account: delete it in the app, in Settings under Delete account. tide's server erases your payouts, your settings and any bank connection, and asks Plaid to close that connection. The app then erases its own copy on that phone and signs you out. If you signed in with Apple, you confirm with Apple first, and tide asks Apple to revoke its access to your Apple ID; the tokens Apple issues for that are used once and never stored. Signing in again later with the same Apple or Google account starts a new, empty one.
• What is kept, and for how long: for up to 30 days after a deletion, the server keeps the opaque identifier and a counter and nothing else, so that any other phone still signed in to that account is turned away rather than uploading the copy it holds. Then that goes too. If Apple refunded a tide Pro subscription, the record of the refund is kept without anything identifying you, so the refund keeps counting. Other phones that were signed in keep their own copy until you delete the app on them.
• Your subscription: deleting your account does not cancel tide Pro. Apple bills it, so cancel it in your Apple Account settings.
• You can also email the address below. If you delete your Apple account, Apple tells tide and the same erasure happens without you asking.

Children

tide is not directed at children under 13 and should not be used by them.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that affects what tide collects, the date at the top will change and the new version will appear here before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions, or a deletion request: support@ridethetide.app