Intervals Privacy Policy
Intervals is an intervalometer: it floats a timer over your existing camera app and taps the shutter for you on a schedule. It never opens your photos, never reads your screen, and has no account. It is free and ad-supported. This page explains exactly what it does and does not do.
Key Points
No Photo Access At All
Intervals requests no camera and no photo-library permission. Your shots are taken and stored by your own camera app; Intervals never sees them.
Taps Only, Never Reads
The accessibility service exists solely to dispatch a tap at the marker you positioned. It is configured so it cannot retrieve screen content, and it stores or transmits nothing.
Free, With Ads
A single banner in the timer overlay, served by Google AdMob. EU/EEA/UK users get a TCF consent dialog before any personalized ad data is used.
Table of Contents
1. Data Controller & Scope
The data controller for the Intervals mobile application (package com.observin.intervals) is the individual developer who publishes the app on the Google Play Store under the Observin developer account. For any privacy enquiry, use the contact details in Section 12.
This policy applies only to the Intervals Android application. Our other apps have their own policies: Trailium and Starro.
2. The Accessibility Service (Prominent Disclosure)
Why Intervals asks for accessibility access, and the strict limits on it
Android has no public API that lets one app press a button inside another app. The only way an intervalometer can fire your camera app's shutter automatically — which is the entire purpose of Intervals — is Android's accessibility gesture API. That is the sole reason the app asks you to enable its accessibility service, and enabling it is voluntary: without it the app simply cannot auto-tap.
What the service does
- Dispatches a single synthetic tap at the screen coordinates of the marker you dragged onto your shutter button
- Does so only while a sequence you started is running, at the interval you chose
- Nothing else — it performs no scrolling, typing, navigation or clicking anywhere else
What the service cannot and does not do
- It cannot read screen content. The service is declared with
canRetrieveWindowContent="false", so Android does not grant it access to the text, fields or view tree of any app - It does not observe what you do. It subscribes to a single window-change event type and ignores it; it captures no keystrokes, no passwords, no form data and takes no screenshots
- It collects, stores and transmits nothing. No accessibility data of any kind is written to storage, logged remotely, used for advertising or sent to us or any third party
You can revoke it at any time in Android Settings → Accessibility → Intervals; only auto-tapping stops working. Note that Android itself deletes this permission whenever the app is force-stopped (including by battery optimisation), which is why the app may occasionally ask you to re-enable it — see Section 4 for the optional setting that prevents that.
3. What We Collect
We operate no servers and no accounts
Intervals has no backend. We never receive your data. There is no sign-up, no email address, no username and no password. The app contains no analytics SDK and no crash-reporting SDK, so we receive no usage statistics or telemetry from your device.
Advertising data (the only data leaving your device)
The banner in the timer overlay is served by Google AdMob, which may process your device's advertising identifier, IP address and basic device/ad-interaction signals. In the EU/EEA/UK this happens only in line with the consent choices you make in the dialog described in Section 5. Full detail is in Sections 5 and 7.
Stored on your device only
- Your interval, shot count and delay settings, and whether you have seen the tutorial
- Whether the app has already offered you the "keep ready" battery setting
- The list of camera apps installed on your device, read on demand so the app can show you which apps it can drive. This list is queried locally each time and is never stored remotely or transmitted
What Intervals never collects
- Your photos or videos — the app has no camera or photo-library permission; your camera app captures and owns every image, and Intervals never reads, copies or uploads any of them
- Your location — no location permission is requested or used
- Your identity — no name, email, phone number, contacts or calendar
- Screen content, keystrokes or screenshots — see Section 2
- Microphone or audio — no such permission is requested
4. Permissions Intervals Uses & Why
Accessibility service
To tap your shutter button on schedule. Strictly limited as described in Section 2.
Display over other apps (SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW)
To draw the floating timer, the shot counter and the draggable shutter marker on top of your camera app. The overlay only renders Intervals' own controls; it cannot read what is underneath it.
Foreground service & notifications
A running sequence must not be killed mid-shoot, so it runs as a foreground service with an ongoing notification. The notification is generated entirely on your device; no push service is involved and we send you no messages.
Query installed camera apps
Android requires apps to declare which other apps they look for. Intervals queries only apps that can handle camera intents, so it can list them on its home screen and launch the one you pick. Nothing about your installed apps is transmitted.
Battery optimisation exemption (optional)
Android deletes an app's accessibility permission whenever the app is force-stopped, and the battery optimiser force-stops apps that sit unused for a few days — which is why the shutter-tap permission used to switch itself off. If you accept the one-time "Keep Intervals ready" prompt, the app is added to Android's battery allowlist so this stops happening. Declining costs you nothing but the convenience, and you can change it any time under Settings → Apps → Intervals → Battery. This permission grants no access to any data.
Internet
Used only to fetch ads and the ad-consent form. No feature of the intervalometer itself needs a network, and nothing about your shoot is ever uploaded.
Legacy storage permission (Android 12 and older)
A legacy media-storage permission is declared by bundled Google libraries for compatibility on Android 12 and below (it is capped so it does not apply to newer Android versions). Intervals itself does not read or write your media with it.
5. Advertising & Consent (incl. EU/EEA/UK)
How ads work in Intervals
Intervals is free and funded by a single banner ad shown inside the timer overlay, served through Google AdMob. There are no interstitial, rewarded or app-open ads, and ads never appear over your camera preview in a way that blocks the shutter.
EU/EEA/UK — consent management (GDPR & ePrivacy)
If you are in the European Union, European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, the app presents a consent dialog built on the Google User Messaging Platform (UMP), which implements the IAB Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF v2.2), before any personal data is processed for advertising. It lets you review every ad vendor and purpose, and accept or decline personalized advertising.
If you decline, you still see ads, but they are non-personalized and no advertising identifier or behavioural data is used to target them.
Withdrawing or changing your choice
You can change your consent at any time by opting out of ads personalization at the device level (Android Settings → Google → Ads → Delete advertising ID / Opt out of Ads Personalization), which applies to Intervals immediately. Clearing the app's data (Settings → Apps → Intervals → Storage → Clear data) resets the stored consent record so the dialog is shown again on the next launch. You may also contact us (Section 12) to have a consent record withdrawn.
What AdMob may process
- Device advertising identifier (GAID)
- IP address (approximate geolocation and fraud prevention)
- Ad interaction and in-app ad-placement data
- Device type, OS version and language
Google's handling of that data is governed by the Google Privacy Policy and the AdMob Privacy & Security guidelines. We do not sell your personal data and we build no user profiles ourselves.
6. Legal Basis (GDPR)
For users in the EU/EEA/UK, we rely on the following legal bases under Article 6 GDPR:
| Processing Activity | Legal Basis | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Running the intervalometer (overlay, timer, shutter taps) | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) | Necessary to deliver the function you asked for; happens entirely on your device. |
| Personalized advertising | Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) | Only after you grant consent in the in-app TCF dialog; withdrawable at any time. |
| Non-personalized advertising | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) | Contextual ads that fund the free app; no behavioural profiling. |
We carry out no analytics processing, so no legitimate-interest basis is claimed for it. International transfers arise only through Google's ad serving; Google relies on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers to the United States.
7. Third-Party Services
Google AdMob & Google UMP
Operated by Google LLC (Google Ireland Limited for EU/EEA users) to serve the banner ad and to collect and store your ad-consent choice. Google acts as an independent controller for its own advertising purposes.
Your camera app
Intervals launches the third-party camera app you select and taps its shutter. Every photo or video is captured, stored and handled by that app under its privacy policy — Intervals receives nothing back from it. If you are concerned about how your captures are handled, review your camera app's policy.
Google Play Store
Distribution platform. Google collects install, update and crash statistics for distribution purposes under its own policy; that happens in the Play platform, not inside Intervals.
Nothing else
Beyond the above, Intervals embeds no analytics providers, crash reporters, cloud processors or other ad networks, and we do not share, sell, rent or transfer data to any other third party.
8. Data Retention & Deletion
We retain nothing, because we hold nothing — there is no Intervals server. Your settings and consent record live in the app's private storage on your device.
- Delete app data: Android Settings → Apps → Intervals → Storage → Clear data
- Uninstalling removes everything the app stored on your device
- Ad and consent data held by Google AdMob follows Google's own retention policy; use Google's ad-settings and data-deletion tools to manage it
- Photos taken during a sequence belong to your camera app and your gallery — deleting Intervals does not touch them
9. Your Rights
Under the GDPR and comparable laws you have the rights of access (Art. 15), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction (Art. 18), portability (Art. 20), objection (Art. 21) and withdrawal of consent (Art. 7(3)), plus the right not to be subject to automated decision-making with legal effect (Art. 22) — we perform no such decision-making.
In practice, because we hold no personal data about you, there is nothing on our side to access, export or erase: your device holds the only copy (Section 8), and advertising data sits with Google, whose tools let you delete your advertising ID and opt out of personalization. Every permission the app uses can be revoked independently at any time (Sections 2 and 4).
Right to lodge a complaint: you may complain to your local supervisory authority — in the EU see edpb.europa.eu, in the UK the Information Commissioner's Office.
10. Children's Privacy
Intervals is not directed at children under 13 (or the applicable age of digital consent in your country) and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child's data has been processed through the app, contact us (Section 12) and we will act promptly.
11. Changes to This Policy
If Intervals' data practices change — in particular if the accessibility service ever needed broader capabilities, or if analytics were added — this policy and the Google Play Data-safety declaration will be updated before that version ships, and the "Last updated" date above will change.
We encourage you to review this policy periodically.
12. Contact & Complaints
Questions about this policy, the accessibility service, or your data rights? Reach out — we answer all privacy requests within 30 days.
Contact Us