Privacy policy
Effective October 13, 2026
Pertain is an iPhone app that picks the news that affects your life and explains why. It's made by Nikklab Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Canada ("we"). This policy explains what we collect, why, who helps us run Pertain, and the choices you have.
The short version: we use what you tell us only to choose and explain your news. We don't sell your information, we don't show ads, and we don't track you across other apps or websites. You can delete your account in the app at any time, and everything about you is deleted right away.
What we collect
| What | Examples | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Your email address, or the identifier Apple gives us with Sign in with Apple (which may be a private relay address). If you skip sign-in, a random account ID kept on your phone. | To keep your account and send sign-in codes. |
| Your profile | Your first name, city, country, home country, your work and role, how much news you want, and when you want your catch-up. | To pick news for where you live and what you do. |
| Life details you choose to add | Whether you rent or own, your mortgage type, a trip and its dates, whether you're on a visa and its type, kids, a car, investing, a health condition (yes or no only), your health plan type, studying or student loans, the country you send money to, looking for work, working remotely. | To find stories that affect you, such as a rate change for your mortgage or a rule change for your visa. |
| What you do in the app | Stories shown and opened, stories marked "Not useful", stories you follow, actions you mark as done, numbers you watch. | To build your feed, your record and "What we've learned". |
| Device | A push notification token, your time zone. | To send alerts and your catch-up at the right time. |
| Subscription | Your plan, trial and renewal dates, and whether it's active. We never see your card or payment details; Apple handles payment. | To give you Premium and send trial and billing notices. |
| Messages to us | Emails you send to support, and your answer if you tell us why you cancelled. | To help you and improve Pertain. |
Some life details, such as immigration status or that you manage a health condition, are sensitive. They are always optional. You add them only if you want news about them, and you can remove them in My Life at any time. By adding them you consent to our using them for that purpose.
We don't collect your precise location, contacts, photos or advertising identifier. If you tap "Use my location once" during setup, your phone works out your city on the device and fills it in; only the city and country are saved, never your coordinates.
How we use it
- To match news stories to your profile and life details, rank them, and write the short "For you" and "What to do" lines.
- To send the notifications you've allowed: your catch-up, impact alerts (which you can turn off in Settings), number alerts, and notices about your free trial, a failed payment or a cancelled renewal.
- To provide Premium and handle your subscription.
- To keep Pertain working and secure, fix problems and answer support requests.
We don't use your information for advertising, and we don't sell or rent it.
AI processing
Pertain uses Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, to summarize news articles and to write the lines that explain why a story matters to you. To write those lines, the relevant parts of your profile and life details are sent to Anthropic along with the story. Anthropic processes them for us under its commercial terms and doesn't use them to train its models. If you type a role, such as "ICU nurse", Claude also uses it to work out which areas of news fit your work.
AI-written text can be wrong. Pertain's lines are general information, not financial, legal, immigration or medical advice.
Who helps us run Pertain
We share information only with these service providers, only as needed to run Pertain, and under contracts that require them to protect it:
| Provider | What they do | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database and sign-in. Stores your account, profile and activity. | Canada |
| Railway | Runs the service that gathers news and builds your feed. | United States |
| Anthropic | AI summaries and personal lines (see above). | United States |
| RevenueCat | Manages subscriptions. Receives your account ID, purchase records, and your email and name if you gave them. | United States |
| Apple | App Store payments, Sign in with Apple, and delivering notifications. | United States and elsewhere |
| Resend | Sends our emails (sign-in codes and subscription notices) from [email protected]. | United States |
News comes from publishers' public feeds and the GDELT project. Pertain only reads from them; nothing about you is sent to publishers. When you open an article link, the publisher's own privacy policy applies.
We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect the safety of people or of Pertain. If Nikklab Inc. is part of a merger or sale, this policy will continue to apply to your information.
Where your information is stored
Your account and profile are stored in Canada. Some processing happens in the United States (see the table above), so your information may be accessed under the laws of that country. We use encryption in transit and access controls, and each person's data can only be read by their own account.
How long we keep it
- Your account, profile, life details and activity: until you delete your account. A trip is removed after its date.
- When you delete your account, everything about you is deleted right away, with no waiting period.
- We keep one record of your subscription (plan, dates and status) for billing and tax. It is stored under a scrambled ID with nothing that identifies you.
- If you told us why you cancelled, we keep that answer without anything linking it to you.
- Service logs, which show account IDs but not names or emails, are kept for a short time and then deleted.
- Copies in encrypted backups are overwritten on our providers' normal backup schedules.
Your choices and rights
- See and change your information: everything you've told us is in My Life and Settings, and you can edit or remove it there.
- Delete your account: My Life → Settings → Delete my profile and account.
- Notifications: turn impact alerts off in Settings, or all notifications off in your iPhone's Settings.
- "What we've learned": reset it in My Life.
- A copy of your information, or any other privacy request: email [email protected]. We answer within 30 days.
Depending on where you live, laws such as Canada's PIPEDA, the EU and UK GDPR, or California's CCPA give you rights to access, correct, delete and port your information, to object to or restrict some uses, and to withdraw consent. We honour these rights for everyone, wherever you live. Under GDPR, we rely on our contract with you to provide Pertain, on your consent for sensitive life details, and on our legitimate interest in keeping Pertain secure and improving it. You can complain to your data protection authority, or in Canada to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Children
Pertain isn't meant for anyone under 16, and we don't knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has an account, email us and we'll delete it.
Changes
If we change this policy, we'll update the date above. If a change matters, we'll tell you in the app before it takes effect.
Contact
Nikklab Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Email [email protected].