Tom’s Phone
Privacy policy
Effective date: 13 August 2026
Replaces the policy effective 14 April 2026, which described an earlier version of the app.
In short: everything the app stores stays on the phone. There is no advertising, no analytics, no account, and nothing is sold or shared. The only thing that reaches us is a crash report, only ever on a connection that does not charge for data, which you can turn off. The only thing that reaches anyone else is a battery or SOS text, to contacts you choose.
1. Who we are
Tom's Phone is an Android app that turns a phone into a simple, large-button phone for someone who finds an ordinary smartphone difficult. It is set up by a helper — usually a family member — on a phone the senior then uses.
Contact: support@toms-phone.com
2. What the app keeps on the phone
Everything the app stores is kept on the phone itself, in storage private to the app. None of it is sent to us, and none of it is uploaded anywhere.
- Contacts you add in the app — name, phone number, spoken name, button colour. These are entries the helper types in. The app never reads the phone's address book; it has no permission to, and that was a deliberate design decision.
- Settings— the senior's name, button layout, text size, margins, volume, and the rest.
- Emergency medical information, if the helper fills it in: name, date of birth, address, blood type, allergies, medications, conditions, notes, emergency contacts, and a photograph if one is taken. This exists so ambulance crews can see it in an emergency.
- A helper PIN, if set. Stored as a salted hash, never as the PIN itself.
3. The photograph
The medical card can include a photo of the person the phone is for.
The app does not have camera permission. When the helper chooses to add a photo, the phone's own camera app opens and writes the picture to a temporary file the app owns — or they pick a photo the phone already has. The app then shrinks it and keeps it in its private storage.
The photograph never leaves the phone. It is not uploaded, not backed up to us, and not shared with anyone. It is deleted when the photo is removed, or when app data is reset.
4. Calls and messages
- Calls.The app places and answers calls, and acts as the phone's dialler. Call details stay in the phone's own call log, which the app reads to show missed calls. We never see them.
- Text messages. The app can send an automatic text to contacts the helper has individually opted in — when the battery is low, when the phone is back on charge, or when the SOS button is used. It sends only to those contacts, only those messages, and it cannot read any text messages.
- Emergency calls. The SOS button calls the number the helper configured. We are not involved in that call and receive nothing about it.
5. Crash reports
If the app stops unexpectedly, it can send a crash report so we can find and fix the fault. This uses Google Firebase Crashlytics.
- It is on to start with, and can be turned off— Settings → About & help → Crash reports.
- Reports are only sent on a connection that does not charge for data — normally your Wi-Fi. Anything metered makes the report wait, including mobile data, a phone hotspot, and a Wi-Fi network you have marked as metered. This matters because many of these phones are pay-as-you-go, where using up data credit can stop calls and texts working.
- A report contains what went wrong and what type of phone it is. It never contains names, phone numbers, messages, contacts, medical information, or the photograph.
- Turning crash reports off also deletes any report still waiting to be sent.
6. What we do not do
- No advertising, and no data sold or shared with advertisers.
- No usage analytics. The app contains no analytics software. The Firebase Analytics component is deliberately excluded from the build, and an automated test fails the build if it ever returns.
- No account. There is nothing to sign up for and no profile.
- No tracking of location, browsing, or app use.
Apart from crash reports, and purchases handled by Google Play, the app does not use the internet at all.
7. Permissions, and why each one exists
| Permission | Why |
|---|---|
| Phone / place calls | To make a call when a button is pressed. |
| Call log | To show which calls were missed, so they can be returned. |
| Phone state | To show whether voicemail is waiting, and to read the SIM's voicemail number. |
| Send SMS | Battery and SOS alerts, to contacts the helper opted in individually. |
| In-call & call screening | To be the phone's dialler, and to block unknown callers if the helper turns that on. |
| Notifications | For the ongoing notice shown while a missed-call reminder is playing. |
| Vibrate | Feedback when a button is pressed. |
| Foreground service | To keep a missed-call reminder running until the call has been returned. |
| Internet & network state | Crash reports only, and to tell a metered connection from an unmetered one so they are held back. |
The app does nothave permission to read contacts, use the camera directly, record audio, or see the phone's location.
8. Being the default phone and home app
Tom's Phone is designed to be set as the phone's default Phone app and default Home app. That is what stops the senior reaching confusing screens. It gives the app no additional access to personal data beyond the permissions above, and it can be undone at any time in Android settings.
9. Purchases
Purchases and subscriptions are handled by Google Play. We never see card details. Google tells the app only whether a purchase is active.
10. Keeping and deleting information
Information stays on the phone until it is deleted. The helper can remove any contact or clear the medical information at any time, and Reset Tom's Phone in settings erases everything the app has stored — settings, contacts, medical information, the photograph, and the PIN.
Uninstalling the app removes its data with it. We hold nothing to delete on request, because we hold nothing.
11. Children
Tom's Phone is not designed for or directed at children.
12. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes we will update this page and its effective date. Material changes will be noted in the app.
13. Contact
This policy states what the app does, in plain words, for transparency and Google Play's requirements. It is not legal advice. If you are setting up a phone for someone and want to know what is stored, the help pages cover the practical side.