Legal

Privacy Policy

Effective July 30, 2026 · Last updated July 30, 2026

The short version: the Scam Signal app collects nothing. No account, no login, no ads, no analytics, no tracking, and no advertising identifier. The app has no servers and makes no network requests. Everything you do stays on your device, and deleting the app deletes it all.

This policy explains how personal information is handled by the Scam Signal mobile app for iOS and Android and by the teensagainstscams.com website. Both are independent, non-commercial educational projects created by Duncan Schwindt under the name Teens Against Scams ("we," "us," "our").

1. Information we do not collect

We do not collect, store, sell, rent, share, or transmit any personal information. Specifically, the Scam Signal app does not collect:

• Names, email addresses, phone numbers, or mailing addresses
• Account credentials — the app has no accounts and no login
• Payment or financial information — the app is free, with no purchases or subscriptions of any kind
• Location data, GPS coordinates, or IP-based location
• Contacts, calendars, photos, camera, microphone, or SMS messages
• Advertising identifiers (IDFA / AAID), device fingerprints, or cross-app tracking data
• Usage analytics, crash telemetry, heat maps, or behavioral profiles
• The links, messages, or text you enter into Link Lab

2. Information stored on your device

So the app can remember where you left off, Scam Signal saves a small amount of information locally in your device's standard app storage. This includes your lesson and scenario progress, completed case files, bookmarks, streaks, onboarding status, your acceptance of the Terms of Use, and your in-app preferences.

3. How Link Lab handles what you paste

Link Lab is an educational tool that inspects the text of a web address entirely on your device. It compares the characters you paste against a fixed, manually written list of suspicious patterns.

It does not open the link, visit the site, follow redirects, download content, contact any server, or check any reputation service, blocklist, or threat-intelligence database. Addresses you inspect are not stored, logged, or transmitted, and no history of your inspections is kept after you leave the screen.

Please do not paste passwords, one-time login codes, account numbers, or other sensitive credentials into the app.

4. Notifications

Scam Signal can send optional local reminders to help you keep up a daily practice streak. These are local notifications scheduled by your device itself — they are not push notifications, they do not originate from a server, and they do not require or transmit a device token. iOS and Android will ask your permission before any notification is shown, and you can turn them off at any time in your device settings or in the app.

5. Links to other websites

The app and this website link to outside resources, including teensagainstscams.com and official reporting and education pages run by organizations such as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the FBI's IC3, the SEC, the CFTC, and the Department of Education. When you follow one of those links you leave our app or site, and the destination's own privacy policy applies. We do not control those services and are not responsible for their content or practices.

6. The teensagainstscams.com website

This website has no accounts, no comment system, no advertising, no third-party analytics, and no tracking cookies. Interactive features such as the scenario quiz and link inspector run entirely in your browser and send nothing to us.

Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which may receive your IP address and browser user-agent as a normal part of serving those files; see Google's privacy policy. Our hosting provider may also keep standard, short-lived server logs for security and reliability. We do not use these logs to identify or profile individual visitors.

7. Children's privacy

Scam Signal is built for teenagers and adults, and its scam-awareness content is written with young people in mind. Because the app collects no personal information whatsoever from anyone, it does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 — or from any user of any age.

We have nothing to delete on request, because nothing is ever received. If you are a parent or guardian with a question about the app, you are welcome to contact us at the address below.

8. Your rights

Privacy laws such as the GDPR and the CCPA/CPRA give people rights to access, correct, delete, or port their personal data, and to opt out of its sale or sharing. Because we never collect or receive any personal data, there is nothing for us to access, correct, export, delete, sell, or share. We do not and will not sell or share personal information.

You retain complete control over the on-device data described in Section 2, which you can erase at any moment from the app's Settings screen or by deleting the app.

9. Data security

Because no data is transmitted or stored on any server we operate, there is no central database to breach. Information saved locally is protected by your device's own operating-system security and by the passcode, Face ID, or fingerprint lock you have enabled.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy if the app's features change. Any revised version will be posted at this address with a new "Last updated" date. If a future change is material — for example, if the app ever began collecting information — we would describe it clearly here and, where required, ask for your consent first.

11. Contact