Privacy Policy for Volume Booster: Bass & EQ

Who is responsible

The controller of the personal data that we process as described in this policy is Gi-Gante s. r. o. Contact: volumebooster@gi-gante.com.

Overview

The app applies audio enhancement settings on your device, including boost, equalizer presets, bass adjustment, voice clarity, wider sound controls, saved sound profiles, smart listening modes, and related playback controls.

There are no user accounts and no registration. The app does not ask for your name, contacts, photos or location. It does not ask for your email address either: we receive it only if you write to us from your own email app (see Support email).

The sound features, premium onboarding, per-device profiles, quick-settings controls, home-screen widgets, and backup or restore of presets work on your device. What uses the network is buying and restoring Pro through Google Play, the purchase check for Pro owners described in Confirming your Pro purchase, and the Google components described below.

The app may also offer shortcuts into Android system sound settings and Bluetooth settings. These actions open Android system interfaces on your device and are intended only to help you reach relevant system controls faster.

Information stored on your device

To provide its features, the app stores the following data in its private storage on your device:

• audio settings such as boost level, bass level, equalizer values, voice clarity, virtualizer settings, and limiter preferences;
• saved custom presets, output-route sound profiles, and exact device profiles, which keep the name of the headphones or speaker they belong to;
• app preferences such as language selection, light or dark theme choice, safe sound mode, the number of equalizer bands, onboarding choices, quick mode state, widget or tile state, and warning dialog choices;
• whether Pro is active and when Google Play last confirmed it, with one-way hashes of the purchase tokens, so that Pro is available as soon as the app starts;
• a random installation identifier, created the first time you open Google Play's purchase sheet from the app or the first time the purchase check runs;
• if you own Pro: the Google Play purchase tokens and product identifiers of your Pro purchases, the last confirmation from our server and the time of the next check (see Confirming your Pro purchase).

This information is used to make the app work and to restore your chosen settings on the device.

If you choose to export a backup, the app creates a file only at the location you choose through the Android system file picker. If you choose to import a backup, the app reads only the file you explicitly select. The backup file holds your presets and sound profiles. It does not hold purchase data or the installation identifier.

Android backup and device transfer

If Android backup or device-to-device transfer is switched on, Android may include the app's settings, presets and sound profiles in it. That behavior is controlled by Android and your device or Google account settings. The purchase data, the installation identifier and the confirmation from our server are excluded from both cloud backup and device-to-device transfer, so a new phone starts without them and gets a new installation identifier.

Permissions used by the app

• MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS to apply audio enhancement settings.
• POST_NOTIFICATIONS to show the foreground-service notification while the app is actively enhancing audio.
• FOREGROUND_SERVICE, FOREGROUND_SERVICE_SPECIAL_USE, and WAKE_LOCK to keep user-initiated audio enhancement running while you use the feature.
• BLUETOOTH, on Android 11 and earlier only. The app does not scan for, pair with or connect to Bluetooth devices. Some Android versions check the Bluetooth state inside the system notifications about audio devices that the app uses to detect the current output, and require this permission for that check.
• INTERNET, declared by the app itself. The app's own code uses it for one thing: the purchase check for Pro owners described in Confirming your Pro purchase. Google's data-transport component, which comes with the Google Play Billing Library, declares it as well.
• ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE, brought in by Google's data-transport component, which uses it to see whether a network is available. The app's own code does not use it.
• com.android.vending.BILLING, declared by the Google Play Billing Library so that the app can open Google Play's purchase sheet and ask Google Play about the app's own products. Android does not ask you to approve it.
• com.volumebooster.gante.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION, a signature-level permission declared by the AndroidX core library so that the app can register broadcast receivers for itself. It grants nothing to other apps.

The app does not use the microphone to record audio and does not access your contacts, precise location, camera, or files other than a backup file you pick yourself.

The app may also offer an optional quick-settings tile, home-screen widget, and shortcuts into relevant Android system settings. These features operate on the device and are intended only to help you launch or control user-initiated audio features more quickly.

Purchases and Google Play Billing

Pro is sold through Google Play as a one-time purchase or as a monthly subscription. Google Play takes the payment: the app does not ask for and does not see your card number, bank details or billing address. When you make or restore a purchase, Google processes purchase-related and technical data under its own terms and Google's Privacy Policy.

The app uses the purchase information that Google Play reports to decide whether Pro is available on your device. If you own Pro, the purchase is also checked online, as described in Confirming your Pro purchase.

When you start a purchase, the app gives Google Play a one-way hash of the random installation identifier, which Google keeps with the purchase and can use to detect irregular activity. "Restore Purchases" asks Google Play what your Google account already owns for this app.

The Google Play Billing Library reports its own usage and performance diagnostics to Google through Google's data-transport component when the app asks Google Play about purchases, which it does when the app starts, returns to the screen or starts its sound service, and when you buy or restore Pro. Such a report carries technical facts such as the device model and manufacturer, the Android version, the time zone, the network type, the country, the language and the app version. The app gives the library nothing from your audio settings. We do not receive these reports. Google handles them under Google's Privacy Policy.

Refunds and cancelling a subscription are handled in your Google Play account. Google Play shows us the order details it gives developers for this app, such as the order number, product, date, price, refund status, the buyer's country and region and the device model (and, where Google provides them, the city and postcode), and our server asks Google Play whether a Pro purchase is still active (see Confirming your Pro purchase).

Confirming your Pro purchase

If you own Pro, the app confirms the purchase with our server, and our server confirms it with Google. This section says what is sent, when, why, who receives it and how long it is kept.

• Who. Only a device on which Google Play reports a Pro purchase to the app: the one-time Pro purchase, or the monthly Pro subscription while Google Play shows it as active, including during a free trial, if one is offered, and during Google Play's payment grace period. A subscription that is paused or on payment hold does not count. If you use the free version, the app sends nothing to our server.
• What is sent, over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection:
  • the random installation identifier that the app created. It is not derived from your device, your Google account or any hardware identifier;
  • the Google Play purchase token of each Pro purchase on the device, with its product identifier;
  • the result of a Google Play integrity check: a token from Google that tells whether this copy of the app is the one published on Google Play and is unmodified, whether the app was obtained through Google Play, and includes a check of the device that Google performs. If Google cannot provide it, a short error code is sent instead;
  • the version number of the app.
  As with any internet request, our server and our hosting provider also receive your IP address and standard technical request data, such as the time of the request and the identification string that Android adds by default, which usually includes the Android version and the device model. Our code does not store them.
• What Google receives on the device. To make the integrity token, Google collects the data it describes for Play Integrity: the app's package name, version and signing certificate, its Google Play licence status for the accounts on the device, and an attestation of the device. The integrity request is tied to this purchase check by a one-way hash, so Google does not receive the installation identifier or the purchase token through it.
• When. The check needs nothing from you and runs only while you use the app:
  • when the app starts, returns to the screen or starts its sound service, if a check is due;
  • right after you buy Pro, and when you tap "Restore Purchases" if the purchase has not been confirmed recently;
  • after a successful check, again about once a week;
  • if our server could not be reached, again later, at growing intervals of up to a day;
  • if our server answered that the purchase is not active while Google Play on the device still shows it, again at most once a day.
• Why. To confirm that Pro was really bought on Google Play for this installation, and to detect unauthorised copies of the app and misuse of purchases, such as a modified copy of the app or one purchase used on an unusual number of installations. The check is automatic. If the check starts to limit Pro, for example by switching it off on an installation for which it does not confirm the purchase, this policy will be updated before that. We do not use this data for advertising or to build a profile of you, and we do not sell it.
• What our server answers. A signed confirmation that this installation holds Pro, which the app keeps on the device and checks there without the network. It names the product and carries one-way hashes of the installation identifier and of the purchase token, when it was issued and when it expires, and a one-word summary of the integrity check. Our server keeps no copy of it.
• Who receives the data.
  • Google, as the operator of Google Play: our server sends the app's package name and the purchase token to Google Play to ask whether the purchase is active, and the integrity token to Google to read its result. When a subscription replaced an earlier one, Google Play tells our server about the earlier purchase, and the server moves that purchase's records to the new one, using hashes only. Google Play's answer also contains other details of the purchase, such as the order number and the country of purchase; our server reads only what it needs to tell whether the purchase is active and keeps none of the rest. Google handles this data under Google's Privacy Policy;
  • our hosting provider, which runs our server and processes the data above on our behalf, as our processor. It may process this data outside your country, including in the United States, under its data processing terms with us, which include the EU standard contractual clauses.
  We do not pass this data to anyone else, except where the law requires it.
• What our server keeps, and for how long. It does not store the installation identifier, the purchase token or the integrity token as they are. Of these it keeps only one-way hashes: a keyed hash of the installation identifier and a hash of the purchase token, and, for up to 15 minutes, a hash of the integrity token and the hash of the request it was made for.
  • A record that links these two hashes, with the date the purchase was last confirmed for this installation. It is written only after Google Play has confirmed an active purchase, refreshed at most once a day, and deleted automatically about 35 days after the last confirmation. While you keep using Pro on that installation, the record stays.
  • Daily counters of checks per installation hash and per purchase hash, deleted within three days after their day ends.
  • For up to one hour: a hash of a purchase token that Google Play did not recognise, with that answer, so that Google Play is not asked again.
  • For up to 15 minutes: the facts read from an integrity token (the app it was made for, when it was made, its link to this check, the app and licence verdicts and a coarse label of the device check), under a hash of that token.
  • For up to seven days: one log entry per request, with the time, the request path and a request identifier, and our own fields: the app, the result or error code, the first characters of the installation hash, whether the purchase is a one-time purchase or a subscription, the purchase state Google Play reported, a short summary of the integrity check with the coarse device label, which rule of the check was not met, if any, and how long the steps took. The log entries contain no IP address, no request headers, no purchase token, no integrity token and no installation identifier.
  The installation records and daily counters are deleted by a daily clean-up, which keeps to these terms when it runs normally; if a run fails or does not finish, the next day's run tries again. The other entries expire on their own after the times given above. After deletion, the installation records and daily counters can still be restored from the database's recovery history for up to 30 days, after which they are gone. These records contain no name, email address or order number. They are pseudonymous, and we do not use them to find out who you are. Our hosting provider sees the connecting IP address, as the operator of the network, to deliver the request and to protect the service from overload and abuse. Our code neither reads nor stores it. The provider keeps records of requests, which include the IP address, for security and traffic statistics, for the period its own terms set; that period can be longer than the seven days of our server logs.
• On your device. The app keeps the purchase tokens and product identifiers, the installation identifier, the last confirmation and the timing of the next check in its private storage. They are excluded from Android backup and from device-to-device transfer. When Google Play no longer reports a Pro purchase, the app deletes the stored purchase tokens and the confirmation. Everything, the installation identifier included, is deleted when you uninstall the app or clear its storage.
• Legal basis. The check is part of providing the Pro features you bought (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR, performance of a contract). Detecting unauthorised copies and misuse of purchases is based on our legitimate interest in protecting the app and the purchases made in it (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). The check is not based on consent. Providing this data is not a legal requirement; it is part of using Pro, and the app sends it without a separate step from you while Pro is on the device. You have the right to object at any time, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to processing based on our legitimate interests (Art. 21 GDPR) by writing to volumebooster@gi-gante.com.
• Your control. The check runs for Pro owners while they use the app. Uninstalling the app stops it, and the records on our server then expire on the terms above.

Support email

The "Contact support" screen, under More in the app, lets you write to us. The app does not send anything itself.

• How it works. The screen fills in an email to volumebooster@gi-gante.com and opens it in your email app, where you read it and press Send yourself. Nothing reaches us unless you send it. If no email app is found, the screen shows the address, and Send hands the message to whichever app you pick.
• What every support email carries: the subject you picked (a problem or a feature request) with the app version, your message, and a last line with the app version, the device manufacturer and model and the Android version.
• The diagnostics file. "Attach diagnostics" is on by default, and you can switch it off before sending. When it is on, a short text file goes with the email, and the screen shows its full text before you send ("Show what will be attached"). It contains: the app version and the store that installed the app, the app language, whether this is a debug build and whether Pro is active; the device manufacturer and model, the Android version and firmware build, the screen size and density and the system languages; the state of the sound features (booster on or off, boost level and ceiling, boost engine and the result of the boost check, safe boost and limiter, the type of output such as speaker, wired or Bluetooth, whether the effects use the global audio session, which effects the device offers and the number of equalizer bands); how many custom presets, output profiles and device profiles you have and whether profiles apply automatically; and whether notifications are allowed and battery optimization applies. It contains no names of your presets or devices, no installation identifier and no purchase tokens.
• What we receive. Because it is email, we see the address you send from, and the email stays in our mailbox, which an email provider hosts for us as our processor, and in your Sent folder. That provider may process it outside your country, including in the United States, under its data processing terms with us, which include the EU standard contractual clauses. We use it only to answer you and to fix what you describe, and we keep it until you ask us to delete it (see Data retention and deletion).
• Legal basis. We answer support email on the basis of our legitimate interest in answering the messages people send us (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR), and to provide Pro where your message is about a purchase (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).

Google Play rating card and store links

From time to time, while you use the booster, the app may ask Google Play to show its own rating card. The card belongs to Google Play: what you enter in it goes to Google, under Google's Privacy Policy, and the app is not told whether or how you rated it. After the card, the app shows a note that you can write to us from "Contact support".

"Rate on Google Play", "Other apps by us" and the link for managing your subscription open Google Play, or its web page if there is no Play Store on the device. The links in "Other apps by us" carry a tag naming Volume Booster and that list as their source, so that Google Play Console can show us how many installs came from it. "Open full privacy policy" opens this page in your browser. Apart from that tag, the links carry nothing about you.

Data sharing

We do not sell your personal data and do not share it for advertising. The app is not designed to upload your audio settings, media content, or personal files to us. Only the diagnostics file of a support email that you choose to send describes the state of the sound features (see Support email). The recipients of personal data from the app are the ones named in this policy: Google, for Google Play, Play Integrity and the rating card, under Google's own terms; our hosting provider, as our processor, for the purchase check; the provider that hosts our mailbox, as our processor, for support email; and us, through our server for the purchase check and in our mailbox when you send a support email. We do not pass this data to anyone else, except where the law requires it.

If you export a backup to a third-party storage provider or cloud drive available through the Android system picker, that file is then governed by the storage provider you chose and by your device or account settings for that provider, not by us.

Analytics and advertising

The app contains no advertising SDK, no analytics SDK and no crash-reporting SDK, and its own code does not read the advertising ID. The purchase check exists to confirm purchases, not to profile anyone.

How this appears in Google Play's Data safety section

In Google Play's Data safety section, Volume Booster declares these data types: Device or other IDs (the installation identifier, sent to our server for Pro owners and, as a hash, to Google when a purchase starts, and the device check inside the integrity result); Purchase history (the purchase token and product, for Pro owners); Diagnostics (the integrity result, the app version and error codes of the purchase check, the Google Play Billing Library's own reports to Google, and the diagnostics file of a support email, which you can leave out); and Email address (only when you write to support). Purchase history and Device or other IDs are marked as required: without Pro the app sends neither to our server, but a Pro owner cannot turn the check off. Diagnostics is marked as required too, because the app cannot switch off the Google Play Billing Library's reports. Email address is marked as optional. For the data of the purchase check the purposes given are app functionality and fraud prevention, security and compliance; Diagnostics is also declared under the Analytics purpose because of the Google Play Billing Library's reports; the app itself contains no analytics SDK. In that form we do not mark any of it as shared: Google receives it as the operator of Google Play and of its own libraries, under Google's Privacy Policy, and our hosting provider and the provider that hosts our mailbox process it on our behalf. The form states that data is encrypted in transit: the app's own connections, including the purchase check, use HTTPS only, and a support email is sent by your own email app, or another app you pick, not by Volume Booster. You can ask us to delete data, as described under Data retention and deletion.

Data retention and deletion

Audio settings, presets, sound profiles, and similar preferences are stored locally on your device for as long as they remain in the app's storage. You can remove all of the app's data from the device at any time by clearing the app's storage in Android system settings or by uninstalling the app. Neither removes a copy in Android's backup: that copy is managed in your phone's or Google account's backup settings.

Exported backup files remain wherever you saved them until you delete them yourself. We do not receive or keep a copy of them.

What our server keeps for the purchase check is deleted automatically: the record of an installation about 35 days after the purchase was last confirmed for it; daily counters within three days after their day ends; the note that Google Play did not recognise a purchase token after at most one hour; the facts of an integrity check after at most 15 minutes; and log entries after at most seven days. The daily clean-up of installation records and counters keeps to these terms when it runs normally; if a run fails or does not finish, the next day's run tries again. Deleted installation records and counters can still be restored from the database's recovery history for up to 30 days. Our hosting provider keeps its own records of requests, with the IP address, for the period its own terms set (see Confirming your Pro purchase). Our server identifies its records only by hashes, and they contain no name, email address or order number; we do not link them to you ourselves. If you send us the order number from your Google Play receipt, we can look up the purchase token of that order in Google Play and delete the records of that purchase, which our server keeps under the token's hash, before they expire; otherwise they are deleted on the terms above. Uninstalling the app stops the checks. Clearing its storage removes the installation identifier from the device; if you still own Pro, the next check uses a new identifier, and the records of the old one stay tied to your purchase until they expire.

Support email is kept in our mailbox, hosted for us by an email provider as our processor, until you ask us to delete it. To have it deleted:

1. write to volumebooster@gi-gante.com from the same address, with "Delete my data" in the subject;
2. your messages, our replies and any attachments are deleted within 30 days, and you get one email saying it is done.

Purchase records are kept by Google in your Google Play account under Google's retention rules, which is why Pro can be restored on eligible devices through Google Play. The reports that the Google Play Billing Library sends go to Google, not to us, so we can neither see nor delete them.

Security

• The app's data is kept in its private storage, which Android does not let other apps read.
• The purchase check uses HTTPS only: the app refuses unencrypted connections for its own requests.
• Our server stores the installation identifier and the purchase token only as one-way hashes.
• To report a security problem, write to the address under Contact.

Children

The app is not directed to children under 13. It does not ask anyone for their age, and the data described above is handled the same way for everyone.

Your rights

Data protection laws such as the EU and UK GDPR give you rights over your personal data, including access, correction, deletion, restriction of processing, portability, and the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests. Most data about your use of the app never reaches us: you can delete it by clearing the app's storage or uninstalling it. For support email and the records of the purchase check, write to the address below (see Data retention and deletion). You can also lodge a complaint with the data protection authority where you live or work.

Changes to this policy

When the app starts handling data in a new way, this policy is updated at the same address with a new effective date before the release that brings the change.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: volumebooster@gi-gante.com, the same address the app's "Contact support" screen uses. The Google Play listing for Volume Booster: Bass & EQ also shows the current support contact.