Privacy Policy
SurvivalKnife is a household preparedness education and planning app made by Atherton Labs LLC ("Atherton Labs," "we," "us," or "our"). This policy explains what information the SurvivalKnife mobile application ("SurvivalKnife" or the "App") and the website at survivalknife.ai (the "Site") handle, where it goes, and the choices you have.
The short version: your preparedness data lives on your device by default and accounts are optional; if you use a household account, most of what you create syncs to your family's devices through our servers; AI processing is on by default and can be turned off at any time; and we don't sell data or show ads.
1. Our approach
SurvivalKnife is designed to be useful when you have no internet connection. The core knowledge base, plans, inventory, and reference content are built to operate on-device. As a general principle we collect as little personal information as possible, name every third party that helps us operate the App, and do not sell personal information.
2. Data that stays on your device
Most of what you create in SurvivalKnife is stored on your device. If you do not create a household account, we do not store the following on our servers:
- Your household profile (names, ages, medical and mobility notes);
- Plans and checklists, including meeting places and contact trees;
- Inventory and supply lists;
- Saved materials and routes;
- Key contacts and addresses;
- Quiz progress and streaks;
- The Personal Vault, which is additionally encrypted on your device with a key derived from a PIN you set.
Two things can still send parts of this list off your device even without an account: AI features, which are on by default — see section 4 for exactly what is sent and how to turn them off — and maps, described in section 5. With AI turned off and no household account, nothing in this list leaves your device.
If you do use a household account, most of this list is also shared with the other members of your household through our servers so their devices can show it. See section 3 for exactly what that includes and how to turn parts of it off. The Personal Vault is the exception: it is never synced, never sent to us, and is never included in AI requests, under any setting.
Deleting the App deletes this data. iCloud device backups may include this data under Apple's backup terms.
3. Optional household account
If you sign in with Apple to use household sharing (the Family plan), we store on our servers:
- Your Apple account identifier;
- The name and email Apple shares with us (you can hide your email through Apple's "Hide My Email" option);
- Your household membership and role;
- Invite records;
- Subscription entitlement records derived from your App Store purchase.
Household content sharing. So your family's devices show the same information, a household account also syncs the content you create. This is on by default, and each category can be turned off in Family Management → Sharing:
- Household profiles — names, ages, roles, and any medical, mobility, blood-type, contact or growth details you have entered;
- Key contacts and key addresses, including phone numbers, email addresses and street addresses;
- Vehicles, inventory and supply lists;
- Saved materials and emergency plans, including their full text and any photos attached;
- Saved routes, including the route path, and family map pins including their photos.
Quiz streaks sync for everyone in a household and cannot be turned off separately; they contain only a streak count and a date.
To register for household notifications we also store your device's push token and the device name iOS reports (for example, "Jason's iPhone"), so you can tell your devices apart.
Account data is stored on Cloudflare (U.S. regions) solely to connect your family's devices to one household. You can delete your account at any time in the App (Family Management → Delete Account), which removes these records.
4. AI features
SurvivalKnife uses AI in three places: generating and personalizing an emergency plan, the follow-up questions the App asks while drafting one, and reading a photo or voice note when you add supplies. In each case your request and the App context needed to answer it are sent through our server to Google Gemini. There is no AI chat or assistant in the App.
AI processing is on by default. You can turn it off at any time in Settings → Privacy; when it is off, every AI feature is disabled and nothing is sent for AI processing. If you join a household by invite, the App shows you a disclosure naming our AI provider, and you can switch AI off there before any of your household's data is sent. Devices set up for a child or a teen never send data for AI processing, and are not offered the choice.
What is included. For plans, that context is: household members (first names only, with ages, roles, and any medical, dietary, allergy, mobility or blood-type details you have entered), your key contacts and key addresses including phone numbers and street addresses, vehicles, your inventory and supply gaps, and your emergency notes. Which of these are included depends on the plan you are building — a plan that has no use for your saved addresses is not sent them.
Photos and voice. If you photograph supplies or share a photo into the App for the AI to read, that image is sent to Google. Content the App identifies as a sensitive document — an ID, an insurance card, a medical record, a bank statement — is never sent; it is read on your device only. Voice notes are transcribed and only the text is sent.
Never sent. The Personal Vault is never included in an AI request under any setting.
What our own server keeps. AI requests pass through our server on their way to Google. We do not keep the content of those requests. Our server briefly records the IP address a request came from — for a couple of minutes — to prevent abuse.
Google processes this data under its API terms; we don't use it to train models. The offline knowledge base, plans, inventory, and reference features all work without AI.
5. Maps and location
Map tiles, search, and routing are provided by Mapbox; map requests are subject to the Mapbox privacy policy. Your precise location is used on-device to show your position and navigate, and is included in a network request when a route or place search requires it.
To show your saved home and contacts on a map, the addresses you save — including your home address and your contacts' addresses — are sent as search queries through our server to our map provider. Weather forecast lookups send your coordinates, rounded to about 11 metres, to the U.S. National Weather Service.
Hazard and environment layers (weather alerts, earthquakes, wildfires, air quality, flood context) query public U.S. government services by approximate area: they send a map area around you, not an identity, and are not linked to your account. A few of these layers are requested through our own server rather than directly, so that request reaches us with the map area and your IP address; we do not associate it with your account. Offline map packs are downloaded by state, which necessarily tells our server which state pack you requested — not where you are within it.
6. Feedback and diagnostics
If you submit feedback or content disputes in the App, we receive the message you write, the question and answer it concerns and the identifier and sources of that content, and basic technical context (App version, build, platform, locale and region). Feedback is not linked to your household account. If you email us, we receive the contents of that message and your email address.
We do not use third-party analytics or advertising SDKs in the App. There is no measurement of what you do in SurvivalKnife.
Our website is separate. Our hosting provider may automatically log basic technical information (such as IP address, browser type, requested URL, and timestamp) for security, fraud prevention, and operational purposes, and the Site uses that provider's built-in page-view and page-speed measurement, which counts visits and load times without cookies and without tracking you across other websites. None of this applies to the App.
7. Push notifications
If you allow notifications, iOS gives the App a push token — an identifier Apple uses to deliver messages to that specific device. We store that token with the device name iOS reports (for example, "Jason's iPhone") so you can tell your devices apart, and we use it to deliver household notifications such as check-ins and invites. Hazard alerts are computed from the area you are in, not from a precise position we store. You can turn notifications off at any time in iOS Settings.
8. Purchases
Subscriptions are processed by Apple. We never see your payment details. If you use a household account, we receive Apple's signed transaction info to confirm your subscription tier.
9. Affiliate links
Some shopping suggestions open Amazon with our affiliate tag. Amazon may pay us a commission. The link carries the product search term and our affiliate tag — no account information and nothing from your household profile.
10. How we use information
We use information to:
- Operate the household account, AI features, and map functionality you choose to use;
- Respond to inquiries, feedback, and content disputes;
- Operate, secure, and improve the Site and the App;
- Comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms.
11. How we share information
We do not sell personal information and do not share it with third parties except the processors named in this policy (Apple, Cloudflare, Google for AI requests you initiate, Mapbox for map requests, Amazon for affiliate links you click, and a content-extraction service we operate that fetches links you share into the App so a copy can be saved for offline reading), our hosting and email providers, and where required by law (for example, in response to a valid legal request) or to protect rights, safety, and property. If Atherton Labs is involved in a business transaction such as a merger or acquisition, information may be transferred as part of that transaction subject to this policy.
12. Children
SurvivalKnife's content is designed to be family-friendly, and Child View limits what children see on a shared device. Household accounts, Apple Sign-in, and purchases are for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, and child profiles a parent creates stay on-device unless the parent shares them within their own household account. Devices set up for a child or teen never send data for AI processing, and are not offered the option.
What a child or teen can see is set by the household owner. A household owner controls access separately for children and for teens across nine areas — the Field Guide, family plans, the Survival Quiz, inventory, maps, saved materials, contacts, the household profile, and the Personal Vault — and the two age tiers start from different defaults. A child's device begins with no access to family plans, inventory, saved materials, the household profile, or the Vault. A teen's device begins with more, but the household profile and the Vault are still off. There is a separate control that hides sensitive inventory from teens, and it starts switched on. Every one of these can be changed at any time in Family Management.
If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so we can delete it.
13. Your choices and rights
You can use the entire offline core of the App without an account, with AI processing turned off, and without granting location access. You can delete your household account in-app, turn AI processing off at any time in Settings → Privacy, choose which categories your household shares in Family Management → Sharing, and manage location and notification permissions in iOS Settings.
Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights regarding your personal information, such as the right to access, correct, delete, or port it, or to object to or restrict certain processing. To exercise these rights, email dev@survivalknife.ai. We will respond consistent with applicable law.
14. Data retention and security
Household account data is retained until you delete your account. Feedback and content-dispute messages are retained as long as needed to act on them. We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect personal information; no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure.
15. International users
Atherton Labs LLC is registered in Wyoming, USA, and our servers run in U.S. regions. If you access the Site or App from outside the United States, you understand that your information may be processed in the United States, where data-protection laws may differ from those in your jurisdiction.
16. Changes to this policy
We will update this policy as the App evolves and revise the "Effective date" above. Material changes will be highlighted on this page or in the App as appropriate.
17. Contact us
Questions about this policy or requests regarding your information? Email dev@survivalknife.ai.
Atherton Labs LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company.