Privacy Policy

What you type into a code

The link, text, password, phone number or other details you enter are used only to build the code, on the device. They are not sent anywhere: we have no server to send them to, and they are never included in the ad requests the app makes.

Camera and photos

The camera permission is used only by the scanner, and the code is recognised on the phone; no frames are recorded or uploaded. “From photos” opens the system picker so you can choose one image, and only that image is read — nothing else in your gallery is accessed.

Saving downloads

A PNG you download is saved to your Photos through the system media library; on Android 12 and below the app asks for the storage permission to do this. SVG, PDF and EPS files are handed to the share sheet and go wherever you send them.

What the app stores on your phone

Codes you save to the workspace, your scan history (the last 50 scans, and only while “Keep scan history” is on), and your settings — theme, language, default format and size — are kept in the app’s private storage on the device. The clipboard is read only when you tap Paste, and written only when you tap Copy.

Advertising

ProQR is free and is paid for by advertising. Ads are served by Google AdMob, which is part of Google. To select and measure an ad, AdMob receives your device’s advertising ID, your IP address, and coarse information about the device and app — for example the model, the Android version and the app version — along with whether an ad was shown, viewed or tapped. Google acts as an independent controller of that information under its own privacy policy, at policies.google.com/privacy.

What you type into a QR code is never part of an ad request, and neither are your saved codes or your scan history. Those stay on the phone.

You can reset or delete the advertising ID at any time in Android Settings → Privacy → Ads, which also lets you turn off ad personalisation for every app on the device.

If you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, the app asks for your consent before it requests an ad, using Google’s consent form. You can change that choice at any time in ProQR under Settings → Ad privacy settings.

How the app reports on itself

ProQR uses four Google Firebase services to keep the app working. None of them ever receives what you type into a QR code, the codes you have saved, or your scan history — those stay on the phone.

• Remote Config fetches a small settings file, so something like whether the app shows ads can be changed without publishing an update.
• Analytics records that the app was opened and which screen is showing — by name only, never its contents. This is what tells us how many people use ProQR and when it was last opened.
• Crashlytics sends a report when the app crashes: the error, where in the code it happened, and the state of the device at the time.
• Performance Monitoring times how long the app takes to start and to move between screens.

What those reports contain

A Firebase installation identifier, your IP address, and basic information about the device and the app — the model, the Android version, the app version, the language and the country worked out from the IP address. The identifier is specific to this installation of ProQR; it is not your Google account, and uninstalling the app ends it.

Google processes this on our behalf as a data processor, under its own terms at firebase.google.com/terms/data-processing-terms. If you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, refusing consent on the form the app shows also stops analytics data being stored.

What we do not do

• We do not ask you to create an account, and we do not know who you are.
• We do not run analytics or crash reporting of our own — only Google Firebase, described above, and only about the app itself.
• We do not upload, store or see your codes or what is in them.
• We do not sell personal information — we hold none.

Children

ProQR is a general-purpose utility and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, children included.

Your choices

Turn scan history off in Settings, clear saved QRs from Settings, remove individual codes and scans in the workspace, and decline the camera permission if you never scan. Uninstalling ProQR removes everything it has stored on your device.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in a way that affects you, the revised version will be published on this page with a new revision date. Continuing to use ProQR after that date means the revised policy applies.