What “Data Not Collected” means for Escape
On the App Store, every app has to publish a privacy label. Escape's reads “Data Not Collected.” In plain terms, the app does not collect anything from you. Not your name, not your email, not how you use it. It is a deliberate stance, and it is not one most apps in this space can take.
What the label means for you
No account. The app never asks for your email. Your streak, your journal, your notes, and your blocklist stay on your phone, and the app sends us nothing about how you use it. If you turn on iCloud sync, your data moves between your own devices through your own iCloud account, which we cannot see. The label is simply Apple's way of putting that on the record, where anyone can read it before they trust the app with something this private.
Why most apps here cannot say the same
Most recovery and blocker apps run on an account and a server. You sign up to use them, and from that point your streak, your activity, and often what you blocked live on their systems, tied to you. It is not that those apps are careless. It is that their design collects your data by default. Escape's does not, and that is the difference the label captures. When there is no account and no server, there is nothing to collect in the first place.
You do not have to take our word for it
The privacy label is public. Open any app's App Store page, scroll to the privacy section, and read it in about a minute. Escape's says “Data Not Collected.” Checking it yourself, and comparing it against the others you are considering, is the whole point of the label existing. The piece on how to read an App Store privacy label shows you what to look for.
How to read any app's privacy label
On an app's App Store page, scroll past the screenshots and reviews to App Privacy, then tap See Details. The label has up to three sections, and the order is the order to read them in.
- Data Used to Track You. Data used to follow you across other companies' apps and websites, usually for advertising. A recovery app has no reason to be in this section at all.
- Data Linked to You. Data tied to your identity, usually through an account. Watch for User Content here: it means what you write or record in the app is stored where the company can connect it to you. Browsing History linked to you means the app sees what you browse, which is the whole point of accountability software and a surprise to most other users.
- Data Not Linked to You. Data collected without your identity attached, such as usage counts or crash reports.
If an app collects nothing at all, the label skips all three and says Data Not Collected, which is what Escape's says. One more check: if an app makes you sign up but its label claims it collects nothing linked to you, read the privacy policy, because an account means at least your email exists somewhere. The label is self-reported by each developer, so treat it as the start of a check, not the end.
The most private way to quit is the one where there is nothing collected to begin with. No account, no profile, nothing on a server with your name on it. Escape is built that way on purpose, and the App Store label is the short version of the whole idea.
Escape blocks porn in Safari for free, extends to every browser with Deep Block, and adds a 90-second urge ritual, practice games that retrain how you meet an urge, and 28 short courses on identity and the long arc of recovery. No account, no personal tracking.
More on this topic in Privacy in recovery apps, or go deeper with the Who you became in private course.