Gutbook — Privacy Policy

This is the privacy policy for Gutbook, an iPhone and Apple Watch app for tracking IBS symptoms, meals, medications, water, stress, sleep, and menstrual cycle.

We wrote this in plain English. If anything is unclear, write to the contact address above.

What we collect

You enter the data yourself, in the app. The app stores it in your private iCloud database — Apple’s storage tied to your Apple ID. The categories of data the app stores are:

• Symptoms — symptom type (bloating, abdominal pain, cramping, diarrhea, constipation, gas, nausea, heartburn / reflux, fatigue, bowel movement), severity 1–10, Bristol stool scale type when relevant, duration, free-text notes, and timestamp.
• Meals — meal name, photo (optional, from your camera or library), portion size, fiber and caffeine estimates, individual food items with FODMAP classifications, free-text notes, and timestamp.
• Medications — medication name, dosage, schedule, free-text notes, and the timestamps of doses you log.
• Water intake — amount and timestamp.
• Stress — your subjective 1–10 rating, free-text notes, and timestamp.
• Sleep — start time, end time, your subjective 1–10 quality rating, free-text notes.
• Menstrual cycle (only if you opt in via Settings) — flow level, free-text notes, and timestamp.
• Settings and preferences — your unit preference, daily water goal, correlation window, low-FODMAP phase progress.

Apple Health integration (opt-in) — if you enable Apple Health sync in Settings, the app:

• Writes to Apple Health: symptom entries as native Health category samples (bloating, abdominal cramps, constipation, diarrhea, nausea, heartburn, fatigue, generalized body ache).
• Reads from Apple Health: sleep analysis and menstrual flow, used only inside the app to correlate with symptoms you’ve logged.

What we do not collect:

• We do not collect your name, email, phone number, address, or any contact information.
• We do not collect your location.
• We do not collect device identifiers, advertising identifiers, or analytics data.
• We do not collect search history, browsing history, or in-app usage patterns.
• We do not run any third-party analytics SDK (no Firebase, no Mixpanel, no Sentry, no Crashlytics).
• We do not run any advertising SDK.
• We do not have any social, sharing, or messaging features.

Where your data lives

Your data is stored in two places, both controlled by you:

1. On your devices. The app keeps a local SwiftData database on each iPhone and Apple Watch where you’ve installed it.
2. In your private iCloud. When you have iCloud signed in on your Apple ID, the app uses Apple’s CloudKit framework to sync your data across your devices via your private iCloud database. This is private storage Apple makes available to apps — only the version of the app running on your devices, signed in with your Apple ID, can access it. The app’s iCloud container is iCloud.Storms-Audio.IBSTracker.

We — the developer — do not have access to data in your private iCloud database. Apple does not give app developers access to private CloudKit databases. We have no server and no admin tool that could read your entries.

Apple’s privacy policy and security model govern how iCloud stores and protects your data. See apple.com/legal/privacy and Apple’s iCloud security overview.

What we share with third parties

Nothing. We have no third parties involved in your data.

• No analytics provider.
• No advertising network.
• No data broker.
• No cloud-services vendor other than Apple itself (because the app is hosted on the App Store and uses iCloud).

The only third party in the chain is Apple, and Apple is acting as your data store, not ours.

How we use your data

We do not use your data — we do not see your data. The app uses your data on-device to:

• Show you the logs you’ve entered.
• Compute insights and trigger analyses (severity trends, FODMAP breakdowns, food-trigger rankings).
• Sync across your own devices via your iCloud account.
• Save symptom entries to Apple Health if you enable that.
• Generate PDF exports when you tap Export.

All processing happens on your device. None of it is sent to us.

How we protect your data

• In transit: iCloud sync uses Apple’s encrypted connections. HealthKit data is protected by Apple’s security model.
• At rest: Apple encrypts iCloud data at rest. iOS encrypts on-device data when your device is locked.
• By design: because we never receive your data, we have no internal database, no logs, no backups, and no employees with access to it.

Your rights and how to exercise them

You have full control of your data at all times.

• Delete an individual entry: open the entry in the app and use the Delete option.
• Delete all entries by category: Settings → [category] → Delete All. If this option is not available for a particular category in this version of the app, see “Delete everything” below.
• Delete everything: delete the app from each of your devices, then sign in to icloud.com → Settings → Apps Using iCloud → Gutbook, and remove its data. Your iCloud copy will be deleted by Apple per Apple’s deletion timing.
• Export your data: Settings → Export PDF generates a portable, human-readable copy of your meals, symptoms, and medication history.
• Withdraw HealthKit access: Settings app → Health → Data Access & Devices → Gutbook → toggle off any categories. We honor this immediately.
• Withdraw iCloud sync: Settings app → [your name] → iCloud → Apps Using iCloud → Gutbook → toggle off. The app will continue to work locally on the device.

If you live in a jurisdiction with statutory data-subject rights (EU/UK GDPR, California CCPA/CPRA, etc.), you also have the right to request a copy of any data we hold about you and to request its erasure. Because we never receive your data, our answer to such a request will be: we hold no data about you. You should also contact Apple, who acts as the storage provider, to exercise the same rights against your iCloud account directly.

Children

This app is rated 12+. It is not directed at children under 13 (or 16 in some EU jurisdictions). We do not knowingly collect data from children. The Apple ID and iCloud account are subject to Apple’s family-sharing and parental-controls regime; please use those controls if a minor in your family uses this app.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in any meaningful way, we will:

• Update the “Last updated” date at the top.
• Note what changed in a “Changelog” section below.
• For substantive changes, we will surface a notice in the app on next launch.

We will never retroactively expand data collection without giving you a chance to opt out.

Contact

Questions, requests, or concerns: stormsunity@gmail.com

We try to reply to support email within a few business days. We are a small team — please be patient.

Changelog

• May 25, 2026, v1.0: Initial publication.