Pictuli privacy policy

Last updated: 5 November 2026

Pictuli is a colouring and drawing app for children and grown-ups, made by Swartberg Studio (Pty) Ltd, South Africa. It collects as little as it can, and nothing that tells us who a child is.

What we keep, and why

| What | Why | Where | |---|---|---| | A random device number and a secret the app makes up when it is first used | to know which backup belongs to which device | Pictuli's server | | The pictures coloured or drawn in the app, and their small preview images, only once a grown-up has added an email | so they can be restored on another device | Pictuli's server | | Proof of purchases from the app store (a purchase token, never payment details) | so books bought on one device open on the next | Pictuli's server | | A grown-up's email address, only if a grown-up adds one | to send the sign-in link that joins devices to one backup | Pictuli's server | | The model of each device on a backup (for example "HONOR JMS-W09") | so a grown-up can recognise and remove a lost device | Pictuli's server | | A crash report when the app fails: what went wrong in the code, the app and system version and the device model. No device number, no pictures, no names (emails, file paths and quoted text are removed) | to find and fix faults | Pictuli's server, kept for six months |

Pictuli has no advertising, no analytics and no tracking, and no third-party crash reporting. It never asks for a name, location, contacts, camera, microphone or photos, and contains no third-party advertising or analytics code.

The backup and the email link

Purchases are backed up under the device's random number, which says nothing about who uses it. Pictures are not: they stay on the device until a grown-up adds an email address in Preferences, which always asks the grown-up check first. We email a link; nothing happens until the grown-up opens it and presses Approve on the page, which shows the same code as the device. From then on pictures are backed up too, and any device signed in with the same email gets the same pictures and books. Signing out stops backing up pictures from that device.

There is no password. Whoever can read that mailbox can approve devices, so use an email only a grown-up reads.

Deleting your data

In Preferences, Delete account removes everything backed up with that email from our server, for every device, at once. It works before signing in too, for what one device has backed up. A grown-up can also take a lost device off the account there. Pictures on the device itself stay until the app is deleted.

Without the app (for example after losing the device), open the delete-account page on Pictuli's server (https://<api domain>/delete-account; filled in when the domain exists), enter the account's email, and press Delete on the page the emailed link opens. The page answers the same whether or not an email has an account.

Sharing

Pictures leave the app only when a grown-up chooses Share, which opens the device's own share sheet; where they go from there is up to the grown-up. Sharing sits behind a grown-up check.

Purchases

Books and tools are bought through your app store (Google Play, the App Store or Huawei AppGallery). The store handles payment; Pictuli receives no payment details. Purchases sit behind a grown-up check. The store's own proof of purchase is kept with the backup and is checked with that store before a purchase opens books on another device.

Children

Pictuli is designed for children and follows the Google Play Families policy and the Apple Kids category guidelines: no third-party advertising or analytics code, no links out of the app without a grown-up check, no way for children to talk to anyone, and only a grown-up can add an email. Nothing a child makes leaves the device unless a grown-up chooses it: sharing and backing up pictures both need the grown-up.

Network use

The app works offline. When it is online it downloads new books and languages, backs up pictures and purchases, and talks to your app store when a grown-up opens the shop, buys something or restores purchases.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be published here and in the app's store listing before the change takes effect.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or a request to delete data: support@swartbergstudio.com