The fine print

Privacy.

Effective 6 July 2026 · TimeMachine v5.2.1

Who this policy is from

TimeMachine is an APA timesheet calculator for UK commercial crew, available on the web and as an iPhone app (now in open beta on TestFlight), built and run by a single developer in the UK. If you need to get hold of a real person about anything below, the email is feedback@timemachineapp.co.uk.

What TimeMachine collects from you

Nothing. There is no account to create, no sign-up form, no “tell us about yourself” flow. When you open the app you can start using it immediately, and nothing about who you are travels to any server.

What you put into TimeMachine

As you use the app you’ll enter things like your name, role, day rate, bank details, productions you’ve worked on, the hours you logged, and notes you wrote. All of this is stored locally on your device - in your browser’s storage when you use the web app, or in the app’s own on-device storage on iPhone. The only copy that ever leaves the device is the optional backup on iPhone, which goes to your own private iCloud (see below) - your storage, visible to no one else, including us. There is no copy on any server controlled by TimeMachine, because there are no servers controlled by TimeMachine.

Practically, this means:

• If you clear the app’s data - clearing your browser storage on the web, or deleting the app on iPhone - the data is gone, with no way to recover it. Use the in-app backup export if you want a safety copy.
• If you use TimeMachine on a different device, you start fresh on that device, or you can import a backup file you exported earlier.
• If someone else uses your unlocked phone or laptop, they can see your TimeMachine data the same way they can see anything else on the device. Lock your devices.
• On iPhone, if you back up your device with Apple (iCloud Backup or an encrypted computer backup), your TimeMachine data may be included in that backup. That’s handled entirely by Apple under Apple’s terms; TimeMachine has no access to it.
• On iPhone, the app also keeps a rolling handful of its own backup snapshots in your personal iCloud storage - they live in your iCloud, and are visible to no one else, including us.

On-device AI (the call-sheet reader)

On iPhone, TimeMachine can read a call sheet you import - a PDF, a photo, or something shared in from Mail or WhatsApp - and pre-fill a new shoot’s invoicing details (production company, job reference, invoicing email, address). This runs entirely on your device using Apple Intelligence. The call sheet and everything read from it stay on your phone; nothing is uploaded to TimeMachine or to anyone else, and there is no server in the loop. You review every field on screen before any of it is saved, and the document you imported isn’t kept unless you choose to save the shoot. The feature only appears on iPhones that support on-device Apple Intelligence; on everything else it simply isn’t there.

Apple Health (the step counter)

On iPhone, TimeMachine can read your step count from Apple Health - with your permission, asked for through the standard Health access sheet - to show walking stats for your shoot days: steps between call and wrap, and what a day paid per thousand of them. That is the only thing it reads and the only thing the steps are used for. The counting happens entirely on your device: step data is never transmitted, never collected by TimeMachine, and never stored anywhere other than your phone. You can revoke access at any time in the Health app or in iOS Settings, and the app simply carries on without the stats.

Cookies, analytics, trackers

TimeMachine sets no cookies. There is no Google Analytics, no Mixpanel, no Plausible, no Sentry, no Meta Pixel, no anything. The site has no third-party tracking scripts. You can confirm this in your browser’s developer tools - nothing called outbound on first load.

The site itself is served from a static host (Netlify) which may keep server logs of incoming requests (IP address, user agent, timestamp) according to Netlify’s own policy. TimeMachine has no access to those logs.

On iPhone (TestFlight & the App Store)

The iPhone version works the same way - your data stays in your hands, on the device plus the optional private iCloud backup, and TimeMachine has no server. There are two Apple-side things worth knowing. While the app is in beta through TestFlight, Apple collects information about your device and how the beta performs, including crash logs, and may share that with us under Apple’s TestFlight terms - that is Apple’s processing, not the app’s, and only during beta. When the app is on the App Store, Apple handles the download and any standard account information under Apple’s own privacy policy. Either way, TimeMachine itself still collects nothing.

If you email us

If you contact feedback@timemachineapp.co.uk, the email itself is held by the email provider that powers that address. The email is kept long enough to reply and resolve whatever you wrote about, and then either retained for ongoing context or deleted on request.

Sharing

Because TimeMachine doesn’t hold any data about you on its servers, there’s nothing to share with anyone. Your data isn’t sold, isn’t passed to advertisers, isn’t used to train models, isn’t given to law enforcement on request - it cannot be, because TimeMachine doesn’t have it. Only you do.

Your rights under UK GDPR

UK data protection law gives you a set of rights over personal data held about you (access, rectification, erasure, portability, restriction, objection). Because TimeMachine doesn’t hold any personal data about you on a server, most of these rights have no work to do.

If you’ve emailed us and want to know what we hold from that exchange, or want it deleted, write back to the same address and we’ll handle it within 30 days.

Children

TimeMachine is a professional tool for working crew. It’s not designed for or directed at anyone under 16, and we don’t expect under-16s to be using it.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes materially - for example, if TimeMachine ever moves to a cloud-sync model (it has no plans to) - the change will be announced in-app and the effective date at the top of this page will update. The current version stays available in the project’s git history.

Contact

Real person, real inbox: feedback@timemachineapp.co.uk.

If you’re ever unhappy with how a question got answered, you can also complain to the UK’s data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, at ico.org.uk.