Privacy Policy
Effective date: 15 July 2026
deben is a personal finance app that runs entirely on your phone. This policy explains, in plain language, what deben touches, where it stays, and why nothing ever leaves your device. It is written to be accurate to how the app actually works, not to reassure you with words that do not match the code.
The short version
- deben has no account and no sign-up. You never give us your name, email, or phone number.
- deben runs no servers. There is no deben backend, and we operate no cloud that your data flows through.
- deben collects nothing and shares nothing. We have no analytics, no telemetry, and no crash-reporting services.
- Everything deben reads, parses, and stores stays on your device, in an encrypted database.
- deben has no internet permission at all. It cannot make a network connection, so nothing it holds can ever leave your phone.
Who we are
deben is developed by Tarek Raafat. For any question about this policy or your privacy, contact privacy@debenapp.com.
What deben accesses on your device
Text messages (SMS)
deben's core feature is reading your transaction messages so you do not have to type your spending in by hand.
- This is optional and off by default. deben asks for SMS access only if you turn on message capture, and you can turn it off at any time.
- deben reads messages that look like transactions (from your bank, wallet, or a payment service) and works out the amount, the merchant, the date, and the account. For the optional Offers feature, it also reads promotional messages sent by brand or short-code senders and lists them as deals you can use.
- deben never inspects messages from personal phone numbers, so your personal conversations stay private.
- The reading and parsing happen entirely on your phone. The content of your messages is never uploaded to us or to anyone else.
- The original message text is kept on your device (inside the encrypted database) so you can search it and correct how it was read. It stays on the device and is removed when you delete the item, clear old messages, or uninstall the app.
deben never sends any message anywhere.
Internet access
deben declares no internet permission. It makes no network connections of any kind: capture, parsing, storage, and backup all happen on the device, and there is no feature that sends your data anywhere.
How your data is stored and protected
- All of your data lives in a single database on your device, encrypted at rest with SQLCipher. The encryption key is protected by the Android Keystore, so it never exists in plain form outside secure hardware-backed storage.
- You can lock the app behind your device biometric or PIN.
- Backups are encrypted with a password you choose and saved, through your system file picker, to a location you pick. A backup is never uploaded anywhere, and a forgotten backup password cannot be recovered by anyone, including us.
What we collect and share
Nothing. deben does not collect your data, because none of it is transmitted anywhere. deben does not sell or share your data with third parties. There are no advertising, analytics, or tracking libraries in the app, and no internet permission for anything to be sent through.
Keeping and deleting your data
- Your data stays on your device for as long as you keep the app installed.
- You can delete any individual item in the app, clear old captured messages, or remove everything by uninstalling deben.
- Because your data is only on your device, deleting it there deletes it completely. There is no copy on a server for us to hold or to be asked for.
Children
deben is a general finance app and is not directed to children under 13 (or the minimum age of digital consent in your country). We do not knowingly collect data from children, and in fact we do not collect data from anyone.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, we will update the effective date at the top and publish the new version at the same address. Material changes will be reflected in the app's release notes.
Contact
Questions about your privacy or this policy: privacy@debenapp.com.