Privacy policy
Room Read (called The Caller in its source code) is a free app made by Pascoe Harvey as a personal project for social and competition dancers. It has no adverts, no in-app purchases, no account and no analytics.
In short
While you have it listening, Room Read uses the phone's microphone to hear the music in the room, works out on the phone itself which dance it is, and says the dance name into your earpiece. It does not record what it hears and it keeps no log of it. The app has no permission to use the internet, and nothing it hears leaves your phone.
What the app uses, and why
- Microphone. Only while it is listening, which starts when you tap Start and ends when you tap Stop, and continues while the screen is locked. While it listens it shows a notification with a Stop button; on Android 13 and later, if you have turned its notifications off, Android instead lists it among the active apps in the quick settings panel. The sound is used to recognise the recording being played, by comparing short audio fingerprints with the app's library of fingerprints, which is kept on the phone (from Google Play it arrives as a separate download straight after the app installs), and to estimate the dance with a model that also runs on the phone.
- Notifications. To show that notification. Android requires one of any app listening in the background, but from Android 13 you can refuse it and the app still listens.
- Audio output. To play the recorded dance names through whatever the phone is playing through, normally your Bluetooth earpiece.
What happens to the sound
The sound is processed in memory, a few seconds at a time, and then discarded. It is never recorded, never stored and never sent anywhere.
What is kept on your phone
About your use of it, Room Read keeps only these two things, in its private storage on the phone, where no other app can read them. Uninstalling Room Read removes them.
- Today's list: the dances it announced today, with the song title and artist where it recognised the recording, and the time. Only today's entries are shown; entries from earlier days are deleted the next time it announces a dance.
- Your settings.
Room Read keeps no session log and no recordings. Test versions shared before its release on Google Play could keep a log of each session and, if switched on, a recording of the microphone; any files written by earlier test versions of the app stay until it is uninstalled, which removes them.
What leaves your phone
Nothing. The app cannot connect to the internet, and it has nothing to export: there is no log and no recording to share.
The app is installed and updated through Google Play, which may collect information under Google's own privacy policy, for example crash reports from phones whose owners have agreed to share them with developers.
Children
Room Read is not directed at children under 13.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be published at the same address and in the app, with a new revision date.
Contact
Questions about this policy: roomreadthecaller@gmail.com.