Privacy Policy
This policy explains what Bear Wallet does — and does not do — with your information.
The short version.
- Your accounts, transactions, budgets and planned payments never leave your device.
- There is no Bear Wallet account, so we hold no profile about you.
- We never sell, rent or broker personal data, and we do not run advertising.
- The app contains no analytics, no crash-reporting and no advertising SDKs.
- The app makes exactly one kind of network request: fetching currency exchange rates from our own server, which keeps ordinary short-lived access logs.
- Uninstalling the app deletes your data. There is nothing on our side to request back.
The sections below are the full, binding version. If anything here is unclear, email support@openbear.org and we will fix the wording.
1. Who we are
Bear Wallet is published by Open Bear Organization ("Open Bear", "we", "us", "our") — an independent software project based in Vietnam, built and operated by a single developer. It is not an incorporated company.
For the purposes of the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation, Open Bear is the data controller for the limited processing described in this policy. You can reach us at any time at support@openbear.org, and postal contact details will be provided on request to anyone who needs them to exercise a legal right.
2. Scope of this policy
This policy applies to the Bear Wallet mobile application for iOS and Android, and to the openbear.org website. Each Open Bear application has its own privacy policy; where a future app differs, it will link to its own document rather than this one.
It does not apply to the App Store or Google Play themselves. Apple and Google process your download, device and (where applicable) payment information under their own policies, which we do not control.
3. Information we process
Bear Wallet is designed so that the information you care about most never reaches us. The table below lists everything the app handles and, critically, where it goes.
| Category | Examples | Where it is stored | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Financial records | Accounts, balances, income and expense records, categories, budgets, planned payments, notes you type | Your device only. Never transmitted to Open Bear. | To provide the app's core function |
| App settings | Main currency, number format, display preferences | Your device only. | To remember how you like the app configured |
| Exchange-rate requests | The currency codes being converted, plus the information any web request necessarily carries: your IP address, the time of the request and your device's user-agent string | Our own exchange-rate server, in short-lived access logs (see §7) | To show up-to-date conversion rates, and to keep that service secure |
| Support correspondence | Your email address and whatever you choose to include in a message to us | Our email provider | To answer you |
Amounts, categories and account names are never sent anywhere. An exchange-rate lookup asks "what is USD to VND today?" — it does not carry your balance, your records or anything that identifies you.
4. What we do not collect
To be explicit, Bear Wallet does not:
- require or create an account, username, password, email address or phone number;
- upload, sync or back up your financial records to any Open Bear server;
- connect to your bank, card or any financial institution;
- collect precise location, contacts, photos, calendar or health data;
- contain any analytics, crash-reporting, advertising or attribution SDK — there is no third-party code in the app reporting on how you use it;
- use advertising identifiers or any form of cross-app tracking;
- sell, rent, trade or share personal information for anyone's marketing;
- build a behavioural or advertising profile about you.
5. Where your data is stored
Your records live in the app's private storage area on your phone, protected by your operating system's app sandbox and by the device encryption Apple and Google apply to a locked device.
Because storage is local, two things follow. First, we cannot see your data, recover it, or hand it to anyone else — including if we were compelled to. Second, and just as importantly: we cannot restore it for you. Bear Wallet offers no cloud backup, so losing, wiping or replacing your device loses your records unless they are captured by your own device backup (iCloud Backup or Google Backup, subject to your settings and to Apple's and Google's policies).
6. Device permissions
Bear Wallet requests only what it needs to run. It uses network access for the two purposes described in §3, and standard local storage access. If a future version needs a new permission, the app will ask you at the moment it is needed and explain why.
7. Our server, and third parties
Bear Wallet contains no third-party SDKs. There is no analytics library, no crash reporter, no advertising or attribution kit — nothing inside the app reports to anyone about how you use it.
The app does talk to exactly one server, and it is ours: the service that supplies currency exchange rates. It is worth being precise about what that means, because it is the only point at which any information about you reaches us at all.
Our exchange-rate server
When you open the currency screen, your device asks our server for current rates. The request contains the currency codes you are converting — nothing else from the app. It carries no amounts, no account names, no records, and no identifier for you or your device.
Like any web server, ours records ordinary access logs for each request: the IP address it came from, the timestamp, the path requested and the user-agent string. An IP address can be personal data under GDPR, so we treat it as such. These logs exist to keep the service running and to detect abuse, they are never used to build a profile, they are never combined with anything else, and they are deleted on a rolling basis (see §9).
Third parties
The only third parties involved in Bear Wallet are the app stores that distribute it.
| Purpose | Who | What they receive | Their policy |
|---|---|---|---|
| App distribution | Apple Inc. (App Store), Google LLC (Google Play) | Download, install and device information, handled by the store itself under its own policy. We receive only aggregate, anonymous download counts. | Apple · Google |
That is the complete list. If we ever add another service — whether a third-party tool or a diagnostics endpoint of our own — this policy will be updated to describe it before the feature ships. Anything that is not strictly necessary to run the app will be switched off by default and will only ever send data if you turn it on yourself.
8. Legal bases for processing (GDPR)
If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, we rely on the following legal bases under Article 6(1) GDPR:
| Processing | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Storing your records on your own device to operate the app | Performance of a contract — Art. 6(1)(b) |
| Retrieving currency exchange rates when you use that feature | Performance of a contract — Art. 6(1)(b) |
| Server access logs for the exchange-rate service | Legitimate interests — Art. 6(1)(f): keeping the service available and protecting it from abuse, balanced against the minimal nature of the data and its short retention |
| Answering your support email | Legitimate interests — Art. 6(1)(f): responding to your own request |
We do not carry out automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects.
9. Data retention
- Your financial records: kept on your device for as long as you keep them. You control this entirely; we hold no copy and therefore have no retention period.
- Exchange-rate server access logs: retained for no more than 30 days, then deleted automatically. They are not archived or backed up beyond that window.
- Support email: kept while your enquiry is open and for a reasonable period afterwards for context on follow-ups, then deleted.
10. Deleting your data
Because Bear Wallet stores your information on your device rather than on our servers, deletion is immediate and entirely in your hands. You do not need to ask us.
- Delete individual items — remove any record, account, budget or planned payment from within the app.
- Delete everything — uninstall Bear Wallet. This removes the app's local storage, and with it every account, record, budget and planned payment.
- Check your device backup — if you have iCloud Backup or Google Backup enabled, a copy may still exist there. Remove it through your device's backup settings.
To have support correspondence erased, or to ask about the exchange-rate server logs, email support@openbear.org with the subject "Data deletion". We respond within 30 days, as the law requires.
11. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to the processing of your personal data, to data portability, and to withdraw consent where we rely on it.
In practice, most of these rights are already satisfied by the app's design: your data is in your possession, you can read and edit all of it at any time, and you can erase it without involving us. Where we do hold something — support email, or a server access log — write to support@openbear.org and we will act within 30 days, free of charge.
We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request. If you are in the EEA or UK and are unhappy with our response, you may lodge a complaint with your national data protection authority.
12. California residents (CCPA/CPRA)
In the past 12 months Open Bear has not sold and has not shared personal information as those terms are defined by the California Consumer Privacy Act, and we do not do so now. We do not use personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we collect no sensitive personal information.
California residents have the right to know, delete and correct personal information, and not to be discriminated against for exercising those rights. Because we hold almost nothing about you, a request will usually be answered by confirming exactly that. Send requests to support@openbear.org.
13. Children's privacy
Bear Wallet is a general-audience personal finance tool. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your country — for example 16 in parts of the EEA).
Because the app requires no account and stores everything locally, we hold no information that could belong to a child. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information through support correspondence, contact support@openbear.org and we will delete it.
14. International transfers
Your financial records do not cross any border, because they do not leave your device. The only cross-border element is the exchange-rate request described in §7: our server is operated from Vietnam, so if you use that feature from outside Vietnam, your IP address reaches a server there and appears in a log that is deleted within 30 days. Vietnam is not the subject of a European Commission adequacy decision, so for users in the EEA or UK we rely on Article 49(1)(b) GDPR — the transfer is necessary to perform the very service you asked for. If you would rather this did not happen at all, simply do not use the currency-exchange screen; every other feature works with no network connection.
15. Security
The app relies on the security model of your operating system: an application sandbox other apps cannot read, and full-device encryption while your phone is locked. Network requests use encrypted HTTPS connections.
Some of the responsibility is genuinely yours, and we would rather say so: keep a device passcode or biometric lock enabled, and keep your operating system and the app updated. No method of electronic storage or transmission is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
16. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the app changes or as the law does. The "last updated" date at the top always reflects the current revision. For material changes we will give notice in the app or on this website before they take effect. Continuing to use Bear Wallet after a change takes effect means you accept the revised policy.
17. Contact us
For any question about this policy, or to exercise any right described above:
- Email: support@openbear.org
- Website: https://openbear.org
- Postal address: provided on request — email us and we will supply it
See also our Terms & Conditions.