Privacy
Last updated 13 October 2026. This describes what the software actually does, not what we would like it to do. If the two ever differ, the software is the bug.
What we hold about you
- Your Google account. Signing in gives us a stable identifier for your Google account and your email address. The identifier is what makes one account per person possible, which is the main thing keeping tester farms out. Your email is stored by the sign-in service and is never shown to anyone, including developers you test for.
- Your handle. The name you pick. This is the only thing other people see.
- What you type. Your notes on the apps you test, and the app names, package names and links you add if you list an app.
- Screenshots you upload as evidence for a mission, and a short numeric fingerprint of each one that lets us notice the same screenshot being submitted for two different apps.
- What Google decided, if you tell us. When you list an app, you can record whether Google granted or rejected its production access, the day it answered, and which published reason it gave for a rejection. Visitors see only two totals across every developer, granted and rejected; nothing shown names you or your app.
- Your activity: which campaigns you committed to, which days you checked in, what was accepted or rejected, and the credits that moved as a result. On a test you commit to, we also record the first time you tap its Google Group link and its opt-in link from PeerTest, so the developer can see where day one got stuck.
- Daily minutes, only if you install the optional companion app and grant Usage Access. How long per day you spent in the apps you are testing, and how many times you opened them. Nothing about any other app on your phone; see below.
- A push subscription, only if you turn notifications on. Your browser gives us an address it will accept messages at, plus two keys that encrypt them. We never ask for this; it is a button you press, and turning notifications off deletes it immediately. Nothing is pushed that is not already in your inbox.
- A problem report, only if you send one. Report a problem on the You tab (and in the companion app) sends what you write, the names of the last screens and actions before it (never what you typed in them), the app version, the kind of device, your language and your operating system's name. Your email address goes with it only if you tick the box asking us to reply. Each report is deleted ninety days after you send it.
- Crash reports from the companion app. If the companion app crashes, it keeps a short technical report on the phone (where in the app's own code it stopped, the app version, the kind of device and the Android version) and sends it to our server the next time it opens while you are signed in. It holds no screen content, no text and no usage minutes. Each one is deleted ninety days after it reaches us.
What we do not do
- We do not pass your email address to developers. You join their Google Group and opt in through their own links; we stay out of that exchange entirely.
- We do not run advertising, third-party trackers, or third-party analytics services. This site sets one cookie of its own: a random visitor identifier, described under Taylab apps and how they connect. Your browser also stores your sign-in session locally, and a few settings of yours. Unless you turn off Share anonymous usage, first-party usage counts are sent to our own collector, on hardware we operate. What that sends is below.
- We do not sell, rent, or share your data with anyone. There is no third party to share it with.
- We do not ask for your Google Play credentials, and we never will.
What developers see about you
A developer whose app you test sees your handle, your reputation as a tester, how far into day one you got (whether you have opened their Group and opt-in links from PeerTest yet), the days you checked in, the notes you wrote, and the screenshots you submitted. They see this because it is the evidence they need in order to show Google what happened during their closed test. They do not see your name, your email address, your Google account, or anything about the other apps you are testing.
Before a developer sees a screenshot, software we run looks at it for personal data — an email address, a phone number, a name, a card number, a face, a message — and blurs what it finds. When it cannot tell, it blurs the whole image. The developer sees that copy; you see your original, and you are told what was blurred and why. Until the check has run, the developer sees your note and no image. What was found is recorded only as a category (“an email address”), never as the thing itself.
The optional companion app
There is an Android companion app. You never have to install it, nothing about testing changes if you do not, and no credit, seat or campaign depends on it. It exists for one reason: to turn "I used the app" into a number a developer can show Google.
If you install it and grant Usage Access, it reads how many minutes per day you spent in the apps you are currently testing, and how many times you opened them. Android's Usage Access permission technically exposes every app on your phone. We do not want that data and we cannot store it: the server matches every reading against the apps you personally committed to test and discards everything else before it is written down. Sending it anyway, deliberately or by accident, changes nothing.
You can see exactly what has been recorded about you, day by day, in the app. You can revoke Usage Access in Android settings at any moment and carry on testing as normal. The daily totals are deleted ninety days after the campaign they belong to closes, and the record of your phone — its model and Android version — is deleted the moment you close your account.
Notifications
Push notifications are off until you turn them on, and the app never asks for permission on its own. What gets pushed is exactly what is already in your inbox: a nudge, a review result, the last day of a fortnight. The message is encrypted so that the push service carrying it cannot read it. If your browser discards the subscription, we delete our copy the first time we notice.
Usage counts, unless you turn them off
Usage sharing is on unless you turn it off. On the web it is the Share anonymous usage switch on the You tab, or behind Usage sharing at the foot of the front page if you are not signed in; it applies to the browser you turn it off in. The companion app has its own switch, in the app, also on until you turn it off.
When it is on, what is sent is a list of fixed event names from a vocabulary we publish in our source: which screens you open, which features you finish using (taking a seat, checking in, submitting a mission, reviewing work, opening a report), the kind of error you were shown (never its words), and when a session starts and ends. It also says how long things took: a page or the app to appear, a screen's data to load, a request to our own server to answer (by kind, “our server”, never which address or what was asked), and the browser's own page-speed measures; which version of the site's settings file is in force; and the first time a milestone is reached in this browser (a first mission submitted, a first app listed, a first finished report opened, an attestation downloaded). Each one carries the app version, the kind of device (phone, tablet or desktop), your language, a random install id, the random visitor cookie this site sets, and, when you are signed in, a pseudonymous id. The country is read from the connection when it arrives; the IP address is not stored.
No free text is ever sent: not your handle, your notes, your screenshots, the app or package names you list or test, campaign ids, anything you type, your location, your contacts or an advertising id.
The pseudonymous id is derived on our server from your account id with a secret that never leaves our database. It is the same for your web and companion events, so they can be counted as one person, and it can be joined with nothing outside our own warehouse. Nothing stores it against your account: it is worked out when asked, and after you close your account it cannot be asked for again. The one time it is written down is when you close your account, and then only until our identity service confirms it has forgotten that id, as described under Closing your account. The random install id is made the first time this site runs in your browser and stays there; with sharing off nothing is sent with it except the Personalized suggestions choice described below.
The app also reads a small settings file from this site (/api/config) that can
switch a feature off or carry a note about what changed. Reading it sends nothing about you;
it is the same file for everyone.
Turning the switch off sends one last event saying so and then stops; anything not yet sent is deleted from your browser. Usage counts are not evidence: they are not part of any report, and they change nothing about credit, seats or reputation.
Taylab apps and how they connect
PeerTest is one of several apps made by Taylab (GreenFolio, Jerv, PeerTest, Dozehound, Kitproof and DiscoBeat). To understand how people use our apps and to suggest our other apps you may like, we connect what we know about you across them.
What we collect for this. Usage events (which screens and features you use, app version, device type, language, and the country your connection comes from), a random identifier for each install, a random identifier shared by our apps on the same device, a random cookie on our websites, and, when you sign in, a pseudonymous account identifier. We never collect your IP address in these events, and we never use advertising identifiers (such as Apple's IDFA or Google's advertising ID).
How we connect it. When you sign in with the same verified email address, or the same Apple or Google account, in more than one of our apps, or use more than one of our apps on the same device, we treat those as one person. We store these identifiers only in scrambled (keyed-hash) form, on our own server, and do not use fingerprinting.
How we use it. To measure and improve our apps, and to show you suggestions for our other apps inside our apps and websites (for example, a card about GreenFolio in Jerv). We may group people by interests inferred from app use (for example, "keeps houseplants" or "rides a bike").
What we do not do. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with advertising networks, data brokers or other companies. If that ever changes we will update this policy and ask for your permission where the law requires it.
Your choices.
- Turn off "Personalized suggestions across Taylab apps" in the app's Settings, or on any of our websites via "Your Privacy Choices" in the footer. Turning it off in one app turns it off in all of them.
- Turn off "Share anonymous usage" in Settings to stop usage events from this app entirely.
- We honor the Global Privacy Control signal from your browser as an opt-out.
- If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, personalized suggestions are off unless you turn them on.
- To have us delete what we hold about you across all Taylab apps, contact us at [email protected]. Deleting your account in an app removes the links to that account.
Your rights. Depending on where you live (including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Texas and other US states, and the EEA/UK), you may have the right to know, access, correct or delete your personal information, and to opt out of targeted advertising or "sharing" of it. Use the choices above or contact us; we will not treat you differently for using them.
Screenshots
Screenshots are evidence, not an archive. Each one is deleted ninety days after the campaign it belongs to closes. The record that it existed remains, with the date it was deleted; the image itself is gone.
Reputation
Both reputation numbers are calculated over a rolling ninety days. Nothing is held against you for longer than that.
Closing your account
You can close your account at any time from the You tab. When you do, all of this happens at once:
- Your email address and your Google account link are deleted.
- Your handle is replaced by a tombstone and your sign-in stops working.
- Seats you were holding reopen for other testers, and your own campaigns stop taking new ones.
- Screenshots you uploaded are erased immediately for campaigns that have already closed, and the moment the campaign closes for any still running.
- Problem reports you sent and crash reports from your companion app are deleted.
- Our server tells our identity service (the part that connects your Taylab apps, described above) to forget this account's links. It does not depend on your browser staying open or on usage sharing being on. Until the identity service confirms, we keep your pseudonymous id on its own, with nothing that names you or your account, and ask again every hour; once it confirms, usually within the hour, that copy is deleted too.
Two things are kept, and it is only fair to say exactly what and why.
The notes you wrote stay in the reports of the developers you tested for. Those reports are evidence someone else may be relying on in an application to Google, and your notes were always about their app rather than about you. They are attributed to the tombstone, not to you.
The public half of any signing key you made is kept. If your browser signed your work, it generated a key for that fortnight and kept the private half on your device, where we never saw it. Only the public half reached us, it names nobody, it does not outlive that fortnight, and it stays under the tombstone after you close your account — a signature nobody can check is not a signature, and the developer whose report cites it may still be standing behind that report.
A one-way hash of your Google account identifier is kept. New accounts receive a starting credit grant, and without this, one person could close and reopen an account indefinitely to mint credit that nobody earned. The stored value is a cryptographic hash mixed with a secret that never leaves our database. It cannot be reversed into your Google account, and it cannot be matched against data held anywhere else. It records one fact: that this account already had its starting grant.
The credit ledger
Records of credits moving are never deleted, including after you close your account. Every credit you earned was a credit another developer spent, and their record of that spending has to stay true. These rows carry an internal account identifier, an amount, and a date. After you close your account there is nothing in them that points at a person.
Where this runs
PeerTest runs on hardware we operate, and so does the collector that receives usage counts when you have turned them on. Your data is not processed by a third-party analytics, marketing, or hosting service beyond what is needed to serve this page to your browser.
Asking us things
You can ask what we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask us to delete it. Download my data on the You tab (and in the companion app) answers the first one at once: a file with your account, your profile and everything you did here, without other people's details or the screenshots themselves. Closing your account does the last one, and does it immediately. For anything else, write to [email protected].
Changes
If this page changes in a way that affects what we collect or who can see it, the date at the top changes and the app says so the next time you sign in.