PetQuest is a family task app that turns chores into quests. This policy explains what information the app handles. The short version: PetQuest has no accounts, no advertising and no tracking, and nobody at PetQuest can read your family's information. Everything stays on your device unless you choose to share a group with a second phone, and even then it is scrambled on your device first.
To work, PetQuest keeps the following on the phone or tablet it is installed on. A display name is all a member ever needs, and a first name or a nickname works perfectly well:
This information is saved in the app's private storage on your device. There are no user accounts, no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking. Unless you turn on sharing, described below, none of it leaves the device at all.
Sharing is off unless a Quest Guide switches it on, and it is the only feature that sends anything anywhere.
When it is on, information travels in both directions: the Quest Guide's phone sends out the group's quests and settings, and an Adventurer's phone sends back what they have finished and what they have earned. Everything is encrypted on the phone it came from before it goes anywhere, and the scrambled result is stored using Google Firebase.
The key that unscrambles it is never sent to Firebase. It exists only inside the pairing code the Quest Guide hands to the other phone. This means neither we nor Google can read the group name, the members' names, the quests, or anything else in it — what is stored is unreadable data and a random identifier.
Two things are deliberately removed before anything is encrypted and are never uploaded at all: the Quest Guide's PIN, and which member is currently using the phone.
A Quest Guide can switch sharing off at any time in Settings → Your groups, which deletes the stored copy. Google's handling of the stored data as a service provider is covered by the Firebase privacy documentation.
Because PetQuest lives on your device, losing the device would otherwise mean losing everything in it. Settings → Backup & restore writes a single file that you then save wherever you choose, and reads it back later.
PetQuest does not send that file anywhere and never sees it. It is handed to your phone's own sharing options, so where it ends up is entirely your decision. The file contains the same information the app holds, including the display names and each group's PIN, so it is worth keeping somewhere private. Two things are left out on purpose: photos of finished quests, and the key that unlocks a shared group — so a restored group is not shared until a Quest Guide switches sharing on again and hands out a fresh pairing code.
If reminders are switched on, PetQuest asks the phone to show a notification when a quest is due. The phone schedules these itself and PetQuest sends nothing to anyone to make them happen. The reminder names the quest and the person it belongs to, and appears only on the device that scheduled it.
PetQuest never asks for an email address, a phone number, a birthday, or your location, and it cannot open your photo library. It asks for exactly two permissions, both only at the moment you use the feature that needs them: notifications, once reminders are switched on, and the camera, the first time somebody photographs a finished quest, or a Quest Guide photographs a picture for a family boss, in the installed app. Saying no to either leaves the rest of the app working normally.
A Quest Guide can ask for a photo on a particular quest — proof the trash really went out. It is off unless they turn it on, quest by quest, and an Adventurer can always add one voluntarily.
The installed app uses the camera only. It cannot open your photo library, so the only picture it can ever see is one taken on purpose, there and then, for a quest.
The browser version works differently, because a computer may have no camera and a screenshot is often the proof that makes sense. There, choosing a photo opens the browser’s own file picker, which offers the camera alongside pictures you already have. That picker belongs to the browser: PetQuest never sees your photos, only the single file you choose to send.
A photo lives on two phones at most: the one that took it and the one reviewing it. If the group is shared, the picture is encrypted on the device first, exactly like everything else, and it travels only in that Adventurer’s own record — never in the shared copy of the group.
It is deleted as soon as the quest is approved or sent back. A photo is evidence until a grown-up has looked at it, and after that PetQuest has no reason to keep it, so it does not. Photos are also never added to your history, and only the few most recent are held at once.
A Quest Guide can give a family boss a picture instead of one of the app's drawings. In the installed app it is taken with the camera there and then; the app still cannot open your photo library. In the browser it can be any image file the Guide chooses, through the browser's own picker.
It is shrunk small and kept with the group, because every member's phone shows the boss. If the group is shared it travels encrypted like everything else, so it is unreadable to us and to Google. It is removed when the Guide takes it away, when the boss is called off, and once the boss's last day is over. It is part of the group, so a backup made while it is there includes it.
It is a picture for a game, shown to your own household. Something like a toy or a drawing works well; there is no need for anyone's face.
PetQuest is designed to be set up by an adult, who becomes the Quest Guide for the group. Adding a member, turning on sharing, restoring a backup, and adding another group to a phone that already has one all require the Quest Guide's PIN, so a child cannot do any of them alone.
A phone with nothing on it yet can join a group by pasting a pairing code, without a PIN. That is deliberate: it is how a Quest Guide sets up their child's own phone, and the code only exists because a Quest Guide chose to create and send it.
The only information PetQuest ever holds about a child is the display name an adult chose for them, whether they are under 13, and what they have done in the game. A first name or a nickname is all that is needed, and an Adventurer can choose a nickname of their own for the people they play with. Inside the app, an Adventurer sees only their own coins and quests. They do see the other members' pets, because each member's picture is their pet and the Arena pits their teams against each other, and the names and progress of everyone in a family goal or a family boss. A Quest Guide can see everyone's. There is no email address, no birthday, no location and no way for anyone outside the household to contact a member through the app. A photo of a finished quest exists only if a grown-up asked for one or the Adventurer chose to add one, and only until a grown-up has approved it or sent it back, as described above. If a group is shared with a second phone, that information is encrypted on the device before it goes anywhere, as described above, so it is never readable by us or by Google.
petquest.online has no analytics, no advertising, no cookies and no tracking of any kind. It also loads nothing from anybody else: the typefaces are served from this site rather than from a font service, so visiting these pages does not hand your IP address to a third party. There is nothing here to opt out of, because nothing is collected.
PetQuest also runs at petquest.online/play. It is the whole app, not a preview of it: the browser counts as a device in its own right, and you can use it either to run a group as the Quest Guide or to join one as an Adventurer, exactly as you would on a phone. Everything is kept in that browser’s own storage on your device, and nothing is sent anywhere unless a Quest Guide turns sharing on.
One thing is worth knowing. Browsers clear storage for sites you have not visited in a while — on iPhones that can be about a week — and that would take your group with it. Adding PetQuest to your home screen stops that happening, and making a backup from Settings is worth doing either way.
Reminders work in a browser if you allow notifications, but on a shorter leash than on a phone. A browser can only show a reminder while PetQuest is actually open — in a tab, or installed and running in the background — so a reminder falling due while it is closed will not arrive at all. Overdue quests are still waiting on the home screen the next time you open it. The installed app hands its reminders to the phone itself and does not have that limit.
Your device's own backup system (such as iCloud Backup on iOS or Google Backup on Android) may include PetQuest's data as part of a normal device backup. Those backups are controlled by your device settings and by Apple or Google, not by PetQuest.
You can delete everything at any time from Settings → Erase everything on this phone inside the app, or by uninstalling the app. That removes every group on the phone with its members, quests, notes, photos, pets, coins and history. PetQuest keeps no other copy, and there is no account to close.
If you shared a group, switching sharing off in Settings → Your groups removes the stored copy as well. Any backup file you saved yourself is yours to delete wherever you put it, since PetQuest has no way to reach it.
PetQuest is made by one person, with help from an AI assistant (Claude, by Anthropic) for writing code, tests and documentation. That help happens on the developer’s computer while the app is being built. No AI runs inside PetQuest: nothing you or your children type, do or photograph is sent to an AI service — or to anyone at all — by the app.
This policy is updated before any change to what the app handles ships, and the app explains what changed. It last changed to add a family boss's picture, which a Quest Guide may give it, and to describe more exactly what members of a group see of each other and when a photo exists. Before that it changed to say how the app is made, when nicknames were added, and when backups stopped carrying photos or the key to a shared group.
Questions about this policy can be sent to privacy@petquest.online.