Privacy Policy

The short version

Here's the gist, sunshine. Your amounts are locked on your phone before they reach us, so not even we can read them. We don't sell your data, we don't show you ads and we don't track you around the internet. You can download or delete everything, any time. Slow and steady. Monty 🐢

The rest of this page is the full version.

1. Who we are

Slow Monty ("Monty", "we", "us") is a budgeting app at www.slowmonty.com. It is run by Feel It Pty Ltd (ACN 693 248 216), an Australian company.

Feel It Pty Ltd is responsible for your personal information under this policy. If you are in the EU or UK, that makes us the "controller" of your data.

Questions, requests or complaints: privacy@slowmonty.com. We aim to reply within 30 days.

2. What we collect

Your account:

• Your email address, so you can sign in.
• A password, if you choose to set one. It goes straight to our sign-in provider, which stores it in scrambled (hashed) form. We never see it.
• The date and time you confirmed you are 18 or over.
• Sign-in records kept by our sign-in provider, such as the time, your IP address and your browser.

Your setup:

• Your country and currency.
• How often you are paid, your last payday and your typical pay after tax.
• Your weekly savings goal, if you set one.
• Your phone's time zone, so "this week" matches your calendar.

Your money:

• Transactions: amount, note, merchant, date, category, whether it is a spend, pay or money received, and whether it was typed, pasted or photographed.
• Regular bills: name, how often, category, merchant and expected amount.
• Your categories and how you have arranged them.

Your lock:

• A data key that locks your money details. We only ever store it in wrapped form. Your Monty passphrase and recovery key never leave your phone.

What we don't collect:

• Bank logins or passwords. Monty never connects to your bank.
• Card numbers, account numbers or BSBs. We remove them before anything is saved.
• Your contacts or your precise location.
• Any analytics, advertising or tracking data.

3. What's locked and what's readable

Locked. Transaction amounts and notes, your typical pay, your savings goal and your bills' expected amounts are locked (encrypted) on your phone before they are saved. The key is made on your phone and protected by your Monty passphrase and recovery key, and neither is ever sent to us. So we can't read these details, and nor can our database provider.

This also means that if you lose both your passphrase and your recovery key, nobody can unlock your history, including us.

Readable. Your email address, country and currency, merchant names, dates and categories, your category and bill names, how often you are paid and your payday, and when things were created or changed are stored so that we and our database provider can read them. Monty needs these to sort, group and show your weeks. Even without amounts, they can show patterns, such as where and when you spend. We use them only to run your budget.

4. How screenshots and photos are read

When you add a screenshot or receipt photo, your phone shrinks it first. It then goes through our server to Anthropic, the company that makes the Claude AI, which reads the amount, merchant and date. Along with the image we send your country, your currency and your category names, so it can read the right format and suggest a category. We don't send your email address or any of your past transactions.

We don't keep the image. Our server holds it only while it is being read, and never saves it to disk, to our database or to our logs.

Anthropic deletes what we send it within 30 days, unless the law or its safety rules require it to keep it longer. Its terms do not allow it to train its AI on what we send.

The AI only suggests. You see every amount, merchant, date and category before anything is saved, and you can change or discard any of it.

5. Who helps us run Monty

We use a small number of service providers. They handle your information only to run Monty for us:

• Supabase stores our database and runs sign-in, in Sydney, Australia.
• Railway runs our web server. Everything you send to Monty passes through it. It runs in Singapore.
• Anthropic reads screenshots and photos (section 4). It processes data in the United States.
• Resend sends our emails, such as your sign-in code.
• ImprovMX receives emails sent to us and forwards them to our inbox.

Some of these providers are outside Australia. Where your information leaves Australia, the EU or the UK, we rely on each provider's data protection terms to keep it protected to the same standard.

We may also share information if the law requires it, or with our professional advisers (such as a lawyer or accountant) where they need it. If Monty is ever sold or merged, your information would move with it under this policy, and we would tell you first.

6. What we never do

• We never sell, rent or trade your information.
• We never show you ads, and we don't use advertising or tracking tools.
• We never use your information to train AI.
• We never share your information with banks, lenders or anyone selling financial products.
• We never ask for your bank login, and Monty never connects to your bank.
• We only send emails you need, such as sign-in codes and important account notices. If we ever send news or offers, it will only be with your permission, and you can stop them any time.

7. Cookies and storage on your phone

Monty only uses what it needs to work:

• Sign-in cookies, to keep you signed in.
• A time zone cookie, so "this week" matches your calendar. It lasts a year.
• Your unlocked key, stored on your phone until you sign out or lock Monty.
• A note that you closed the "add to home screen" tip.

There are no advertising, analytics or tracking cookies.

8. How long we keep your information

• While your account is open, we keep what you have added so Monty can work.
• When you delete a transaction, it is deleted for good.
• When you delete your account, everything in it is deleted straight away. Copies in our providers' backups are removed on their normal backup cycle.
• If you start signing up but never enter your code, that account is deleted after 7 days.
• If you don't use Monty for 2 years, we email you, then delete your account 30 days later unless you sign in.
• Our providers keep short-term technical logs, such as sign-in records, for a limited time.
• If you pay for Monty, we keep billing records for as long as tax law requires (5 years in Australia).

9. Your rights

You can, at any time:

• See and download everything we hold about you: Settings, then Your data, then Download my data.
• Correct anything by editing it in the app.
• Delete any transaction, or your whole account, in the app.
• Ask us a question, or object to how we use your information, by emailing privacy@slowmonty.com.

We reply within 30 days.

If you are in the EU or UK, we use your information because we need it to provide Monty to you (our contract with you), to keep Monty secure and working (our legitimate interests), or because the law requires it. You also have the right to take your data elsewhere and to complain to your local data protection authority.

10. Security

• Everything sent between your phone and Monty is encrypted.
• Each account can only ever see its own information.
• Your money details are locked on your phone, so a leak of our database would not reveal them.

One honest limit: the app on your phone comes from our server. The lock protects your details from database leaks and from anyone reading our database, but you are trusting us not to change the app to read your key. We won't.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach is likely to cause you serious harm, we will tell you and the relevant regulator as the law requires.

11. Age

Monty is for people aged 18 or over. If we learn an account belongs to someone under 18, we will delete it.

12. Changes and complaints

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If the change matters, we will tell you in the app and ask you to agree before you carry on.

If you have a complaint, email us first at privacy@slowmonty.com. If you are not happy with our answer, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au, or your local data protection authority in the EU or UK.