Privacy policy

Effective October 5, 2026.

Pickup Buddy for PickUp Patrol is an independent companion developed by Oliver Ames. This policy describes the companion app and this website. PickUp Patrol separately operates your school’s service.

Your school account and plan changes

The app connects directly over HTTPS to PickUp Patrol. It sends the sign-in details you enter to that service and uses the resulting session to load your account and school plans. It does not send your school password or plan data to a developer-operated server.

The app processes account details such as your name and email, children’s names and school identifiers, dismissal methods, dates, times and plan notes supplied by the service. When you submit a change, the relevant information goes to PickUp Patrol for your school to use. Account settings you change in the app also go to that service. If your school enables health screening, the app can load screening status and send the answers and temperature you choose to submit directly to the school’s service.

PickUp Patrol and your school control their own records, access and retention. See the PickUp Patrol privacy policy. Contact your school to request corrections or removal of school records.

Information kept on your device

The app keeps settings, language choices, avatar selections, local presets and saved plan summaries on your device. A saved summary can include a child’s first name, school, identifiers, pickup methods, dates, times and notes.

If you choose “Keep me signed in,” the app saves eligible session cookies in the device’s Keychain, Apple’s protected credential storage. It also remembers your username and account ownership information needed to associate saved summaries with that session. It does not save your password. The session is checked with the service before live account access resumes.

Saved summaries support read-only views when a connection is unavailable. They may be out of date. Local presets remain on the device until you delete them or explicitly sign out of that account.

Widgets, Apple Watch and system features

Widgets read a saved plan summary shared locally by the app. The companion sends that summary to your paired Apple Watch through Apple’s WatchConnectivity framework. Watch requests for plan changes are handled through the iPhone’s signed-in session.

Children’s first names, school names and routing identifiers are made available to Apple’s on-device Spotlight index and app shortcuts. Plans and notes are not included in that index. Siri and Shortcuts can process information involved in an action you request, including plan details returned by that action. Apple’s system features are governed by Apple’s privacy practices and your device settings. See Siri, Dictation & Privacy.

Names or plan information may be visible in widgets, Watch complications, shortcut results or notification previews. Consider where you place them on a shared or visible device.

Optional reminders

Pickup reminders are scheduled locally after you enable them and grant notification permission. The default reminder text hides names and plan details. If you turn that privacy option off, the notification can include names, pickup methods and notes from saved plans.

The app replaces its scheduled reminders after relevant updates and requests their removal when you turn reminders off or sign out. Apple controls notification delivery and preview visibility through your device settings. A reminder is not a live school confirmation.

Your controls and retention

You can delete local presets, turn reminders off and sign out in the app. Sign-out removes the remembered session, clears the active account’s displayed and shared plan summaries, deletes that account’s current local presets, and requests removal of the app’s indexed children and reminders.

General preferences and a remembered username may remain on the device. Signing out does not delete records held by your school or PickUp Patrol, or shortcut content you saved separately. Requests to Apple system features may take time to finish. Removing the app is separate from deleting a school account.

Analytics and advertising

The companion does not include advertising or third-party analytics SDKs. Its school requests go to PickUp Patrol, which has its own privacy policy. Information processed by Apple’s operating system or distribution services is governed by Apple’s practices and your settings.

TestFlight and beta feedback

If you test Pickup Buddy through TestFlight, Apple automatically collects crash logs and usage information, including device details, and shares them with the developer. You cannot opt out of this collection while using TestFlight. Feedback you send can include comments, screenshots and contact details. See TestFlight & Privacy for Apple’s practices.

Oliver Ames reviews beta reports within Apple’s tools to investigate app defects. Only redacted bug notes from those reports are retained outside Apple’s tools. Emailed feedback and the contact details you provide are used to investigate and respond, and are retained only as needed to resolve your request.

For questions about feedback you have sent, or to request its removal, use the contact address below. Apple controls its own retention of TestFlight data under the privacy terms linked above.

This website and support

This website is hosted on Cloudflare. Cloudflare may process IP addresses and other network information to deliver and protect the site. See Cloudflare’s privacy policy. Cloudflare can add page-performance measurement code as part of the hosting service. These pages do not include advertising, sign-in forms or a school-account connection.

If you contact the developer, the message and contact details you choose to send will be used to investigate and respond, and retained only as needed to resolve your request. Do not send passwords, sign-in codes, or children’s private records.

Contact and updates

For privacy questions about Pickup Buddy, email Oliver Ames at oliver@ames.consulting.

You can also review the support page. This policy will be updated when the app or website’s data practices change. The effective date identifies the current version.