Privacy Policy
Effective October 6, 2026
Estero does not collect personal data. There is no account, no server, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking. What you record in Estero stays on your iPhone, with an optional backup in your own iCloud account, stored by Apple under your Apple Account.
Who we are
Estero is published by Majd Nassif ("we"). Questions about this policy go to support@estero.app.
What Estero keeps, and where
Everything below is stored on your iPhone, inside Estero's own protected storage, and is not sent to us.
| Information | Why |
|---|---|
| Travel documents you add: kind, issuing country, number, holder name, nationality, dates of birth, issue and expiry | To work out which rules apply to you and when to renew |
| Your stays and trips: country, city if known, and dates | To count days against each rule |
| Places you mark as visited | To fill in your map |
| Details of people you add under Family | To keep their own clocks and renewals |
| Settings, such as your home country and language | To run the app the way you set it |
If you add other people, please make sure they are happy for their details to be kept on your phone.
Location
If you allow it, Estero uses your iPhone's location services to note which country you are in each day and to ask you to mark entry when you arrive somewhere new. Before anything is saved, the location is reduced to the country, the city where known, and the date. In the United States it also keeps the state, and whether the place is in a city with its own resident income tax, such as New York City, so that state tax days can be counted. Exact coordinates are not stored.
To turn coordinates into a country and city name, Estero uses Apple's geocoding service, which is part of iOS. Apple receives the coordinates for that purpose under Apple's Privacy Policy. We receive nothing.
You can change or withdraw location access at any time in the iPhone's Settings. Estero keeps working without it; you mark entries yourself.
Photos
If you choose to fill in past travel from your photos, Estero reads the place and date attached to the pictures you allow it to see, on your iPhone. The pictures are never copied, stored or uploaded. Only the resulting country and date are kept. Places near a border may be checked with Apple's geocoding service, as above.
Camera and document scanning
When you scan a document, the image is read on your iPhone using Apple's on-device text recognition, and where available, Apple's on-device language model. The image is not stored and is not sent anywhere. Only the details you confirm are saved.
Notifications and calendar
If you ask Estero to read your calendar for flights, it asks for calendar access first. It reads event titles, places and notes on your iPhone to find flights, and keeps only the trips you choose to add. Nothing in your calendar is changed, and nothing is sent anywhere. Boarding passes, booking PDFs and screenshots you open in Estero are read the same way and are not kept.
Arrival notices and renewal reminders are scheduled on your iPhone. If you choose to add a date to your calendar, Estero opens the system's event screen and the event is saved only if you confirm it.
Widgets, Live Activity and Siri
To show your next limit in a widget, Estero places a short summary in storage shared between the app and its widget on your iPhone. The Live Activity shows the same count on your Lock Screen and is built on your iPhone. If you ask Siri or Shortcuts about Estero, the request is handled by Apple under Apple's terms and the answer is worked out on your iPhone.
iCloud backup and export
iCloud backup is on by default and can be turned off in Estero's Settings. When on, a copy of your Estero data is saved to your own iCloud account using Apple's iCloud storage. It is protected by your Apple Account and governed by Apple's terms. We cannot see or reach it.
Export creates a file on your iPhone. Where that file goes is up to you.
Sharing with family
If you choose to share your days with family members who use Estero on their own iPhones, Estero places a copy of your record in a shared area of your own iCloud account using Apple's iCloud sharing, and only the people you invite can read it. The shared copy contains what their Estero needs to show your clocks: your name and nationality, your home country and state, your documents' titles, kinds, countries, dates and visa terms, your stays, trips and days, and the citizenship goals and UK residence answers you entered. Document numbers, birth dates and the names printed on documents are left out. You can stop sharing at any time in Estero, which deletes the shared copy; the people you shared with stop seeing your record the next time their Estero refreshes. We cannot see or reach it.
Rule updates
So that a changed visa or residence rule reaches you without waiting for an app update, Estero checks once a day for a signed file of rules on this website and uses it only if the signature matches. The request carries nothing about you; like any web request, it reaches our web host with your internet address, which we do not use.
Purchases
Subscriptions are sold and handled by Apple through the App Store. We never receive your name, payment details or Apple Account. Estero checks which plan is active by reading the purchase record Apple keeps on your iPhone. Apple provides us with sales reports that do not identify you.
What we do not do
- No account or sign-in
- No servers of our own receiving your data
- No analytics, crash reporting or measurement tools in the app
- No advertising, and no tracking across apps or websites
- No sale or sharing of personal data
If you have chosen in your iPhone's settings to share analytics with app developers, Apple may send us crash reports for Estero. They do not identify you and are handled under Apple's terms.
This website does not use cookies or analytics either.
Keeping and deleting your data
Your data stays until you delete it. In Estero, Settings, Erase everything removes all documents, trips and days from your iPhone and from the iCloud backup. Deleting the app removes the data on the phone; the iCloud backup can also be removed in the iPhone's Settings under your Apple Account, iCloud.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, data protection laws such as the GDPR or the CCPA give you rights to access, correct, delete or move personal data. Because your Estero data is held only on your devices and in your own iCloud account, you can exercise these rights directly in the app at any time, and we hold nothing about you to return or delete. You may still contact us with any question, and you may complain to your local data protection authority.
Children
Estero is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from children. A parent may add a child under Family; that information stays on the parent's iPhone.
Changes to this policy
If Estero's handling of data changes, this page will be updated and its effective date changed. Significant changes will also be described in the App Store release notes.
Contact
Majd Nassif
support@estero.app