Privacy Policy: HomeGadgets Price Compare for Android
Last updated: October 18, 2026
This is the privacy policy for HomeGadgets Price Compare, the Android app published by HomeGadgets (homegadgets.ca), package name ca.homegadgets.app. It covers the app only. The website has its own policy, linked at the end of this page.
The short version
The app has no account. There is nothing to sign in to, and it never asks for your name, your email address, your phone number or your location. It works with a random identifier made on your phone. Against that identifier we keep the products you choose to watch. We also record the searches the app sends us, without that identifier. The app contains no advertising code, no analytics kit and no crash reporter. We do not sell data and we do not give it to advertisers.
What the app keeps on your phone
One thing: a random identifier of 32 hexadecimal characters, generated by the app the first time you open it and kept in the secure storage Android provides to apps. It is not your advertising ID, not your device serial number, and not derived from anything about your phone or about you. You can read it in the app. The About screen shows it under "Your install id", and you can press and hold to copy it. Your watchlist and your search history are not stored on the phone. Uninstalling the app removes the identifier from the phone, and a new install gets a new one that we cannot connect to the old one.
What the app sends to us
Everything below goes to our own server over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection. • Each time the app starts: the install identifier, the word "android", the hours in which you do not want alerts (22:00 to 08:00), and your phone clock offset from UTC so those hours mean your own time. An offset is not a location: everyone in a time zone has the same one. • When you search: the text you typed. • When you browse: the category you opened. • When you open a product: which product, so we can send back its prices and price history. • When you scan or type a barcode: the barcode number. It identifies a product, not a person. • When you watch a product or open your watchlist: the install identifier, the product, the kind of alert you chose and, if you set one, your target price. • Only in a version of the app that can send notifications, and only if you allow them: the delivery token Google issues to this installation of the app. That is the complete list of what the app itself sends us.
What we record
The watchlist. Against your install identifier we keep the products you watch, the alert chosen for each, the alerts that have been raised for them, your quiet hours and clock offset, the notification token if there is one, and the time the app last started. A request log. For each request the app makes, we record which kind of request it was, the search text or category if there was one, whether it succeeded, which retailer links were in the answer, the time, and a pseudonymous caller identifier. The request log does not contain your install identifier. The pseudonymous caller identifier is a salted SHA-256 hash of the IP address the request came from, cut to 12 characters, joined to a coarse label for the kind of software that made the request. We use it to enforce fair-use limits. The IP address itself is not stored, and we do not use it to work out where you are. Because someone holding our salt and a known IP address could test whether the two match, we treat this identifier as pseudonymous and not as anonymous. A visit count. We count visits with a rotating, unlinkable key and store no IP address: the key is a keyed hash of the IP address and the user-agent string under a secret that changes every calendar month and is deleted a week after the month ends, after which nobody, including us, can recompute or link that month’s keys. For each key we keep only the day, a count of requests, and whether the request looked like a person or an automated client. It does not contain your install identifier.
What we use it for
• To make the app work: answering a search, showing prices, keeping your watchlist and raising its alerts. • To keep the service free and fair: enforcing limits on how many requests one caller can make. • To understand, in aggregate, which products and categories people look for, so we know what to add to the catalogue. • To measure the visits we send to retailers. We do not use it for advertising, and we do not build a profile of you.
The camera
The app asks for camera permission only when you use the barcode scanner. The barcode is decoded on your phone. No picture or video is uploaded, stored or seen by us; what reaches us is the number printed under the barcode. If you decline the permission the rest of the app works normally, and you can type the barcode number.
Product pictures
The product pictures in the app are not stored by us. Your phone loads each one directly from the manufacturer or retailer that publishes it, in the same way a web browser would. That company therefore receives the request for the picture, including your IP address and the standard technical details that accompany any internet request. The app adds nothing to those requests: not your install identifier, not what you searched for, and nothing about your watchlist.
Links to retailers
When you tap "Go to the retailer", the app hands a link to your web browser and you leave the app. The link passes through our website so that we can count the click. We record which offer, product and retailer it was for, the price shown, that the click came from the app, a coarse label for the kind of browser, and the same pseudonymous caller identifier described above. The click record does not contain your install identifier. Some buttons in the app open a page of our own website in your browser instead. The website privacy policy applies there. Once you are on a retailer website, that retailer’s own privacy policy applies. Some of these links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission if you buy, at no extra cost to you. That never changes which price we show or the order prices appear in.
Notifications
Not every version of the app can send a notification, and the About screen says whether yours can. In one that cannot, price alerts are listed inside the app and the app does not ask for the notification permission. In a version that can, and only if you allow notifications, alerts are delivered by Google Firebase Cloud Messaging. Google then receives the delivery token and the text of each alert, which names the product and its price, and processes them to deliver the notification, as it does for other Android apps. You can turn notifications off at any time in Android settings.
What the app does not collect
Your name, email address, phone number or postal address. Your location, precise or approximate. Your contacts, calendar, photos, videos, audio or files. Your advertising ID. Payment or financial information: the app sells nothing. Anything about other apps on your phone. The app declares two permissions that Android asks you about: the camera, and notifications. It blocks the location, contacts, microphone, phone-state, storage and advertising-ID permissions so that they cannot be requested by mistake.
Who receives the data
We do not sell your data and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers. These companies process it on our behalf so that the app can work: • Render: hosts the server the app talks to. • Supabase: hosts the database that holds the watchlist and the logs. • Vercel and Cloudflare: host and protect the website that a retailer link passes through. • Google Firebase Cloud Messaging: delivers notifications, only in a version of the app that has them and only if you allow them. Separately, as described above, the manufacturer or retailer that publishes a product picture receives the request for that picture.
How it is protected
Every request the app makes to us is encrypted in transit with HTTPS. The install identifier is kept in the secure storage Android provides to apps. On our side the records are held in a database that only our own server and administrators can reach. We never store your IP address.
How long we keep it, and how to have it deleted
We do not currently delete these records on a fixed schedule. The watchlist, the alert history and the logs are kept until we delete them or until you ask us to. To have what we hold for your install deleted, open the About screen in the app, copy the value under "Your install id", and send it to us through the contact form at homegadgets.ca/contact. We will delete the watchlist, the alert history, the notification token and the registration held against that identifier. The request log and the click records do not contain your install identifier, so we cannot find yours from it. If you want a search removed from the request log, tell us the search text and roughly when you made it. Removing a product from your watchlist in the app deletes that entry from our server straight away. Uninstalling the app does not by itself delete what is held on our server, and after uninstalling you can no longer read the identifier, so copy it first if you intend to ask.
Children
The app is intended for adults comparing prices and is not directed at children. It does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children.
Your rights
Under Canada’s PIPEDA and Quebec’s Law 25 you may ask what personal information we hold about you and ask for it to be corrected or deleted. We hold no name, account or IP address for anyone using the app. What we can find is what is held against an install identifier, so quote yours when you write.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the date at the top of this page changes with it. The app opens this page from its About screen, so the app always shows the current text.
Contact
HomeGadgets (homegadgets.ca) publishes the app and is responsible for this policy. For any question about it, or to make an access or deletion request, use the contact form at homegadgets.ca/contact.