Why We Built a Baby Tracker That Does Not Collect Your Data

We looked at the popular baby tracking apps before building our own. Almost all of them required an account. Most were free. And when we read the privacy policies (really read them), we found language about sharing data with 'affiliates' and 'partners' for 'research' and 'product improvement.' These are apps that hold your baby's feeding history, allergy status, growth data, and daily photos. Here is why that bothered us enough to build something different.

Direct Answer: Free baby-tracking apps that require an account typically fund themselves by aggregating and selling user data (feeding schedules, allergy reactions, milestones) to advertisers and brokers; Log: Baby Solid Food & Allergy works fully offline with no account, and its optional caregiver sync is encrypted on-device before it reaches Google Drive, so the company itself never sees the data.

Tracking meals and symptoms manually is harder than it sounds. Our app makes it quick, and stays completely private.

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How 'free' baby apps actually make money

If an app does not charge you and does not show ads, the product is almost certainly your data. Venture-backed baby tracking companies often generate revenue by aggregating user information and selling insights to formula manufacturers, baby food brands, advertising networks, and insurance data brokers. Your baby's feeding schedule, allergy reactions, and developmental milestones can end up in commercial datasets. Even when data is supposedly 'anonymised,' researchers have repeatedly shown that health data can be re-identified. We did not want our child's information in that system, and we suspect you do not either.

What 'stored in the cloud' actually means

When an app stores your data on its own servers, you are trusting that company's security, their employees, and their third-party infrastructure. Several major pregnancy and baby apps have had data breaches exposing millions of users' personal details: pregnancy status, due dates, children's names and birthdates. Beyond breaches, many apps' privacy policies grant broad internal access for 'product improvement,' meaning employees can potentially view your data. Read the fine print. If the policy mentions sharing with 'affiliates' or 'partners,' assume your data is being monetised in some way.

No account, no servers, no problem

We built Log: Baby Solid Food & Allergy to work completely offline. All your data stays on your device. You do not create an account. You do not give us an email address. If our company disappeared overnight, your data would still be on your phone.

For families who want to share logs between caregivers, the app offers an optional Google Drive sync. When you enable it, your data is encrypted before it leaves your device. It passes through Google's infrastructure, but Google cannot read it either. It never touches our servers. This is not a marketing claim. It is the fundamental architecture of the app.

Questions parents ask

How do free baby tracking apps make money?

If a free baby tracking app does not charge you and does not show ads, it is worth asking how it pays its way. Pregnancy and baby companies have been fined for passing users' information to marketing firms, advertisers, data brokers and credit reference agencies without making that clear. That means a baby's feeding schedule, allergy reactions and developmental milestones can end up in commercial datasets.

Source: ICO: Bounty UK fined £400,000 for sharing personal data unlawfully (2019); FTC: Premom barred from sharing health data for advertising (2023)

Is anonymised baby health data safe to share?

Anonymised baby health data is not as safe as it sounds. Even when data is supposedly anonymised, researchers have repeatedly shown that health data can be re-identified. So a baby app promising that shared data is anonymous does not guarantee your child's feeding history or allergy reactions cannot be traced back. Read the privacy policy, and if it mentions sharing with 'affiliates' or 'partners', assume your data is being monetised in some way.

Source: Rocher et al. 2019, Nature Communications; Na et al. 2018, JAMA Network Open

Is it safe to store my baby's data in the cloud?

Storing your baby's data on an app company's cloud servers means trusting that company's security, its employees and its third-party infrastructure. Pregnancy and baby companies have exposed or passed on personal details for millions of users before, including pregnancy status, due dates and children's birth dates. Once the data is on someone else's servers, what happens to it is out of your hands.

Source: ICO: Bounty UK fined £400,000 for sharing personal data unlawfully (2019)

Is there a baby tracker app that works without an account?

Yes, Log: Baby Solid Food & Allergy works completely offline with no account and no email address. All data stays on your device, so if the company disappeared overnight your data would still be on your phone. For sharing between caregivers there is an optional Google Drive sync: data is encrypted before it leaves your device, Google cannot read it, and it never touches the company's servers.

Source: Log: Baby Solid Food & Allergy privacy policy