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

Many free baby apps make money by selling user data. Here is how that business works, what risks it carries for your child's health information, and why we went a different way.

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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.


## 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 Baby Food Tracker & Allergies 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.


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**No account. No ads. No tracking. Your data stays on your phone.**

Offline by default. Optional caregiver sharing uses your own Google Drive with encrypted data Google cannot read, never our servers. We built it this way because we use it for our own kids.

[Download the private tracker](https://apps.apple.com/au/app/baby-allergy-food-tracker/id1445346223)


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## Related articles

















- [Building a Food Diary Your Paediatrician Will Actually Thank You For](https://baby-allergy-tracker.com/blog/how-to-create-baby-food-log-pediatrician/)





































- [Why a Baby Tracker Doesn't Need Your Baby's Name or Medical Data](https://baby-allergy-tracker.com/blog/why-a-baby-tracker-doesnt-need-your-babys-data/)





































- [Why Rigid All-in-One Baby Trackers Fail When You Start Solids](https://baby-allergy-tracker.com/blog/why-all-in-one-baby-trackers-fail-for-starting-solids/)