Aya Features Privacy Support Download

Privacy

Short version: your Personal and Business books collect nothing, because there is nowhere to collect them to. Three things can leave your phone: a Circle, if you create or join one; your Premium purchase, if you buy it; and anonymous usage counts, only if you say yes.

  • No sign-up, stillNo email, no password, ever. Aya never asks who you are. Joining a Circle asks for a display name so the others know it's you; that's not an account, but it does mean your name lives inside that Circle's shared data.
  • No server for your own booksYour Personal and Business transactions, wallets, categories and budgets live only in a database on your phone. None of it is ever uploaded, because there is no server for it to go to.
  • No trackingNo crash reporter, no advertising identifier, no tracking across apps. The only third-party code is the sync provider a Circle opts into, the purchase service, and optional anonymous usage counts, all described below.

The four exceptions, stated plainly

Circle sync, the bigger one. A Circle is a separate, shared set of books everyone in it logs to and sees: a couple, a friend group, a business, anyone splitting money together. If you create or join one, that Circle's transactions, wallets, categories, budgets and recurrences are stored with a sync provider so everyone in it can see them too. From version 1.2.3, a photo or receipt scan you attach to a Circle expense is stored there as well, in private storage only that Circle's members can open. This is opt-in and per-profile: your own Personal and Business profiles are never part of a Circle and never leave your phone. Joining still needs no email or password, just a display name and a link, code, or QR from whoever invited you.

Premium purchases. Aya is free to use, with an optional one-time Premium purchase. The payment itself is handled by Apple (App Store) or Google (Play Store). To tell the app whether Premium is active, Aya uses RevenueCat, a purchase-management service. RevenueCat receives a random app ID generated on your device and your purchase history for Aya. It never receives your books, transactions, voice, photos, name or email. Aya has no accounts, so a purchase is tied to your Apple Account or Google account by the store, and you restore it from any device signed in to the same account with Restore purchases.

Usage counts, only if you say yes. From version 1.2.3, Aya asks once whether you want to share anonymous usage info. If you tap Share usage data, Aya sends counts of things like which features get used and where people get stuck to PostHog, an analytics service, on its EU servers. These counts use a random ID made on your phone, not your name, and Aya tells PostHog not to keep your IP address. They never include amounts, notes, wallet, Circle or trip names, or anything you type. If you tap No thanks, nothing is sent. You can change your answer anytime in Settings → Privacy.

Voice, the smallest one. Voice capture uses your phone's speech recognition. Aya asks for the on-device recogniser, which keeps your audio on the phone. If your phone has not downloaded the speech files for your language, the system may process that audio on its provider's servers instead, and when that happens, Aya tells you on the screen rather than doing it quietly. You can always type instead.

What this costs you

Honesty runs both ways: because your Personal and Business profiles have no server, they also have no backup. Lose your phone and that data is gone. Export to CSV from Settings whenever it would hurt to lose; that is the only copy that exists for those profiles. A Circle doesn't have this problem, and for the same reason it isn't purely yours anymore either: its data lives with the sync provider, not only with you.

Deleting your data

Delete the app and your Personal and Business profiles are gone. Nothing survives it, anywhere. A Circle is different: its data lives with the other members too, so deleting the app only removes your device's copy. From Settings → Members → Leave circle, you can remove yourself from a Circle at any time. Leaving also removes the photos you added to that Circle from the server. Once every member has left, that Circle's data and photos are deleted from the server entirely. Leaving never touches your own device's copy of that Circle's history.