The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a set of major new regulations in European Union (EU) law that went into effect on May 25, 2018. In short, it’s a new set of rules that give consumers more control over their personal data and privacy. Because these rules apply to online services, they effectively apply to most companies, apps, and services that operate online—including Bear.

For just a couple GDPR examples: companies that collect personal data such as your name, email address, and online activities must clearly disclose what data is being collected, how, how long it’s being retained, and whether it is shared with third parties. These companies must also make this data available for users to download in a human-readable format. There are many other rules enacted by the GDPR, so we encourage you to check out the Wikipedia’s entry on the topic.

Bear’s compliance with GDPR

Fortunately, the Shiny Frog team has taken your privacy seriously since day one. We are proud to say that Bear has essentially always complied with the GDPR. Let’s cover the key talking points:

• Bear does not collect any personal data.
• If Bear ever crashes, we do collect anonymous, GDPR-compliant crash logs in order to fix bugs and improve Bear.
• Bear currently does not store any data on servers under our control. Out of the box, Bear only stores your notes locally on your device. If you subscribe to Bear Pro, Bear uses Apple’s iCloud service (which is GDPR compliant) to sync notes between your devices. While we are working on a web app, we are building it with GDPR policies at its core.
• All of your Bear data can be exported to a variety of portable, user-readable formats.
• The only time we ever see personal data is when someone voluntarily enters their email into our newsletter subscription form or contact us for support. Our mailing list is powered by MailChimp, a GDPR-compliant service, and we do not sell or otherwise share any personal information we see from support requests.
• Users can easily delete Bear data from iCloud on their local devices. iPhone and iPad users can do this under Settings > (their name) > iCloud > Manage Storage. Mac users can find this in System Preferences > iCloud > iCloud Drive