Last updated 19 October 2026

Varasel privacy policy

Varasel is made by Akhil Amuthan (Momotow Labs) in Japan. Questions about privacy:hello@momotowlabs.com.

In short: your book stays on your phone. There is no account and no server, so we can’t see it. The app goes online to fetch public prices and rates, and sends a crash report only if you let it.

What stays on your phone

• Your book: every entry, account, budget, goal, loan, trip and investment, and your notes and settings.
• It sits in the app’s private storage, which other apps can’t open. The app doesn’t add its own encryption; it relies on your phone’s.
• The app keeps safety copies on the phone: the last 7 daily copies, and a copy made before big changes (an import, a reset, demo data), so a mistake can be undone.
• Statement imports (CSV and PDF) and receipt scans are read on the phone.
• A scanned receipt’s picture is deleted when you save or close. If the app is stopped first, it is deleted the next time the scanner starts.
• To warn you about scanning the same receipt twice, the entry keeps a short fingerprint of the receipt: its time, receipt number, amounts and, if printed, the last 4 digits of the card.

What leaves your phone

The app asks these public services for prices and rates. Each request carries your phone’s internet address, like any web request, and the services may keep their own logs.

You can turn off Auto rates in Settings, under Home currency.

Crash reports and problem reports

• Settings → About → Crash reports: Ask (the default), Always or Never.
• On Ask, a crash report waits on the phone and the app asks you next time. Send uploads it; Don’t send deletes it.
• Reports go to Google’s Firebase Crashlytics. A report holds the error, your phone model, Android and app versions, screen size, text size, theme, the app’s on/off settings, rounded counts of what’s in your book, and your last steps in the app. Names from your book are replaced, and numbers that look like amounts are hidden.
• Anything you type in “Tell me more” is sent exactly as you wrote it.
• Firebase also keeps its own identifier for the installation. Reports are deleted automatically 90 days after they arrive.
• With Never, Report a problem opens Android’s share menu instead, and the report goes to whichever app you pick.

Voice

• Voice entry uses your phone’s speech service, which is usually Google’s.
• Cloud speech is off unless you turn it on in Settings → Privacy. When it’s on, and only if the phone can’t recognise speech itself, what you say goes to Google to be turned into text.

Reading receipts

• The text reader is Google’s ML Kit, built into the app, so reading happens on the phone.
• Google says ML Kit sends it technical details: your phone model and Android version, the app’s version, an identifier for this installation, timing figures and error codes. Google’s list doesn’t include the picture or the text it reads.

Backups

• Back up now (Settings → Data tools) writes your whole book to one file. The file is not encrypted: anyone who has it can read it. You choose where it goes.
• Google backup: if your phone backs up to Google, Android copies the book and the app’s settings to your Google account, but only when the copy is end-to-end encrypted (Android 9 or later, with a screen lock). Turn it off in your phone’s settings.
• Moving to a new phone by cable or Wi-Fi copies all of the app’s files.

Camera, microphone and files

• Android asks for the microphone and camera the first time you tap them. They work only when you tap them.
• Files and photos you pick go through Android’s own picker. The app gets only what you choose.
• Varasel doesn’t use your contacts, location or photo library.

What we never do

• No ads, no advertising ID and no analytics on what you do in the app.
• We don’t sell your data, and we don’t share it with anyone for advertising.

Privacy on the phone

• App lock uses your phone’s own fingerprint, face or PIN. The home-screen widget and reminders are not behind App lock.
• Block screenshots is on by default.
• Test builds downloaded from GitHub can write timing lines to the phone’s own log when you switch on Developer settings. They name pages, never money.

Deleting your data

• Reset financial data clears the book but keeps one copy from just before the reset, so it can be undone.
• Factory reset deletes the book, the safety copies and the app’s settings. Today it leaves exported files and family sheets in the app’s cache, a few price caches, and any crash report still waiting.
• Uninstalling: on Android 10 and later, Android may offer to keep the app’s data. Choose not to, and everything on the phone goes.
• A copy already in your Google backup stays in your Google account until you delete it there.
• A crash report you sent is deleted automatically after 90 days. To ask for it to go sooner, write to hello@momotowlabs.com. Reports carry no name, so tell us roughly when you sent it.

Children

Anyone can use Varasel, but it isn’t made for children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect anything from them. If you think a child’s crash report or email reached us, write to hello@momotowlabs.com and we’ll delete it.

Your rights

Varasel is made in Japan for people in Japan and India.

• You can ask what we hold about you (a crash report you sent, an email you wrote), ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Write to hello@momotowlabs.com. We reply within 30 days.
• Everything in your book is already in your hands: you can see it, change it and delete it in the app.
• If you’re not happy with our answer, you can complain to Japan’s Personal Information Protection Commission or, in India, the Data Protection Board.

Changes

If what the app sends changes, this page changes with it, and the date at the top moves.

This website

• momotowlabs.com and varasel.momotowlabs.com set no cookies, and have no visitor counts, analytics, forms, ads or other trackers.
• If you switch between light and dark, your browser remembers the choice (local storage, on your device only).
• The sites are hosted by Cloudflare, which sees each visit’s internet address and browser, like any web host.
• Email to hello@momotowlabs.com is passed on by Cloudflare Email Routing to the owner’s Gmail, and kept there until deleted.