Phone Camera for After Effects — Privacy Policy
Last updated: 2026-05-01
This privacy policy describes how Phone Camera for After Effects (“the App”, “we”, “us”) handles your information. The App is a remote-control utility that connects your phone to Adobe After Effects running on a computer on the same local Wi-Fi network so you can drive a virtual camera with your phone’s motion.
We designed the App to keep almost all data on your devices. The categories below cover everything we collect, why we collect it, and who we share it with.
1. Data we collect
| What | When | Why we need it |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | When you sign in (email/password or Google Sign-In) | Account authentication; identifying your credit balance and Ad-Free entitlement so they follow you across devices and reinstalls. |
| User ID (Firebase UID) | Created automatically on first sign-in | Linking your account to your credits and entitlement records. |
| Purchase history (Google Play order ID + product ID) | When you buy “Ad-Free” | Verifying your purchase server-side so the entitlement can be unlocked and restored. |
| Camera permission | Only while you are using the live position-tracking feature | Required by ARCore to estimate the phone’s position in space. Camera frames stay on the phone — they are never uploaded, recorded, or sent over the network. |
| Motion sensor data (gyroscope / accelerometer) | While the App is open and you are streaming | Sent over your local Wi-Fi network to the After Effects plugin so it can drive the camera. Not uploaded to us or any third party. |
| Local network access (Bonjour / mDNS) | While the App is open | Used to discover the After Effects plugin on your local network. The App does not enumerate, store, or transmit information about other devices on your network. |
We do not collect: your name, address, phone number, contacts, photos, location, browsing history, advertising ID, device ID, IP address (beyond what the underlying SDKs need to make their own network calls), or any audio or video footage.
We do not track you across apps or websites.
2. How your data is used
- Authentication & account state — your email and Firebase UID are stored in our Firebase project (“phone-camera-control”) and used only to sign you in and to look up your credit balance and Ad-Free entitlement.
- Credits & entitlements — your credit balance and Ad-Free flag are stored in Firestore, keyed by your normalised email so the same balance follows you across devices.
- In-app purchases — your Google Play purchase token is sent to our backend for cryptographic verification with the Google Play Developer API. We store the resulting order ID to prevent duplicate credit grants and to allow you to restore your purchase later.
- Rewarded ads — when you watch a rewarded ad, AdMob sends a signed callback to our backend identifying you by your normalised email so we can credit the right account. AdMob serves non-personalised ads by default; if you are in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland you will see a consent dialog before any ad is shown.
3. Third-party services
The App relies on these processors. Each has its own privacy policy.
| Service | Purpose | Privacy policy |
|---|---|---|
| Google Firebase Authentication | Sign-in with email/password or Google | https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy |
| Google Cloud Firestore | Storing credit balance and entitlement | https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy |
| Google Cloud Functions | Backend purchase verification, ad reward grants | https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy |
| Google Play Billing | Processing the “Ad-Free” purchase | https://policies.google.com/privacy |
| Google Mobile Ads (AdMob) | Serving rewarded ads | https://support.google.com/admob/answer/6128543 |
| Google ARCore | On-device position tracking from camera frames | https://developers.google.com/ar/develop/privacy-requirements |
| Google User Messaging Platform (UMP) | Consent management for ads in EEA/UK/CH | https://support.google.com/admob/answer/10113207 |
We do not sell or rent your personal data to anyone, ever.
4. Data retention
- Account, credits, entitlement — kept while your account exists.
- Purchase records — kept indefinitely for refund and dispute resolution (typically required by tax / consumer-protection law).
- Ad reward records — kept for at least 90 days for fraud prevention.
To request deletion of your account and associated data, see Section 7.
5. Children
The App is not directed at children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your jurisdiction). We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us data, contact us and we will delete it.
6. Security
- All traffic to our backend (Firebase, Cloud Functions) uses HTTPS / TLS.
- All purchase tokens are verified server-side with cryptographic signatures before any entitlement is granted.
- Local-network traffic to the After Effects plugin is plain HTTP. This data never leaves your local Wi-Fi network and only contains motion / camera parameters — no personal data.
- Backups of the App’s local data are disabled, so authentication tokens cannot be exfiltrated via Android backup transports.
7. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:
- access the personal data we hold about you,
- correct or delete it,
- object to or restrict processing,
- withdraw consent (for EEA/UK ads, you can re-open the consent dialog from the App’s Credits & Ad-Free panel).
How to request account or data deletion
- Email john@motionist.studio with the email address you used to sign in.
- We will delete your account, email, credit balance, and ad-free entitlement within 30 days.
- Purchase records (order IDs) are retained as required by tax and consumer-protection law.
- Ad reward records are retained for 90 days for fraud prevention, then deleted.
You may request deletion of your data without deleting your entire account — just let us know what you would like removed.
To exercise any of your other rights, email john@motionist.studio. We respond within 30 days.
8. Changes to this policy
If we make material changes we will update the “Last updated” date and, where required by law, prompt you in-app on next launch.
9. Contact
Motionist Studio