The short version
- No telemetry. The version from our website does not phone home about how you use it. The Setapp version is covered below.
- No cookies, no fingerprinting. We collect nothing from inside the app. The website uses Umami, a cookieless, privacy-first analytics tool that can't identify you (details below).
- No account. No sign-up, no login, no profile.
- No cloud. Your team list, settings and calendar are not uploaded to us or to any cloud service.
- No file access. Atlas cannot read your documents, photos or downloads. The only things it can read are your calendar and your Contacts, and each only if you allow it.
Who is the data controller?
The data controller for any personal data we hold about you is:
TJH/CO LIMITED (trading as THEODORE HQ)
A company registered in England and Wales
Company number: 16589593
Registered office: Fairway House, Links Business, Fortran Rd, St. Mellons, Cardiff, CF3 0LT, United Kingdom
Email: support@theodorehq.com
Given the small scale and low-risk nature of our processing, we are not required to appoint a Data Protection Officer and have not done so. For any data question, contact us at the email above.
What does Atlas collect from inside the app?
Nothing is sent to us. Atlas runs on your Mac and keeps a small amount of state locally so it works between launches: the teammates, cities and rosters you add; your appearance and keyboard-shortcut preferences; your licence key and activation ID (stored in the macOS Keychain, encrypted by the operating system); and the date of your most recent licence check, used for offline grace. Your teammates, cities, rosters and preferences are never transmitted off the device. Your licence key and activation ID are sent to Polar when Atlas checks your licence, as described next.
Does Atlas make any network requests?
Yes, four kinds. Apart from the calendar hand-offs you choose to press, none of them carries anything about your schedule or your team.
Update checks. Atlas checks for updates automatically, about once an hour, by
downloading a small file from our website
(https://www.theodorehq.com/atlas/appcast.xml). Like visiting any website, this
shares your IP address with our web host. The request contains your current Atlas version and
your macOS version, so we can serve the right update. It carries no unique identifier and is
verified by Apple's Sparkle framework.
Licence checks. Atlas talks to Polar.sh, our licensing provider, in three situations: when you activate your licence, each time Atlas opens to confirm the licence is still valid, and when you deactivate it to move Atlas to another Mac. Activating sends your licence key and a device label (your Mac's local name, for example "Theodore's MacBook Pro"). The check when Atlas opens, and deactivating, send your licence key and activation ID. If you are offline, Atlas keeps working from its saved result for up to seven days.
Location and city lookups. These go to Apple, as described in the next section.
Calendar hand-offs. These open a web page when you press them, as described in the next section.
Location, calendar and contacts
Location. If you grant Location access and leave Auto-Detect Location on (the default), each time Atlas opens it asks your Mac for your location and sends the coordinates to Apple to look up the city name, so it can set your own time zone and pin you on the map. City search uses Apple Maps. Your coordinates are never sent to us. You can turn Auto-Detect Location off in Settings.
Calendar. If you grant calendar access, Atlas reads your upcoming events to grey out times when you are already busy. It adds an event only when you press Add to Calendar, and never edits or deletes one. Atlas does not send your calendar data anywhere. You can revoke access at any time in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Calendars.
Calendar hand-offs. When you press Add to Calendar and your chosen calendar is Google Calendar, Outlook (personal or work) or Yahoo Calendar, Atlas opens that service's web page in your browser with the event title, times and any guest emails in the link, ready for you to save. That information goes to the service you picked, under its own privacy policy, and not to us.
Contacts. If you press Find in Contacts and grant access, Atlas searches your Contacts for the names you type so it can suggest each person's email. It never changes your Contacts. The emails you save stay on your Mac, and leave it only when you choose: Share to Mail addresses the email to them, and Add to Calendar adds them as guests. You can turn this off at any time in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Contacts.
What personal data do we hold, and on what basis?
Three categories. The law requires us to name a lawful basis under Article 6 of the UK GDPR for each.
Your purchase email and licence-key record
Held so we can deliver and verify your licence. We receive your email from Polar.sh, the Merchant of Record that processes your purchase.
Lawful basis: contractual necessity (Art 6(1)(b)).Newsletter subscription
Used to send the THEODORE HQ newsletter. When you buy, you can tick an optional box to get it. It is unticked unless you tick it. You can also sign up on our website. You can unsubscribe at any time by replying to any of our emails, and every newsletter includes an unsubscribe link.
Lawful basis: consent (Art 6(1)(a) UK GDPR), given by ticking the box at checkout or signing up on our website.Licence-activation logs
Timestamp, country and the IP address of the activation request, kept to detect fraud and licence abuse.
Lawful basis: legitimate interests (Art 6(1)(f)).How long do we keep it?
- Purchase email and licence record: while your licence is active, plus seven years after your last purchase, to meet HMRC tax-record requirements (Schedule 11 of the VAT Act 1994 and corresponding income-tax rules).
- Newsletter subscription: until you unsubscribe, plus thirty days while we process the unsubscribe.
- Licence-activation logs: twelve months from activation, then automatically deleted by Polar.
- Support emails: two years, then deleted, unless you ask us to keep them for an open issue.
Crash reports
Atlas does not send crash reports or diagnostics automatically. Nothing about a crash leaves your Mac unless you choose to send it. If macOS itself shows a "Send to Apple" dialog, that is Apple's standard system, not us, and you control it in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Analytics & Improvements.
Using Atlas through Setapp
If you use Atlas through Setapp, the app tells Setapp's own framework when it is used so that Setapp can pay us. Setapp's privacy policy covers what it collects. The Setapp version of Atlas does not check your licence with Polar and does not check for updates itself, because Setapp handles both.
Cookies and this website
No cookies, no third-party trackers, no advertising scripts, no fingerprinting. Our web fonts are self-hosted (served from this site). Pages load nothing from third parties except the support button script above, and, when you point at or press a Buy button, the checkout script described under suppliers below. Website analytics is handled by Umami (see the next section), which is cookieless.
When you first visit, your browser keeps a small note of the page you landed on, the site that sent you and any campaign tags. If you buy, this note is passed to Polar, our payment provider, with your order so we can see which pages lead to sales. It is never used for advertising. If you turn analytics off with the button on this page, no note is kept or sent. The note is not a cookie, and you can remove it at any time by clearing this site's data in your browser, or by using any standard content blocker.
Lawful basis for the visit note: our legitimate interests (Art 6(1)(f) UK GDPR) in understanding how people find Atlas.
Support button. The Support Centre button on this site loads a small script from
support.theodorehq.com. Messages you send through it are posted publicly on our
Support Centre and get an automatic first reply, then a person follows up. See the Support Centre's
privacy policy.
Website analytics (Umami)
To understand which pages people find useful, this website uses Umami,
a privacy-friendly analytics tool we self-host on our own server at analytics.theodorehq.com.
The server is located in Manchester, United Kingdom, so this data never leaves the UK. (Atlas the
app contains no analytics of any kind; this is the website only.)
Umami records aggregate, non-identifying information: the page URL, page title and referrer, the country your visit came from (derived from your IP address, which is then immediately discarded and never stored), and your browser, operating system, device type and screen size. It sets no cookies, does not fingerprint your device, does not follow you across other websites, and shares nothing with any third party. We cannot identify you from it.
Lawful basis: under PECR (as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025), this aggregate, cookieless analytics falls within the "statistical purposes" exception, which requires us to tell you about it and to give you a simple, free way to opt out (both done here). The brief processing of your IP address to derive a country relies on our legitimate interests (Art 6(1)(f) UK GDPR) in understanding aggregate traffic without identifying you. Retention: aggregate figures indefinitely; raw event records for twelve months.
How to opt out. Use the button below and we will save a small flag that tells Umami to ignore this browser on this site permanently, and remove the visit note described above. Any standard content blocker (uBlock Origin, Ghostery, Brave's shields) also blocks it automatically.
Do Not Track and visitors in the United States
We don't track you across other websites and we don't run advertising, so there is nothing for a Do Not Track signal to switch off. If you are in the United States, including California: we do not sell or share your personal information, and you can ask to see or delete what we hold by emailing support@theodorehq.com.
Who handles your data, and international transfers
We keep suppliers to a minimum. Where one is based outside the UK, an approved UK transfer safeguard is in place:
- Polar.sh (United States) is the Merchant of Record and seller of record for your purchase. For the data it collects at its own checkout (your email, country, and payment and tax details) Polar acts as a separate, independent controller under its own terms; for anything it handles purely on our behalf it acts as our processor. Polar uses Stripe as its payment processor, and we never receive your card details. See Polar's data-processing addendum and privacy policy.
- Vercel (United States) hosts this website. Vercel is certified under the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, and its data-processing agreement also incorporates the UK International Data Transfer Agreement.
- Apple iCloud runs our
support@theodorehq.commailbox. For UK and EU users this is controlled by Apple Distribution International Limited in Ireland (within the EEA), with Standard Contractual Clauses for any onward transfer. - Missive (United States) is the email app we use to read and answer messages sent to
support@theodorehq.com. It stores those emails on its servers. - Apple receives the coordinates and city searches described under Location above, to turn them into a city name, and is governed by Apple's privacy policy.
- jsDelivr serves the Polar checkout script (Polar's own embedded checkout) when you point at or press a Buy button on this site, so jsDelivr sees your IP address at that moment. See jsDelivr's privacy policy.
- Setapp, only if you use Atlas through Setapp (below).
- Website analytics is self-hosted on a server we control in Manchester, United Kingdom (Umami), so your analytics data never leaves the UK and is never shared with a third-party analytics company.
You can ask us for more detail on any of these safeguards at support@theodorehq.com.
Your rights under UK GDPR
To exercise any of these, email support@theodorehq.com. We respond within thirty days, free of charge.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, you have the right to complain to us directly (a right under section 164A of the Data Protection Act 2018). The easiest way is to email support@theodorehq.com. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, investigate it, and tell you the outcome.
You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO): Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Helpline: 0303 123 1113. ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. You can contact the ICO at any time, though we would appreciate the chance to resolve things for you first.
Children
Atlas is not directed at children under 13 (the UK age of digital consent under section 9 of the Data Protection Act 2018). We do not knowingly collect any personal data from anyone under 13. If you believe we hold such data in error, email us and we will delete it promptly.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top, and email anyone on the customer list a plain-English summary of what changed at least fourteen days before it takes effect. We will not quietly start collecting more from existing users.
Contact
Questions, concerns, or anything that smells off: support@theodorehq.com. A real human reads every email.
See also our Terms of Service.