Last updated: November 2, 2026
Your financial data is stored on your devices and synced through your own private iCloud account — never on our servers. We never sell your data. We don't serve ads. The only data we collect is what's described below, and we collect as little as possible.
SparkFi is operated by 4 Seas, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company ("SparkFi," "we," "us," or "our"). Our registered address is [ADDRESS]. For privacy enquiries, contact us at sparkteam@catchthesparkfi.com.
Note: our mailing address will be added before launch.
When you sign up for the waitlist we collect your email address and, optionally, your first name. We also collect website usage analytics: the pages you visit, the site or campaign link that brought you here, how long a page stays open in a visible tab, how far you scroll, which sections of a page you reach, which buttons and links you click, and whether you start or submit the signup form (never what you type into it). We also record your device type, operating system and browser family (for example "mobile · iOS · Safari") — derived on our server from your browser's user-agent string, which itself is not stored. These events are tied only to a random visit identifier that lives in your browser's session storage and is deleted when you close the tab; we do not build a profile of you across visits, and no third-party analytics service is involved. Automated traffic (search crawlers, link previews) is discarded. Your IP address is hashed with SHA-256 and a per-request salt for rate-limiting purposes only — the raw IP address is never stored and the hash is discarded after the request completes.
Legal basis (GDPR): Waitlist registration is processed on the basis of your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). Page-view analytics are processed on the basis of our legitimate interest in understanding site traffic (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR), which we have balanced against your right to privacy given the minimal data collected and the absence of raw IP storage.
Financial data. In the current release, you add accounts and transactions manually — SparkFi does not connect to bank or brokerage accounts automatically. All transaction data, account balances, and financial records are stored on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad and synced automatically between your devices through your own private iCloud account, using Apple's CloudKit service. Apple encrypts this data in transit and while it is stored in iCloud (see Apple's iCloud data security overview). SparkFi has no access to your iCloud account or the data in it. You can stop syncing at any time by turning off iCloud for SparkFi in your device's settings, or by signing out of iCloud — your data then stays only on that device. If you share a tracker with other people (Premium), it stays in your iCloud account and Apple's iCloud gives each person you invite access to it, including a synced copy on their own devices; they can see everything in that tracker, and people with View & edit access can change it. You can change or remove anyone's access, or stop sharing, at any time. Trackers others share with you are stored the same way in your own iCloud. SparkFi never receives shared tracker data, and the invitations you send go through your own Messages, Mail or other apps. We never store your financial transactions on our servers. The one exception to data leaving your devices is Premium's Claude-powered AI features, described under "Premium AI features" below. A future release may add automatic bank/brokerage sync through third-party providers (for example Plaid or SnapTrade); this policy will be updated, with 30 days' notice as described under "Changes to this policy," before any such feature reaches you.
Legal basis (GDPR): Your financial data is processed only on your devices and in your own iCloud account, under your control. SparkFi does not process it.
We do not collect identity information. At no time does SparkFi request your Social Security Number (SSN), Social Insurance Number (SIN), home address, legal name, or other personally identifiable fields — whether through any feature that captures a photo or document, such as scanning a paystub, or (in a future release) through connecting a bank or brokerage account automatically. If any such field is ever incidentally present in data captured through document/photo capture, it is not stored on our servers and is never shared with any third party.
Document scanning (paystub photos). SparkFi's Income Creation Assistant can fill out an income source from a photo of your paystub. That image is processed entirely on your device using Apple's on-device Foundation Models — the photo, and any data read from it, is never transmitted to SparkFi or to any third party, regardless of your subscription plan. We do not read your Social Security Number, Social Insurance Number, your home address, your legal name, or your employer's Employer Identification Number (EIN) from a scanned paystub or any other document, even though paystubs typically show several of these — our on-device extraction process is built to disregard those fields entirely rather than capture and discard them. If a future version of SparkFi needs to compare one of these values on-device (for example, to recognize a duplicate scan), only an irreversibly masked or hashed form would ever be stored — never the original value — and it would never leave your device.
Analytics. The app sends lightweight usage events to help us understand how SparkFi is used and where to focus development. Each event contains:
app.open, tracker.created)No financial data, no personally identifiable information, and no device identifiers are included in analytics events. Your IP address is used only to enforce a per-minute rate limit and is not stored. Events are retained for 12 months then deleted.
Legal basis (GDPR): App analytics are processed on the basis of our legitimate interest in improving the product (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). You can opt out at any time in Settings → System Settings → Privacy → Share Analytics. Analytics are always off for users under 13 and for users who don't share an age range — see "Children" below.
Premium AI features. If you subscribe to Premium and use AI Spending Insights or the AI Financial Coach, the figures that feature needs — for example spending totals by category, account balances by type, income sources, debt totals, savings goals, 30-day income and spending, and any messages you type to the Coach — are sent from your device through our server to Anthropic's Claude API, solely to generate the response you asked for. Our server passes the request through without storing its content; it records only usage information (which feature, which AI model, the number of tokens used, and the app's random session identifier) to monitor cost and abuse. These features run only when you use them, and you can turn them off at any time in Settings → AI.
Legal basis (GDPR): Premium AI requests are processed to perform the service you asked for (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).
Payments and subscriptions. SparkFi offers two subscriptions — Basic ($2.99/month or $29.99/year) and Premium ($5.99/month or $60/year) — each with a one-month free trial for new subscribers, and both can be shared through Apple Family Sharing. Payment is processed entirely by Apple through the App Store. We do not receive or store your payment card details, billing address, or any payment instrument data. Apple provides us with a subscription status token only. See Apple's Privacy Policy for how your payment data is handled.
On-device AI. Some features (such as natural-language transaction entry, smart rule suggestions, and document scanning) use Apple's on-device Foundation Models. These run entirely on your Mac or iPhone — nothing is sent to SparkFi or to any third party to generate them.
In this release, the only sub-processor that can receive your financial data is Anthropic, and only when a Premium subscriber uses AI Spending Insights or the AI Financial Coach. There is no bank/brokerage sync or live stock-quote feature in this release, so Plaid, SnapTrade and Finnhub receive nothing; they're listed because a future release may add those features. If and when that happens, this policy will be updated first, with 30 days' notice as described under "Changes to this policy" below.
Plaid — bank account connection (not currently used). See Plaid's Privacy Policy.
SnapTrade — brokerage account connection (not currently used). See SnapTrade's Privacy Policy.
Finnhub — real-time stock quotes (not currently used — share prices are entered manually in this release). See Finnhub's Privacy Policy.
Anthropic — powers Premium's AI Spending Insights and AI Financial Coach (and, in a future Pro plan, the AI Transaction Categorizer). When you use one of these features, the data described under "Premium AI features" above is sent to Anthropic's Claude API through our server solely to generate the response you requested. See Anthropic's Privacy Policy.
Apple iCloud — stores and syncs your SparkFi data across your devices in your own private iCloud account (CloudKit). If you share a tracker (Premium), iCloud also gives the people you invite access to that tracker and keeps a synced copy on their devices. A tracker someone shares with you syncs to your devices the same way. If you own a shared tracker, you remain in control of it and can revoke anyone's access, or stop sharing, at any time. SparkFi cannot access any of this data. You can turn iCloud sync off in your device's iCloud settings. Governed by Apple's Privacy Policy.
Your email address is used to send waitlist updates, your invite, and — if you become a customer — account and billing emails. We do not share it with third parties except the sub-processors listed above.
App analytics are used solely to understand feature usage and improve the product. They are never sold, shared with advertisers, or used for profiling.
SparkFi is operated from the United States. If you access the service from the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, or Canada, your data (specifically: waitlist email address, app analytics events, and the content of any Premium AI requests you make) will be transferred to and processed in the United States. We rely on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission as the transfer mechanism for EEA personal data. UK users benefit from the equivalent International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA). Canadian users' data is handled in accordance with PIPEDA (see the Canadian Residents section below).
Waitlist email addresses are retained until you unsubscribe or request deletion. App analytics events are retained for 12 months. Website page-view analytics are retained for 12 months. No raw IP addresses are retained at any point.
Depending on where you live, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:
To exercise any right, email sparkteam@catchthesparkfi.com. We will respond within 30 days (45 days for California requests if additional time is needed, with notice).
Your financial data in SparkFi is under your control, and if you own a shared tracker, you decide who can access it. Deleting a tracker or record inside SparkFi removes it from all your devices and from your iCloud account. Deleting the app removes only the copy on that device; to delete the copy in iCloud as well, delete SparkFi's data from the iCloud storage section of your device's settings.
Shared trackers. If you own a shared tracker, deleting it ends sharing and removes it from everyone's devices, and removing a person or stopping sharing removes it from that person's devices. If someone shared a tracker with you, leaving it removes it from your devices only; the owner's tracker isn't affected. With View & edit access, changes or deletions you make apply for everyone who shares the tracker. Removing someone's access can't take back anything they already copied outside SparkFi, such as a screenshot, so share only with people you trust.
Because we never hold your financial data, we cannot access, export, or delete it for you.
If you are a California resident, you have the following rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act:
Categories of personal information collected: Identifiers (email address); Internet or other electronic network activity (analytics events, page views); Financial information (stored on your devices and in your own iCloud account — not retained by us; summary figures pass through our server to Anthropic only when a Premium subscriber uses an AI feature; see "Third-party services" above for the cloud-based features that are not currently active).
To exercise your California rights, email sparkteam@catchthesparkfi.com with "California Privacy Request" in the subject line. We will not discriminate against you for exercising these rights.
If you are a Canadian resident, your personal information is collected, used, and disclosed in accordance with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and applicable provincial privacy legislation, including Quebec's Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (Law 25).
We collect only the information necessary for the purposes described in this policy, with your knowledge and consent. You may withdraw consent at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions. You have the right to access your personal information and to challenge its accuracy. To exercise these rights or to make a complaint, contact our privacy officer at sparkteam@catchthesparkfi.com.
This website uses one strictly necessary session cookie to protect its forms against cross-site request forgery. It is always set and expires when you close your browser.
With your permission, it also uses up to four first-party cookies for 30 days: sparkfi_ref (the referral code of the person who shared a link with you) and utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign (which campaign brought you here). They are only set if you choose Accept in the cookie banner. If you choose Decline, they are not set, and any already set are deleted. Your choice is saved for one year in a cookie named sparkfi_cookie_consent; you can change it at any time with Cookie settings at the bottom of every page.
No advertising cookies, tracking pixels or third-party analytics scripts are used. Website analytics use your browser's session storage (not a cookie) to hold a random visit identifier, which your browser deletes when you close the tab.
SparkFi is a personal finance app for a general audience. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13.
Users under 13. On devices that support it, SparkFi asks Apple for the user's age range (Apple's Declared Age Range feature — SparkFi learns only the range, such as "under 13," never a birth date). If Apple tells SparkFi that a user is under 13 — or the user chooses not to share an age range — SparkFi turns off analytics and all AI features for that user: no usage events are sent, any events still waiting to be sent are deleted on the device, and nothing is sent to AI services (including Anthropic's Claude API). SparkFi's on-device AI features are turned off too. Everything else in the app works on the device as normal. When the app first starts on a device that supports the age check, no analytics events are sent until the check has an answer.
If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us at sparkteam@catchthesparkfi.com and we will delete it promptly.
We will post changes here and update the "Last updated" date. For material changes, we will send an email to waitlist and active subscribers at least 30 days before the change takes effect, giving you time to review and, where applicable, withdraw consent.
Questions or requests? Email sparkteam@catchthesparkfi.com.
If you are in the EEA and are unsatisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. For UK residents, the relevant authority is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).