Belong Austria, Privacy Policy

Belong Austria runs on your device. What you enter about your residence, your background and your travel stays on your iPhone. We do not collect it, we cannot see it, and it is never sent to us or to anyone else.

Who we are

Belong Austria is made by Belong Europe ApS, a company registered in Copenhagen, Denmark, CVR number 46649044. You can reach us at hello@belongeurope.com.

What you enter and where it lives

The month you became resident, your settled residence status and marital status, your citizenship background, the trips you log, your language exam, knowledge test and self support status, and anything else you enter are stored only on your iPhone, in the app’s own storage. They are not uploaded, backed up to us, or shared with any third party. If you delete the app, that data goes with it.

The name and the photo you can add for yourself on the You tab are stored the same way: the name in the app’s own storage, the photo scaled down and saved as one file in the app’s private storage on your iPhone. Neither is uploaded, synced or shared, and removing them, or deleting the app, deletes them.

Your What if scenarios are not stored at all. The sandbox runs on a copy of your situation held in memory while the sheet is open, and it is discarded when you close it.

What we collect

Nothing. Belong Austria has no accounts, no sign-in, no analytics, no advertising, no tracking and no third-party software development kits that collect data about you. We do not know who you are, whether you opened the app today, or what you entered.

News

The News tab currently makes no network requests at all. It shows a single announcement: a partnership with The Local Austria is in the works, to bring you the immigration and citizenship news that actually affects your path. Until that lands, nothing is fetched and nothing about you leaves your device — the BMI feed the app is wired for stays paused, in the app itself and in its background checks.

When the partnership does launch, this policy will be updated to describe exactly what is requested and what the other side can see, before the feature ships.

Practice

The Staatsbürgerschaftsprüfung practice questions in the Practice tab are bundled inside the app. Practising works fully offline: your answers, your scores and your mistakes deck are written to your device and never sent anywhere. Opening the BMI’s official Mein Österreich material is a normal link that opens in a browser view.

Passport

The facts on the Passport tab — validity, fee, where to apply, dual citizenship and the notes on the Austrian passport’s design — ship with the app and are shown without any network request. If you add your name or a photo on the You tab, the Passport tab displays them; they are the same name and photo described above, and nothing else is collected. Opening the issuing authority’s page opens it in an in-app Safari view; the page loads from the authority’s own site, and none of your data goes with it.

Documents you attach

On the Path tab you can attach a document to a requirement — a language certificate, a residence permit, a payslip, a test result — with a name and, if you want, an expiry date. The file stays on this iPhone and we never receive it.

Documents are written inside the app’s own storage with iOS file protection switched on, so the system keeps them encrypted and unreadable while your iPhone is locked. The name and the expiry date you give a document are kept alongside it, in the same place. Files up to 15 MB are accepted; anything larger is refused with a plain error rather than trimmed. If you set an expiry date and turn milestone alerts on, the name you gave the document is used as the title of that alert, and like any notification it can appear on your lock screen — worth knowing when you name something sensitive. Only that name leaves the vault; the file itself never does. Removing a document deletes the file, and deleting the app deletes all of them. They are never uploaded, we never see them, and we keep no copy anywhere else. Attaching copies the file into the app: the photo or file you picked stays where it was, in your photo library or in Files, and remains your own copy.

One thing worth knowing: these files are deliberately kept out of your iPhone backup. If you back your device up to iCloud or to a computer, your documents are not part of that backup, so they cannot reach another phone that way. The cost is worth stating plainly: restoring a new iPhone from a backup will not bring your documents back, and you attach them again. That is the version of this we can stand behind — papers this sensitive should not travel further than the phone you chose to put them on. Keep your own copies of anything you cannot easily get again, and attach only what you actually need.

Reminders and alerts

Alerts for the dates in What’s coming are local notifications, and they are off until you turn them on. Your iPhone schedules them from information already on it, so they use no server of ours, no push service and no device token. Nothing about them reaches us: not that you switched them on, not when one fires, not whether you opened it. The setting is stored on your device.

Subscriptions and payments

Belong Austria Pro is an optional auto-renewable subscription at 34,99 EUR per year, with a 7-day free trial. Payment is handled entirely by Apple through your Apple Account. We never see your card, your billing address or your name. Apple reports sales to us only in aggregate, as numbers, with no way to identify individual subscribers. Apple’s own privacy policy governs that transaction.

Language and appearance

Belong Austria is in English, with the practice questions carrying their German originals the way the real test does — there is no separate language setting. Your choice of the Midnight or Mediterranean look is a setting stored on your device. It is not a profile and it is not sent anywhere.

Diagnostics

If you have turned on Apple’s optional analytics sharing in iOS Settings, Apple may send us crash and performance reports in a form that does not identify you. We use them only to find and fix problems. You can turn this off at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements.

Your data and your rights

Because your data never reaches us, there is no account for us to export, correct or delete — you already hold all of it, and deleting the app deletes it. Under the GDPR you keep your rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and objection against any personal data a company actually holds about you. If you believe we have mishandled personal data, you can contact us first, and you have the right to complain to your supervisory authority: in Austria, the Österreichische Datenschutzbehörde at dsb.gv.at, or, since we are established in Denmark, the Danish Datatilsynet at datatilsynet.dk.

Children

Belong Austria is made for adults navigating their own immigration and citizenship path. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect anything from them.

Changes to this policy

If we change how the app handles data, we will update this page and its effective date, and we will say so in the app when the change is material. In particular, this page will be updated before any feature that makes a network request ships.

Contact

Questions about this policy: hello@belongeurope.com.