BINIT
privacy
The whole of it
BINIT collects nothing. There is no BINIT server, no account, no analytics and no third-party code in the app. Nothing about you or your mail is sent to us or to anybody else, because there is nowhere for it to be sent to.
Who is responsible for your data
Iam The Protagonist Ltd, trading as BINIT and The It Group, is the data controller. We are a private limited company registered in England and Wales, company number 16842280, registered office 60 Hay Lane, London, NW9 0NB. Email theitgroupapps@gmail.com.
Being the controller is what makes us answerable for the app's design, which is the part that matters here: we decided that BINIT would have no server. In practice the only personal data that ever reaches us is an email you send us yourself.
What we hold, and why
- Your mail, your senders, your decisions, your mailbox score — held only on your phone, never sent to us. It is what the app is for, so the lawful basis is our contract with you. The detail is in the next section.
- Your mailbox sign-in — held only on your phone, encrypted, never sent to us. Contract.
- An email you send us — your address and whatever you wrote, kept so we can answer. Our legitimate interest in replying to people who write to us.
- Crash reports — only the ones Google collects if you have agreed to share them with developers, in your device settings. They carry no mail and no addresses, and you can turn them off there.
That is the whole list. There is no advertising, no tracking, no profiling, no selling of anything, and no third-party analytics code in the app.
What stays on your phone
When BINIT reads your mailbox it keeps a record of who wrote to you, what each message was called, when it arrived, which folder it was in, and whether it carried an unsubscribe link. It never keeps the message itself.
Alongside that it keeps the decisions you make and what came of them: which senders you blocked, kept or left the mailing list of; what was cleared out and when; any email address you typed into Leak Shield yourself and which known break-ins it matched; the result of a password check; the alerts you've been shown; and your mailbox score over time.
All of that lives in one file inside the app on your phone, and it goes when you delete the app.
Your mailbox sign-in is encrypted on the phone with a key held in the phone's own security hardware, behind your fingerprint, face or screen lock. It is never sent anywhere and no copy of it exists off the device.
Who BINIT talks to
Only ever these, and only when what you asked for needs it:
- Your mail provider — the app connects to your mailbox directly, over an encrypted connection, to read it and to carry out what you've asked for.
- Microsoft — if you use Outlook or Hotmail, signing in happens on Microsoft's own page. Your password is never typed into BINIT.
- An unsubscribe address — when you choose to leave a mailing list, the app contacts the address that sender published for it. Nothing beyond that request is sent.
- The public break-in list — BINIT downloads the catalogue of companies known to have been robbed. It is the same list for everybody and carries nothing about you; the crossing-off against your own mail happens on the phone. Your address is not sent to do this.
- The password-checking service — only if you use Check a password. See below, because it deserves its own explanation.
- Google — for the purchase, and nothing else.
Buttons like Change password and Delete account simply open that company's own page in your browser. BINIT does not sign in for you, fill anything in, or watch what you do there.
The password check, in full
Everywhere else BINIT tells you never to type a password into it. The Check a password screen is the one exception, and it exists because there is no honest way to answer "has this password already been stolen?" without the password.
What actually leaves the phone
The password is scrambled on your phone and only the first five characters of the scramble are sent. Those five match roughly half a million different passwords. The service sends back all of them and cannot tell which one you asked about. The comparison happens back on your phone.
The password itself, the full scramble, your email address and your device are never sent. Nothing about the password is written down afterwards — the app keeps one word, found, weak or clean, and the date.
Checking one particular address
Asking whether a specific address has been in a break-in means sending that address to somebody — there is no clever arrangement that avoids it, the way there is for passwords. So BINIT ships with that switched off, and nothing is sent.
If you put in your own key for the breach service, that lookup turns on, and then the address you typed does go to it. The screen says so at the point you use it. Everything else on this page is unaffected.
Payment
The one-time unlock is bought through Google Play. Google handles the payment; BINIT never sees your card, your name or your Google Account. All the app receives is Google's answer to "has this been paid for".
What your mail provider sees
BINIT signs in to your mailbox the way any mail app does, and your provider knows it has done so. If your mailbox is Outlook or Hotmail, signing in happens on Microsoft's own page and you are asked to agree to exactly four things: read and act on your mail (IMAP.AccessAsUser.All), send mail as you, which is only ever used to send an unsubscribe request you asked for (SMTP.Send), set rules inside the mailbox so a block holds while the app is shut (MailboxSettings.ReadWrite), and stay signed in (offline_access). You can take those back at any time at account.live.com/consent/Manage.
Gmail and other providers are reached by ordinary IMAP with an app password you create yourself. BINIT does not use Google's Gmail API and asks for no Google account permissions.
How long anything is kept
- On your phone: for as long as the app is installed. Deleting the app deletes all of it. You can also disconnect a mailbox inside the app, which removes its sign-in and its records.
- Emails you send us: up to 24 months, then deleted.
- There are no backups of your data, because there is no server to back up.
Your rights
Under UK data-protection law you can ask us to show you what we hold about you, correct it, delete it, give you a copy you can take elsewhere, stop using it for a particular purpose, or withdraw consent you gave.
For BINIT the honest answer to most of those is that we hold nothing to show, correct or delete — it is all on your phone, where you can see it in the app and remove it by deleting the app. The exception is an email you sent us, and we'll act on any of those requests about it within one month. Write to theitgroupapps@gmail.com.
If you're not happy with how we've handled it you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.
Security
Everything BINIT sends travels over an encrypted connection. Your mailbox sign-in is encrypted on the phone behind your fingerprint, face or screen lock. Because nothing is stored off your device, there is no store of BINIT users' mail anywhere for anyone to break into. No system is perfect; if we ever have a breach that puts you at risk we'll say so here and tell the ICO as the law requires.
Children
BINIT is not for anyone under 13, and collects no information from anybody. If you think a child has sent us data, email us and we'll delete it.
Cookies and tracking
The app sets no cookies and this website sets none either. We don't track you across other companies' apps or sites. BINIT does not read your phone's advertising identifier and there is no advertising in it.
Changes
If this ever changes it will be changed on this page first, and the date below changes with it. For anything significant we'll say so in the app.
Asking us about it
Iam The Protagonist Ltd, trading as BINIT and The It Group
Registered in England and Wales, company number 16842280
60 Hay Lane, London, NW9 0NB, United Kingdom
theitgroupapps@gmail.com