Tone Emergency privacy policy

Last updated October 16, 2026

Tone Emergency is a personal emergency alarm. You choose a trigger phrase. When that phrase shows up in a new text message, or in a message notification from your messaging app, this phone can sound an alarm.

This is not a messaging app. It is not your default texting app. Your normal messages app still gets the text. Tone Emergency does not take over texting, and it does not read old conversations.

What is processed on this phone

The app reads the following only on this phone, to match your trigger phrase and to run the alarm or the optional assistant:

• The text and phone number of a newly delivered SMS
• Contacts, if you allow it, so you can choose emergency contacts and a block list, and so the optional assistant can recognize someone already in your address book
• Incoming call state and call counts. When call-log access is allowed, Android includes the caller’s number so the assistant can count recent calls on this phone. The app does not place calls.
• The title and text of message notifications from your messaging app, if you turn on notification access

Nothing in that list is uploaded. The app has no internet permission. It does not send message content, contacts, or call data to a server or to any third party. It does not sell data.

Notification access

If you allow notification access, Tone Emergency reads the title and text of message notifications on this phone. That is so a trigger phrase in a Chat or SMS notification can start the alarm. Notifications from apps that are not your messaging app are ignored. Tone Emergency does not become your texting app.

Optional assistant

If you turn the assistant on, the app can send a text that you wrote. That text leaves your phone the way any text does: through your mobile carrier, to the person you set it up for. It is not sent to Tone Emergency. If you also leave confirmation on, the app can send a short follow-up that the alarm was sent. Both of those texts happen only when you turn the assistant on. If you leave the assistant off, the app does not send them. Emergency contacts can still trigger the alarm with the phrase without the assistant.

What is stored on this phone

Emergency contacts, the block list, alarm history, assistant counts, and your settings are stored on this phone. History can include the text of a message that was checked. Uninstalling Tone Emergency deletes that data from the phone.

If Android backup is on for this phone, Android may copy that local data into your own device backup. Tone Emergency does not run that backup and cannot read it.

What this app does not do

• No ads, no analytics, and no accounts
• No internet permission, and no upload, sale, or sharing of messages, contacts, or call data
• It does not become the default SMS app, and it does not read your old SMS inbox

This page

This is the public copy of the same policy shown inside the app. https://designtheory.dev/privacy/tone-emergency.html