Quick BalancePrivacy policy
Quick Balance checks your Guyana airtime and data by running the same service codes you would dial yourself, such as *100# or *120#, and showing you the reply. This policy explains what it stores, what it can reach, and what its accessibility service reads.
The short version. Quick Balance collects no personal data and sends nothing anywhere. It does not request Android's internet permission, so it has no technical ability to transmit anything off your phone. There is no account, no server, no analytics and no advertising.
What we collect
Nothing. No personal information is collected, transmitted, sold or shared with anyone, including the developer. Quick Balance has no back end to send it to.
What the app stores on your phone
The app keeps a small amount of information locally so it has something to show you when you open it. This never leaves the device.
- The most recent reply your network sent for each code you have checked — your airtime figure, your bundle balances, and the text of any menu you opened — together with the time each was checked.
- A history of your checks, used to draw the usage chart and the recent-checks list. It is capped and older entries fall off.
- Your mobile number, when your network shows it. The network's main menu greets you with your number, and the reader picks it up from that popup the first time a menu passes through it. The app never reads the number from your SIM. It is shown back to you on the More screen, where you can hide it, and is used for nothing else.
- Anything you type into Settings: your data plan size, your voice plan minutes, and the credit level you want to be warned at.
This is stored in the app's own private storage using Android's DataStore. Android backup is switched off for the app (allowBackup="false"), so this data is not copied into Google Drive or transferred to a new phone. Uninstalling the app deletes all of it.
Permissions, and why each one is needed
- Phone (CALL_PHONE) — to dial your network's service codes on your behalf. Quick Balance only ever dials a fixed list of them: codes beginning with *100 on one network, and *120#, *123#, *136# and *141# on the other. It does not place calls to people, and it does not read your call log or contacts.
- Phone state (READ_PHONE_STATE) — to see which SIM cards are in the phone, so the app can dial on the one you chose. For each SIM it reads only the slot, the name your phone gives it, and its network code. It does not read your phone number, your phone's serial numbers, or anything about your calls, and nothing it reads leaves the phone.
- Notifications (POST_NOTIFICATIONS) — for a single reminder, sent only if you have not checked your balance in over a week.
- Run at startup (RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED) — to re-schedule that one reminder after your phone restarts.
The app does not request the internet permission, location, contacts, storage, camera, microphone, or your call log.
The Quick Balance reader (accessibility service)
When your network answers a service code, Android shows the reply in a system popup belonging to your phone app, and gives no way for another app to obtain that text. On this network the standard programming interface for USSD does not work at all. The only way for Quick Balance to show you the answer is to read that popup, and Android's accessibility service is the mechanism it provides for doing so.
The service is called UssdDialogReader. It does two things:
- Reads the message text of the USSD popup, so the app can show you the answer instead of you having to catch it before it closes.
- When you are browsing your network's menus inside the app and you tap a choice, types that choice into the popup for you.
It is restricted, in the app's own configuration, to a single package: com.android.phone, your phone app. It cannot see any other app, and it does not look at your screen generally. It acts only on a popup that Quick Balance itself started — if it finds a USSD popup it did not ask for, it leaves it alone.
The text it reads is used to display your balance and to record your check history, both on your phone. It is not transmitted anywhere, because the app cannot transmit anything.
The service is off until you turn it on. The app explains what it does and asks you to agree before sending you to Android's settings, and you can switch it off at any time in Settings → Accessibility → Quick Balance, or from inside the app. With it off, the rest of the app still works; only reading the replies stops.
Watch a recording of the app explaining the reader and the reader being switched on.
Why this use of the accessibility API is permitted
Google Play permits use of the accessibility API for deterministic, rule-based automation, where the behaviour follows a static script written by a person. Quick Balance is exactly that: a fixed set of service codes and menu paths, each one written into the app in advance. The app makes no decisions of its own, initiates nothing without your tap, and cannot plan or execute actions beyond those fixed paths. It declares itself as not being an accessibility tool.
Children
Quick Balance is a utility for mobile phone customers and is not directed at children. Because it collects no data at all, it collects none from children either.
Your network
Dialling a service code is a request to your mobile network, exactly as if you had typed it into the dialler yourself. What your network records about those requests is governed by their own privacy policy, not this one. Quick Balance is an independent app and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any mobile network.
Changes to this policy
If the app ever changes what it stores or what it can reach, this page will be updated and the date at the top will change. A change that meant the app collected or sent personal data would be announced in the app before it took effect, and would require your agreement.
Contact
Questions about this policy, or about the app: support@quickbalance.app