Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 8, 2026

PencilCAD is a trade name of Chockstone Labs LLC, an Ohio limited liability company, which operates the app. This policy explains what personal data we collect when you use the PencilCAD app on iPad and iPhone and this website, how we use it, and the choices you have. It is written to meet the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the CPRA (CCPA), and other US state privacy laws. Your use of PencilCAD is also governed by our Terms of Use.

1. Who is responsible

The controller of the personal data described here is Chockstone Labs LLC, doing business as PencilCAD, 46 Shopping Plaza, PMB 5052, Chagrin Falls, OH 44022, United States. For any privacy question or request, including requests under the GDPR, UK GDPR or CCPA, write to support@chockstonelabs.com with “Privacy” in the subject line. We respond within one month.

2. Your drawings stay on your devices

Everything you draw, every page in your pad, any picture or PDF you import to trace over, and your settings are stored on your iPad. PencilCAD has no account and no server of its own that receives your pages, and we can’t see them. A drawing leaves your devices only through iCloud sync, described below, or when you export it yourself with the share button, and then it goes wherever you send it.

iCloud sync. If you’re signed in to iCloud, PencilCAD keeps your pages, including imported pictures, in sync across your iPads and iPhones through the private iCloud database of your own Apple Account. Apple stores that data under Apple’s Privacy Policy. It is private to your Apple Account: we can’t read it, and it isn’t sent to us. Sync is on by default. Turn it off in the app under Settings → iCloud → Sync with iCloud. To delete what’s stored in iCloud, use your device’s iCloud storage settings (Settings → [your name] → iCloud).

Like any app’s data, your pages are included in your iPad’s own backups (iCloud Backup or a computer backup) if you have them turned on. Those backups are Apple’s and yours, under your control, and never reach us.

3. Anonymous usage data and crash reports

To learn which features are useful and to find crashes, PencilCAD sends a small set of anonymous events to PostHog, our analytics processor, which receives them in the United States. A strict allow-list in the app limits what can be sent:

• Feature usage: for example, that a page was added, turned or torn out, a tool was picked, a fill was used, or a setting was changed. Values are limited to fixed categories like “pen” or “grid”, on/off switches, and counts.
• App lifecycle: that the app was installed, updated, opened or sent to the background.
• Crash and error reports: the error’s name, message and technical stack trace.
• Device and app details: device model, iPadOS version, app version and language.
• A random identifier the app creates for itself. It isn’t tied to your name, email, Apple Account, or advertising identifier.

PencilCAD never sends your drawings, the colors or text you use, positions on the page, your location, or anything that identifies you. We never link events to a person, person profiles are turned off, IP-based location lookup is turned off, and there is no session recording. Because nothing is linked to you or used to track you across other companies’ apps or websites, the app shows no App Tracking Transparency prompt.

Turning it off. Go to Settings → Privacy → Share anonymous usage data and switch it off. The app stops sending right away, discards anything it hasn’t sent yet, and forgets its random identifier. Turning it off is a switch, not a request: there’s nothing to email and nothing to wait for.

Diagnostic logs you choose to send. To help find bugs, the app keeps a technical log on your iPad. It records what the app did, such as which tool ran and any errors, and for some problems the positions and sizes of the shapes involved. The log never leaves your device unless you tap Settings → Diagnostics → Export logs and send the file yourself. If you send it to us, we use it only to find and fix the problem, and we keep it like any email (section 6).

4. Device permissions

Photos (optional). If you choose Save Image from the share sheet, iPadOS asks for permission to add the image to your photo library. PencilCAD can only add photos. It can’t read your library. When you import a photo, you pick it in Apple’s photo picker, and the app receives only the photo you chose.

Camera (optional). If you choose Scan paper, iPadOS asks for permission to use the camera. The camera is used only while you scan, and the scan becomes a picture on your page like any other import.

PencilCAD doesn’t ask for your location, microphone, contacts, or any other permission.

5. This website

This website sets no cookies and uses no analytics, tracking pixels, or advertising networks. The App Store badge is loaded from Apple, so Apple receives your IP address and browser details when the page loads, under Apple’s Privacy Policy. Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs, such as IP address, browser type and the pages requested, for security and to operate the site, under its own retention practices. We don’t use those logs to identify visitors.

6. Email

If you email us, we receive your email address, any name you include, and what you write. We use it to answer you, on the basis of our legitimate interest in responding (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)), and keep correspondence for up to 24 months unless the law requires longer.

7. Who receives data

We don’t sell or rent personal data, and we don’t share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We rely on a few service providers (“processors”), each handling only what its job needs:

• PostHog (product analytics and error reports): the anonymous events in section 3. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in improving the app (Art. 6(1)(f)), with an in-app switch to turn it off at any time.
• Our website host: serves this site and briefly processes your IP address to deliver it. Legal basis: legitimate interest in operating and securing the site.
• Our email provider: handles email you send us.
• Apple: distributes the app and, if you’ve opted in to share diagnostics with developers in iPadOS Settings, forwards anonymized crash reports. Apple’s processing is governed by Apple’s Privacy Policy.
• Apple iCloud: if sync is on, stores your pages in your own iCloud account, as section 2 describes. Apple provides that service to you; we don’t receive or control that data.

Beyond them, we disclose personal data only when the law requires it; when needed to enforce our Terms of Use or protect the rights, property or safety of Chockstone Labs, our users or the public; to a successor if Chockstone Labs or PencilCAD is part of a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, in which case this policy continues to apply unless we tell you otherwise; or when you ask us to. We may use and share statistics that can’t reasonably be linked to you, such as feature-usage totals, for any lawful purpose.

8. International transfers

Chockstone Labs is based in the United States, and our processors receive data there. If you use PencilCAD from elsewhere, the anonymous events in section 3 and anything you email us are processed in the United States, where data protection laws may differ from those where you live. Where the law requires a safeguard for that transfer, we rely on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses or an equivalent. Your drawings never reach us: they stay on your devices and, if you sync, in your iCloud account, where Apple’s terms govern where they’re stored.

9. Your rights in the EEA, UK and Switzerland

You have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it erased, to restrict or object to its processing, to receive it in a portable format, to withdraw consent where processing relies on it, and to complain to your data protection authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office). To use any of these rights, email support@chockstonelabs.com. We respond within one month.

The honest limit. The only link between you and the analytics we hold is a random identifier on your iPad, so we usually can’t find “your” data from an email alone, and we won’t start collecting identifying information just to be able to. The practical way to act on it is from the app: the switch in section 3 stops collection and discards the identifier. If you can give us something we can match, we’ll use it.

10. California privacy rights

California residents have the right to know what personal information we collect and why, to request deletion or correction, to opt out of sale or sharing, and not to be discriminated against for using these rights. We don’t sell personal information, and we don’t share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

In the last 12 months we collected these categories: identifiers (the random app identifier, and your email address if you write to us); internet or other electronic network activity (the app usage and error events in section 3); and customer records (the contents of any email you send us). They came from the app and from you, were used for the purposes in sections 3 and 6, and were disclosed only to the service providers in section 7. We don’t collect sensitive personal information or build profiles about you. To make a request, email support@chockstonelabs.com, or have an authorized agent do so for you. We verify requests by matching information we already hold and respond within 45 days.

11. Other US states

Residents of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia and other states with comprehensive privacy laws may have the right to confirm whether we process their personal data, to access, correct or delete it, to get a portable copy, and to opt out of its sale, targeted advertising, and profiling with legal or similarly significant effects. We don’t sell personal data, use it for targeted advertising, or profile you. To make a request, email support@chockstonelabs.com. If we decline, you can appeal by replying with “Privacy appeal” in the subject line, and if you disagree with the outcome you can contact your state Attorney General. Nevada residents: we don’t sell covered information.

12. Children

PencilCAD is a general-audience app and isn’t directed to children. We don’t knowingly collect personal data from children under 13, or under 16 in the EEA and UK. If you believe a child has sent us personal data, contact us and we’ll delete it.

13. How long we keep data, and how we protect it

• Anonymous app events: up to 12 months, then deleted or kept only as totals that can’t identify anyone.
• Email correspondence: up to 24 months.
• Website server logs: under our host’s retention practices.

We use reasonable safeguards for the little we hold, including encrypted connections for analytics and the website, access controls on our provider accounts, and keeping your drawings off our systems entirely. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal data, we’ll notify you and the authorities as the law requires.

14. Deleting your data

Your pages live on your iPad, so deleting PencilCAD deletes everything the app stored on that iPad. Copies in your own iPad backups stay until you remove them through Apple’s settings. If iCloud sync was on, a copy also stays in your iCloud account until you delete it in your device’s iCloud storage settings (section 2). To stop analytics and discard its identifier, use the switch in section 3. To delete email correspondence, write to support@chockstonelabs.com.

15. Artificial intelligence

PencilCAD doesn’t use artificial intelligence to make decisions about you, doesn’t send your drawings to AI services (when you write a number with Apple Pencil, Apple’s built-in text recognition reads it on your device), and we don’t use your data or your drawings to train AI or machine-learning models or license them to anyone who would. If that ever changes, we’ll update this policy first.

16. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top of this page. For a material change, such as a new kind of data or a new purpose, we’ll also tell you in the app. The updated policy applies from the date it’s posted.

17. Contact

Chockstone Labs LLC, doing business as PencilCAD
46 Shopping Plaza, PMB 5052
Chagrin Falls, OH 44022, United States
support@chockstonelabs.com