Family Cycle — Law Enforcement & Legal Request Policy

Family Cycle holds menstrual-cycle information about families, including minors. We treat every request for it — governmental or civil — with the seriousness that data deserves. This policy tells law enforcement what to expect and tells our users what we will and won't do. We publish it because people whose health data is at stake should not have to guess.

What we hold — and don't

Before sending process, know that our data minimization is the practical answer to most requests. We hold:

• account emails, and whether each account agreed to receive notices by email;
• family membership: each account's role in its family, and when it joined;
• first names or nicknames, period start/end dates and the cycle phases computed from them, a self-logging daughter's birth month and year, and an optional line saying what someone uses;
• consent records;
• for a family with the family plan: whether it is on, when it renews or ends, whether it will renew, Apple's identifier for the subscription, and which account started it; and, kept apart from the family, the record that whoever started it agreed to its renewal: the words the offer showed, Apple's identifier for the purchase, and when;
• for up to a year after a family is deleted with its plan still paid up: Apple's identifier for the subscription, and the date, with nothing that says whose it was;
• for a family whose adults use its share code: the code, the months it has earned and not yet used, when each was earned, and, for a family that typed another family's code, which family's code it was;
• for a daughter of 13 to 17 where a state's app-store law applies, the App Store's identifier for her download;
• for two years after a grown woman's profile is deleted by someone other than her: which profile and family, whose account deleted it, and when, with none of its dates;
• for an account nobody has opened for two years, until it is opened or deleted: when we emailed it a notice, and the day it will be deleted;
• for at most 30 days, the service's request logs: which request the app made, the network address it came from, and the account it was made for.

We do not hold: location data of any kind, message content, browsing or search history, contact lists, photos, device identifiers for advertising, or payment details (Apple processes the family plan's payments, and we never see them). There is no server-side record of reminder or notification activity.

What process is required

• Cycle data and any other content: a judicial warrant issued on probable cause. Where the law would allow less, we will ask the court to require a warrant.
• Civil investigative demands and administrative subpoenas, including a state attorney general's, are subpoenas: at most they reach basic subscriber records, never cycle data or other content.
• Basic subscriber records (account email, creation date, and, for at most 30 days, the network address and time of a request): a valid subpoena, construed narrowly.
• Preservation requests: as federal law requires (18 U.S.C. §2703(f)), a copy of the named account's records, kept for 90 days and once more for 90 on a renewed request. That copy survives a deletion made in the meantime and is deleted when the hold ends.
• Voluntary disclosure: only in a genuine emergency involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, limited to the minimum information needed, documented, with notice to the affected user afterward.

Requests must identify the account precisely (email address); we do not run broad searches, reverse lookups, or "all families matching…" queries, and we will challenge process that asks for them.

Reproductive-health scrutiny

Where a request appears to relate to reproductive or gender-affirming care that is lawful in Illinois, Illinois law governs our answer. An out-of-state subpoena brought through an Illinois court must carry a sworn attestation that one of the law's narrow exceptions applies, and we may not comply with one reasonably believed to violate that law (735 ILCS 35/3.5; the Lawful Health Care Activity Act, 735 ILCS 40). We will refuse, and leave it to the requesting party to go to court. Washington's shield law (Laws of 2023, ch. 193) and California Penal Code §1546.5 protect people and companies in those states, and may bind our provider Google, which is headquartered in California; we will point to them where they apply. No state's law binds a federal court.

From January 1, 2027, if a request relates to an investigation of abortion or gender-affirming care, we will also notify California's Attorney General at least seven business days before producing anything, and produce nothing before then, unless federal law requires a shorter time.

We tell the affected person

Our policy is to notify the affected user before producing anything, with a copy of the process, so they can object — unless a court order legally forbids notice. When a gag expires, we notify then. For data about a minor, notice goes to her parent or guardian. We interpret gag requests narrowly and will ask courts to lift ones that outlive their justification.

Civil requests — including family-court disputes

We anticipate that a family app's data may be sought in divorce and custody proceedings. Our position:

• Federal law forbids us to disclose what a family stores to anyone in a civil case, even under subpoena, without the consent of the person it describes (18 U.S.C. §2702). For other records, we object to attorney letters and civil subpoenas, and produce only what a court orders after hearing our objections; the notice policy above applies in full.
• The family already has access to its own data in the app, subject to each member's visibility rights. We are not a shortcut around another family member's consent, and we will say so to the court.
• Data about a child in a custody dispute gets the highest scrutiny; where her parents are adverse to each other, we will ask the court to resolve authority before producing anything.

Narrowness, always

For any valid process we: produce the minimum responsive data; redact other family members' information wherever severable; object to overbreadth, improper jurisdiction, and fishing expeditions; and document everything produced.

International requests

The service is offered in the United States. Foreign authorities should proceed via MLAT or letters rogatory; we do not respond directly to foreign legal process.

Transparency

We will publish, at least annually, the number of legal requests received, their types, and how many resulted in any production — including when the number is zero.

Where to send requests

Family Cycle is operated by Flood Stage LLC, Illinois, USA.

• Service of legal process: on Flood Stage LLC's registered agent, as listed with the Illinois Secretary of State
• Requests, and questions about this policy: legal@familycycle.app

We answer requests sent to these addresses only. A request sent anywhere else, including through the app or to our support address, will be pointed here and not otherwise acted on.