Last updated: September 23, 2026
CatchLight is an app for photographers, made by me, Amer Khalid. This policy covers the app. Visits to this website are covered by the site’s own privacy policy.
The short version#
CatchLight keeps your data on your devices and syncs it between them through your own iCloud account. It has no servers of mine, no accounts and no analytics. I can’t see your clients, shoots, poses, notes, goals or photos.
What CatchLight stores, and where#
Everything you type or add is stored in the app’s own storage on your device: clients, shoots and their payments, expenses and receipt photos, mileage, the pose library and its reference photos, moodboards, your inventory and its photos, notes and goals. It stays there until you delete it or delete the app.
Every photo you add is re-encoded, which drops the original file’s metadata. A photo from your library or camera doesn’t carry its location into CatchLight.
Your settings, like reminders, the lock and Show in Spotlight, are kept on each device on its own and don’t sync.
iCloud sync#
If you’re signed in to iCloud, CatchLight syncs everything listed above between your iPhone, iPad and Mac. It goes through Apple’s CloudKit into a private database in your own iCloud account, and counts toward your iCloud storage. I have no access to that database. Apple stores it, encrypted, under its iCloud terms.
If you’re not signed in to iCloud, everything stays on the device and nothing syncs. Settings › Backup shows where sync stands.
Sync isn’t a backup: deleting something on one device deletes it on your other devices too.
What else CatchLight sends anywhere#
The app works fully offline. Apart from sync, nothing you type is sent anywhere, with the exceptions below. Apple handles all of them, and none of them gives me your data.
- Placing a shoot’s location. A shoot with a location gets sunrise, sunset and golden hour times. To work those out, CatchLight asks Apple Maps once where that place is. What it sends is the location you typed: never your own location, and nothing else about the shoot or the client. The answer is kept with the shoot, so the same place is never looked up twice. The times themselves are calculated on the device, and with no network the shoot simply shows no times.
- Purchases. If you subscribe to CatchLight Pro, Apple processes the payment and tells the app whether the subscription is active. Apple’s privacy policy covers that transaction. I get Apple’s sales reports, which don’t identify you.
On your device, outside the app#
- Widgets. The home screen and Lock Screen widgets show your next shoot (its title, when it is, the client and the place) and how many shoots need you, with what you’re owed. A client marked Discreet shows as “Session”, with no name and no place. The app leaves the widgets a small summary on the device, and that’s all they read.
- Save to CatchLight. When you share a photo into CatchLight from another app, it waits on the device until you next open CatchLight, which adds it to the pose you picked. The share sheet only gets the photo you shared. It never asks for your photo library.
Permissions the app asks for#
- Contacts, only if you use Import Contacts, and only to copy names, contact details, birthdays and anniversaries, websites and social profiles into your client list. Your address book itself isn’t uploaded, and the app doesn’t read it again afterwards. The clients made from it sync like any others.
- Camera, only if you take a photo in the app. The photo is saved into CatchLight on the device.
- Photos, only for the pictures you pick for a pose, a moodboard, a receipt or an inventory item.
- Calendars, only if you switch on Add Shoots to Calendar in Settings › Reminders. CatchLight then keeps a calendar of its own, named CatchLight, with your booked shoots on it: title, time, place, the client’s name and the gear list. For a client marked Discreet, the event leaves out their name and the shoot’s title. It reads and changes only that calendar, never your others. The calendar lives in the same account as your other calendars (iCloud or Google, for example), so it syncs wherever they do, under that account’s own privacy terms. Turning the switch off removes it.
- Face ID (or Touch ID), only if you switch on the lock in Settings › Privacy. The check happens entirely in the device’s secure hardware. CatchLight is only told whether it passed.
- Spotlight, only if you switch on Show in Spotlight in Settings › Privacy. Client names and shoot titles then go into the device’s own search index, which stays on the device. Clients marked Discreet never do.
- Notifications, only if you switch on a reminder in Settings › Reminders. Reminders are worked out and scheduled on the device. Nothing is sent to a server to deliver them.
- Live Activities, while session mode is open. The shoot’s title (or just “Session” for a client marked Discreet), the time since the session began and the next pose show on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. The app updates them on the device, and they end when session mode closes. You can turn them off in the Settings app.
- Siri and Shortcuts, only when you ask CatchLight something through them, like “What’s my next shoot”. The app answers on the device. What you say to Siri, and Siri’s reply, are handled under Apple’s Siri privacy terms. They only run on an unlocked device, and a client marked Discreet isn’t named.
You can say no to any of these and keep using everything else.
Your backups#
Settings › Backup writes a file with your data in it, as JSON plus your photos. Where that file goes is your choice: the device, iCloud Drive, another service, or a disk. Once it leaves the app, it’s covered by whatever you saved it to. Restoring only adds records. It never overwrites or deletes anything.
Tracking and advertising#
There isn’t any. CatchLight doesn’t track you across apps or websites, shows no ads, and has no third-party analytics or advertising code in it.
Children#
CatchLight is a tool for working photographers and isn’t directed at children. It collects nothing from anyone.
Deleting your data#
Delete a record in the app to remove it. With sync on, that removes it from your iCloud and your other devices too.
Deleting the app removes everything it stored on that device, but synced data stays in your iCloud account for your other devices. To remove it from iCloud as well, delete it in the app first, or remove CatchLight’s data in your iCloud storage settings.
Backup files you saved somewhere else are yours to delete.
Changes#
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it.
Contact#
Questions about privacy in CatchLight: catchlight@amerkhalid.com.