HQBackground

Hip Discovery · HQBackground

Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 7, 2026

HQBackground is designed to work primarily on your Mac. It does not use advertising, third-party analytics, tracking SDKs, or an HQBackground account.

Data that stays on your Mac

The following information is stored locally for app functionality and is not uploaded by HQBackground:

Personal imported images are copied into HQBackground's local app storage. They are not uploaded to HQBackground or a third-party image service.

HQBackground does not request access to your contacts, precise location, microphone, camera, browsing history, or files you did not choose for import.

Optional Community sharing

Community sharing is off unless you choose to enable it.

When Community sharing is enabled, HQBackground sends this week's Like and Not for me wallpaper choices to Apple's CloudKit service as a compact weekly ballot. This data is used only for app functionality: Top this week, weekly reaction counts, and the app's bounded community quality signal.

CloudKit associates the record with the signed-in iCloud account. HQBackground does not store your raw iCloud user record identifier as a custom database field. Instead, the app derives a hashed per-week record name. The ballot contains wallpaper identifiers and the corresponding weekly like/dislike choices; it does not contain your name, email address, personal wallpapers, or long-term For You profile.

HQBackground uses CloudKit's public database for Community ballots so app clients can retrieve the current week's ballots and compute aggregate ratings. Because these records are associated with an iCloud account at the CloudKit layer, HQBackground treats Community ballots as account-linked product-interaction data, not anonymous data. The app does not present another user's iCloud identity in its interface and displays only aggregate Community results.

You can turn Community sharing off at any time. Turning it off stops new Community publishing, discards unpublished retry state, and does not erase the private Discover / For You data stored on your Mac. If sharing is turned off and you try to enable it again during the same launch, HQBackground asks you to reopen the app first so an older unpublished retry cannot cross that opt-out boundary.

Community retention and deletion

HQBackground writes at most one Community ballot per iCloud user per week. The app reads the current week's ballots for Community ranking and does not use old weekly ballots to build a long-term server-side profile.

While a ballot is the current week's ballot, you can delete your published copy from Settings → Community → Remove Published Votes. Older weekly records may remain in Apple's CloudKit public database even though HQBackground no longer uses them for current rankings.

For privacy questions or a broader Community-data deletion request, contact [email protected]. Because HQBackground does not maintain its own user account or store your email address with CloudKit ballots, additional information may be needed to identify the applicable CloudKit records.

Purchases and subscriptions

HQBackground Pro is offered as an auto-renewable annual subscription through Apple's App Store and StoreKit. Apple handles subscription billing, renewal, cancellation, refunds, and payment information. HQBackground does not receive or store your payment-card information.

HQBackground uses Apple's cryptographically verified StoreKit transaction and current-entitlement information to determine whether Pro access is active. The app does not grant Pro access from a locally stored purchase flag. Active subscriptions and Apple-authorized billing grace periods retain access; expired, revoked, refunded, or billing-retry-only subscriptions do not grant Pro access unless StoreKit reports another current entitlement.

You can manage or cancel the subscription from your Apple Account subscription settings. Cancellation stops future renewal but does not normally remove access before the end of the already-paid subscription period.

Network requests

HQBackground makes network requests only for app functionality, including:

Curated wallpaper source hosts are third-party or institutional web services. As with an ordinary HTTPS request, those hosts can receive routine connection information such as your IP address, request time, and the specific asset path requested. HQBackground does not add an advertising identifier, HQBackground account identifier, personal wallpaper, or long-term taste profile to those image requests.

HQBackground does not use these requests for advertising or cross-app tracking.

Tracking and advertising

HQBackground does not:

Data security

HQBackground uses the macOS App Sandbox and Hardened Runtime. Remote curated wallpaper downloads are limited to approved HTTPS sources and exact reviewed source revisions, then validated for expected type, size, and image dimensions before use. Personal imports are validated and managed separately inside the app's local storage. Curated catalog URLs are constrained to reviewed hosts, repositories, immutable revisions, path roots, and image file types before a request is allowed.

No software can guarantee absolute security, but HQBackground is designed to minimize the amount of user data it sends off-device and to avoid maintaining a custom user-data backend.

Children's privacy

HQBackground is not designed to collect personal information from children. The app does not require an HQBackground account or request a name, date of birth, or contact information to use its core features.

Changes to this policy

If HQBackground's data practices materially change, this policy and the App Store privacy disclosures will be updated to reflect the shipping app.

Contact

For privacy questions or requests:

Hip Discovery [email protected]