The agreement
These terms are between you and the independent developer of Daycare Guardian, based in Florida, United States ("we", "us"). They cover the Daycare Guardian iPhone app and this website. By creating an account or using the app, you agree to them. If you do not agree, please do not use the app — and if you have already started, you can delete your account at Profile → Delete Account.
The app is free. There are no in-app purchases, no subscription and no advertising. We are not charging you, and that shapes a lot of what follows.
How we handle your information is set out separately in the Privacy Policy, which forms part of these terms.
Read this part
Daycare Guardian is not a safety device
Daycare Guardian is a shared log and a reminder. That is all it is, and it is important that you hold it in your mind that way from the first day you use it.
The app knows exactly one thing: what somebody told it by tapping a button. It cannot detect a child, and it has no way to observe anything at all. It has no sensors, no camera and no location awareness of any kind. It does not know whether a child was actually dropped off, only that a person pressed Drop Off on their phone. It cannot call for help, cannot contact a daycare, and cannot contact emergency services.
Everything it does depends on a chain of very ordinary things all working:
- a caregiver remembering to open the app and tap the button;
- a phone that is charged, switched on and has signal;
- our servers being up, and the notification being generated on time;
- Apple delivering the push notification, promptly, to the right device;
- your phone being configured to show it, and you being somewhere you can see it.
Any link in that chain can fail, and over enough mornings, some of them will. A missed drop-off alert can arrive late, or not at all. A notification can be silenced by a setting you forgot you changed. None of that is unusual — it is what software running on phones and networks is like.
A notification is not proof that a child is safe. It only means somebody tapped a button. And the absence of a notification is not proof that anything is wrong — but it is always worth a phone call.
So please do not let this app take the place of anything you already do. Keep every habit you would have without it — the call, the text at the door, the routine you and the other caregiver already trust. Daycare Guardian is meant to sit alongside those, giving you one more chance to notice something, not to replace a single one of them.
If you are worried about a child right now, do not wait for a notification. Call the daycare. Call the other caregiver. If you think a child is in danger, call your local emergency number — in the United States, 911.
Daycare Guardian is not a medical device, not a security system, not a monitoring service and not a substitute for supervision by a responsible adult. We make no promise that using it will prevent any harm, and you agree not to rely on it as if it could.
Who may use it
You must be at least 18 and able to enter into a binding agreement. Daycare Guardian is for adult caregivers; children do not use it and it is not directed to them.
Only add a child to a family if you are that child's parent or legal guardian, or you have the permission of their parent or guardian. The same goes for the people you list as emergency contacts — you are responsible for having the right to put someone's name and phone number into the app, and it is a courtesy to tell them you did.
Your account and your join code
Keep your password to yourself and keep your phone locked. You are responsible for what happens under your account. If you think someone else has access to it, change your password and email us.
Your family's six-character join code is the key to everything in that family. Anybody who has it can join, and once they have joined they can see every child, every location, every emergency contact and the entire drop-off history, and they will receive every notification. You decide who gets that code, and you are responsible for that decision. The family owner can generate a new one at any time from Profile → Your family, which stops the old code from working.
Acceptable use
Use the app for what it is for: keeping your own family's caregivers informed. Please do not:
- log entries you know to be untrue — a log nobody trusts is worse than no log;
- use the app to monitor, follow, pressure or control another adult, or to keep tabs on someone who has not agreed to be part of the family;
- enter information about a child or another person that you have no right to enter;
- use it for anything unlawful, or in a way that breaks your daycare's own rules;
- try to break, probe, overload, scrape or reverse engineer the app or our servers, or get at data belonging to a family you are not part of, except to the limited extent the law says you may;
- resell the app, or present it to anyone as a safety, security or monitoring service.
If someone joins your family who should not have, or an account is being used to harass somebody, email support@daycareguardian.app.
The record is permanent
Times are stamped by our server, not by your phone, and the log is append-only: once a drop-off or pick-up is recorded, nobody can edit it or delete it — not the person who logged it, not the family owner, not us through the app. That is deliberate, because a record that can be quietly rewritten is not worth keeping.
Two consequences. First, log carefully; if something goes in wrong, add a day comment explaining it rather than expecting a correction. Second, the history stays visible to everyone in the family for as long as the family exists. Deleting your own account is covered in the Privacy Policy.
Text messages
Text messages are optional, off by default, and set per person. If you turn them on you are asking us to send SMS to the number you provided, and your mobile carrier's standard message and data rates apply — those are between you and your carrier, not a charge from us. You can turn texts off at any time in Profile → Name & phone. Push notifications work with or without texts, and SMS delivery, like push delivery, is never guaranteed.
Availability and changes
This is a free app run by one person. We do not promise any level of uptime, delivery speed or availability. The service may be interrupted for maintenance, may be affected by problems at Apple, Supabase or Twilio, and may change as the app is developed. We may add, alter or remove features, and we may one day have to stop running the service altogether. If that happens, we will give as much notice as we reasonably can — on this site — so you can decide what to do about your data.
No warranty
Daycare Guardian is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement.
We do not warrant that the app will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error-free; that any notification, alert or text message will be delivered, or delivered on time; that the missed drop-off alert will fire in any given case; or that the information in the app is accurate, since it is entered by the people in your family.
Some places do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, we will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, arising from or connected to your use of Daycare Guardian.
This includes — and we want to be direct about it, because of what this app is for — any loss or harm arising from a notification that was late, wrong or never arrived, from a missed drop-off alert that did not fire, from an entry someone logged incorrectly, or from anyone relying on the app instead of the ordinary care described in section 2.
Our total liability for all claims relating to the app will not exceed the greater of the amount you have paid us for it (which is nothing) or US $50.
Nothing in these terms excludes or limits any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited — including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any right you have under mandatory consumer protection law where you live. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you, and where that is so, our liability is limited to the smallest extent the law permits.
Indemnity
If a claim is brought against us by someone else because of how you used the app — for example, because you entered a person's information without the right to, or gave your family join code to someone who should not have had it — you agree to cover the reasonable costs and damages that result, to the extent the claim arises from your own use or breach of these terms.
Ending it
You can stop at any time. Delete your account at Profile → Delete Account, or leave a family at Profile → Your family → Leave Family if you want to keep your account. Deleting is permanent; see the Privacy Policy for exactly what goes.
We may suspend or close an account that is being used to break these terms, to harass or endanger someone, or to attack the service — normally with notice, and immediately if we think somebody is at risk. We may also discontinue the service as described in section 8. Sections 2, 9, 10, 11, 14 and 15 survive the end of this agreement.
Changes to these terms
We may update these terms. When we do, we will change the effective date at the top and post the new version here. If a change is significant we will make that clear rather than slipping it in. Continuing to use the app after a change means you accept it; if you do not, delete your account.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You and we agree that any dispute will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Florida, and we each consent to those courts.
If you are a consumer living somewhere else, this does not take away the protection of the mandatory laws of your own country, and it does not stop you bringing a claim where the law entitles you to.
The rest
These terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between us about the app. If a court finds part of them unenforceable, the rest still stands. If we do not enforce something straight away, we have not given up the right to enforce it later. You may not transfer your rights under these terms; we may transfer ours if the app changes hands, as described in the Privacy Policy.
Apple is not a party to these terms and is not responsible for the app or for supporting it. These terms are between you and us alone.
Contact
support@daycareguardian.app — for anything in this document, or anything else. There is also a support page with setup help and troubleshooting.