Privacy policy
Determined is developed by the University of Rochester Medical Center for a research study. This page describes the service as it is today. Last updated 20 October 2026.
The research study
Determined is only for families enrolled in the Determined research study at the University of Rochester. The study team turns on a caregiver's email address after the family has given consent in REDCap, which is outside the apps. Without that, an account cannot be created.
The apps store no study ID. The link between a family and a study ID is kept only by the study team.
What the apps store
- The caregiver's email address and name, used to sign in.
- The household's name, and each teen's name (a nickname is welcome), avatar and time zone.
- Routines and their steps, and the times a teen ticked a step off.
- For each connected teen phone: its platform (iPhone or Android), the app version, how many check-offs it hasn't sent yet, whether notifications are on, when it last checked in, and the ids the phone makes up when it connects.
- The teen's buddy: which buddy they chose, the coins they earned, and the items they bought and wear.
There is no advertising, no location tracking and no contacts, and the apps send no analytics of their own. Please use a nickname for the teen and don't enter health details.
Teens
Determined is for teens aged 13 to 17 taking part in the study, and the adults who care for them. A teen uses it with the consent of a parent or guardian, given through the study. The teen app has no sign-in and no messaging: it shows only what the teen's caregiver set up, and what the teen ticks off.
On the teen's phone
- A caregiver connects the teen's phone with a QR code from Determined+. If Determined isn't installed yet, the code opens a page that links to the App Store or Google Play. After installing, the teen opens Determined and scans the code again.
- The camera is used only to read the connection QR code. The picture is read on the phone and is never stored or sent. The QR reader is Google's ML Kit, which runs on the phone; on Android, Google receives diagnostic information from it (the device model, the app's name and version, performance and error codes), as described in its ML Kit data disclosure.
- The teen app keeps routines, check-offs and the buddy on the phone so it works without signal. A new phone always connects as a new device.
- On Android, the teen app is left out of phone backups and isn't moved to a new phone, and deleting the app removes everything it kept.
Where it is kept and who sees it
The service runs on Amazon Web Services in the United States (us-east-1). A teen's routines and check-offs are visible to the caregivers of that teen's household and to the teen's connected phone. The small team that runs the service can access the data to operate and support it.
Deleting data
- To remove a phone: in Determined+, tap the phone icon on the teen's page, then Remove.
- To erase a teen: in Determined+, open the teen, then Teen settings → Delete [name]'s profile.
- To erase everything: in Determined+, Settings → Delete my account.
- If the teen's phone was lost or the app was deleted, the caregiver can still erase the teen with Delete [name]'s profile, or email support@determinedteens.com.
Erasing removes the records from the live service at once; there are no backups to restore them from. The one exception is the study's enrollment record (the email address, its study group, and the account IDs linked to it): the study team keeps it after an account is deleted, and you can ask support@determinedteens.com to have it removed. Server logs are kept for 30 days and contain record ids and account ids, not names or email addresses. A deleted teen's phone keeps only check-offs it had not sent yet, until it is connected again or the app is deleted.