Budgeting App Privacy: A Document-Checking Guide

Privacy checklist — “Private” can mean several different things: hidden from a household member, inaccessible to the app provider, restricted to a service provider or deleted when you leave. Ask which meaning a claim addresses before using it to compare products.

Check the household boundary first

Look for the actual permission rule, not just a screenshot of a filtered dashboard. For example, Monarch's Shared Views documentation says ownership filters do not prevent other household members from accessing connected account data. That is an access limitation, not a score for every aspect of the product's privacy.

Read the current documents

• Identify the precise service and company named in the policy.
• Record the policy date and which plan or region it covers.
• Find the sections describing collected data and recipients.
• Check separately for advertising, analytics and account-aggregation services.
• Read retention, account deletion and disconnection instructions.
• Ask the provider when a claim or term is ambiguous.

Do not equate disconnection with deletion

Investigate these as separate operations. Stopping a future import, hiding an account, deleting an app from a phone and requesting removal of stored records may have different consequences. Obtain the provider's current explanation rather than assuming a button performs all four tasks. This is a document-checking process, not a legal opinion on a particular provider.

A comparison record you can keep

For each product, note the question, source URL, document date, answer found and remaining uncertainty. Write “not verified” when evidence is missing; do not turn that gap into a favourable score. Store only the minimum personal information needed for your own decision.

Use the manual-entry guide if account linking is not appropriate for you. The bank-linking checklist covers setup questions, while our evidence standard explains why a policy comparison is not a penetration test.