Apps

DoseBell privacy policy

Effective 18 October 2026

In short

DoseBell is a reminder app for medicines, on iPhone and Android. It keeps everything on your phone. There is no account, no advertising, no analytics and no tracking. Nothing about you leaves the phone unless you set up caregiver alerts, share a report or your Emergency card, or your phone backs itself up. To see whether a newer version is out, it asks the app store, without sending anything about you.

Not medical advice

DoseBell only reminds you to take medicines at the times you enter. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose, treat or give medical advice. It does not recommend, promote or sell any medicine, dose or timing, and it is not connected to any doctor, pharmacy or drug company. It shows the readings you record (such as blood pressure or sugar) without judging them.

Every medicine, amount, time and food rule in DoseBell is entered by you or your family, and should come from your doctor’s prescription or your pharmacist. Always follow their instructions. If anything in the app differs from what they told you, follow them, not the app.

Scanning a prescription is a help with typing, not a reading by a pharmacist: it can misread names, amounts or times. Check each medicine against the prescription before adding it.

A reminder can fail: the phone may be off, out of battery, silenced, or have notifications turned off. Do not rely on DoseBell as the only way to remember an important medicine. In an emergency, or if you are unsure about a dose, contact your doctor, pharmacist or emergency services.

How DoseBell guards against mistakes and tampering

Changing, stopping or removing a medicine, and changing caregiver alerts, needs the phone’s own lock first: Face ID, Touch ID, fingerprint or the phone’s passcode. Taking a dose never does.

Every change to a prescription is recorded in a change log with its date and time. A medicine that was ever taken cannot be deleted; it can only be stopped, and its record stays in History. If you set up a caregiver, they can be told whenever a medicine is added, changed, stopped or removed.

What DoseBell keeps on your phone

The names you enter for the people taking medicines; each medicine’s name, amount, times, days, start date and length, food rules, written instructions and how many are left; the photos and voice instructions you add; when each dose was taken, skipped, snoozed or missed; the change log of every change to a prescription; and your caregiver settings.

The health readings you record, such as blood pressure, sugar, pulse, weight, oxygen and temperature; the water, walks and sleep you note; your Emergency card (year of birth, blood group, conditions, allergies, people to call and notes); the doctors and appointments you add; and the lab reports and prescriptions you keep, as photos or PDF files.

All of it is stored in the app’s private storage, which other apps cannot read. Uninstalling DoseBell deletes it.

What leaves your phone, and only when you choose

Caregiver alerts (optional). If you set up a caregiver, DoseBell sends short messages to that person’s phone: the patient’s name, the medicine’s name, the dose time, and whether a dose was missed or skipped or a medicine was added, changed, stopped or removed. They are sent over an encrypted connection (HTTPS) to ntfy.sh, a free public notification service run by a third party, which delivers them to the caregiver’s ntfy app and keeps them for up to about 12 hours. Anyone who has the invite link can read these messages, so share it only with your caregiver. “Stop alerts” ends them at once; setting up again creates a new private link.

Reports and cards you share. The doctor’s report is made on your phone as a PDF, and the Emergency card as a picture and text; each goes only where you send it. Copying the Emergency card’s text puts it on your phone’s clipboard. Lab reports and prescriptions you share go as the saved photo or PDF, also only where you send them.

Backups. DoseBell’s data, photos, PDF files and voice instructions can be included in your phone’s backup, so they can be restored on a new phone. On iPhone they are part of your iCloud or computer backup. On Android they are included only when the backup is end-to-end encrypted with your screen lock. You can turn backup off in your phone’s settings.

What DoseBell asks the internet, without anything about you

Update check. A few times a day at most, DoseBell asks Google Play or the App Store whether a newer version is out, and reads a small file on its website (sharathkudikyala.github.io) naming the oldest version still supported. Nothing about you, your medicines or your health is sent. As with any request over the internet, these services can see the phone’s internet address.

Prescription scanning. The photo is read on the phone itself and is not uploaded. On Android this uses the text recognition in Google Play services, which may download its reading model the first time it is needed.

Permissions and why they are needed

Notifications: to ring at each dose time, and for the reminders you turn on (water, walk, sleep and appointments). On Android, DoseBell also asks for alarms & reminders and full-screen alerts, so the alarm can show over the lock screen, and to run without battery restrictions, so alarms are not held back. If a dose is marked taken just as its alarm rings, a quiet notification may ask later whether it was really taken.

Camera: only when you choose to take a photo of a medicine, a lab report or a prescription, or to scan a prescription. Photos picked from your gallery come through your phone’s own photo picker, and PDF files through its own file picker; each gives DoseBell only what you choose.

Microphone: only while you record a voice instruction.

Face ID, Touch ID or fingerprint: only to confirm a change to a prescription. DoseBell never sees your face or fingerprint; the phone only tells it whether the check passed.

Phone and email: calling a doctor or someone on the Emergency card, or writing to us, opens your phone’s own dialler or email app; DoseBell does not call or send anything itself.

Internet: to send caregiver alerts, and for the update check described above.

On Android, running at start-up and in the background: to set the alarms and reminders again after a restart. On iPhone, DoseBell sets them again whenever you open it.

Children

DoseBell is meant to be set up by adults. It is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect anything from them.

Deleting your data

A medicine never taken can be deleted with its photo and voice instruction. One that was taken is removed from the list but kept in History, so the record of what was taken cannot be quietly erased. Readings, doctors, appointments, lab reports and prescriptions can each be deleted. Uninstalling DoseBell deletes everything on the phone. Caregiver messages expire from ntfy.sh by themselves.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, the new version will be in the app and on its App Store and Play Store pages, with a new date. Questions about privacy or anything else: hello.apps@outlook.in.