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Where is my home data stored, and who can see it?

HouseSense stores scans, floor plans and figures on your own iPhone and in your own private iCloud — there is no account, no server on our end and no tracking.

The two places your home data lives

When you scan a home with the iPhone's LiDAR or draw it on the graph paper in HouseSense, the result is written locally on the device — in the app's own area of the file system, which only the app itself can read. That covers the rooms' geometry, the floor plan, the areas, furniture, budget figures and notes.

The home is then synchronised up into your private iCloud database, so the same home appears on your iPad if you are signed in with the same Apple ID. "Private database" isn't a marketing term — it's the technical name for the area of iCloud that belongs to one user and is shielded from everyone else, including the developer who made the app. We can neither list it, read it, nor copy it.

The practical consequence: HouseSense has no customer database of homes. There is no place where anyone can look up your address and see how many square metres you have, or what it looks like inside.

Why there is no account

HouseSense never asks you to create an account, a password or an email address. The reason is straightforward: an account would require a server that remembers who you are — and then there would suddenly be a register of users and their homes. By leaning on Apple's iCloud instead, the app uses the login you already have, without a user ID ever coming into existence on our end.

That has a cost, and it should be stated honestly: if you sign out of iCloud or turn iCloud off for HouseSense, the app has no other route to your data than what is stored locally on the device. There is no "forgot password" and no support agent who can retrieve your home for you. In return, there is also no one who can leak it.

What gets tracked: nothing

HouseSense contains no analytics SDKs, no ad networks and no cross-app tracking. No message is sent home when you open the app, scan a room or export a PDF. It's the same mechanism as above: without a server on our end, there is nowhere for such a message to land.

The one exception is described in the sharing section below, and it only counts the number and timing of views of a shared home — not who looked.

What happens when you share the home with a buyer

Sharing is the one place in HouseSense where data leaves your private iCloud, and it only happens when you press the button yourself. Here is how it works:

• The app makes a copy of the home's drawings and figures and places it in a shared part of iCloud that can be read without an Apple ID.
• The copy is without photos and without your notes. It's the floor plan, the measurements and the room layout the buyer gets — not your private material.
• You get a code in the form XXXX-XXXX, which the buyer can type into an ordinary web browser.
• The copy expires automatically after 30 days, and you can revoke it early from inside the app.
• Views are counted anonymously — only how many times and when, so you can see whether anyone has looked. No identity is stored.

The important thing to understand is that the code is, in practice, the access. Anyone with the code can see the shared home until it expires. Forward the code in a Facebook group, and you have shared the home with the group. Send it to one agent by text, and you have shared it with that agent. Treat the code as a key, not as a username.

Homes that never get synchronised

Two kinds of homes in HouseSense are deliberately left local on the device and never end up in iCloud:

• The example home that ships with the app, so you can try every feature without scanning anything. It's demo data, not your data.
• Homes you have imported with a buyer's share code. If a seller has given you a code and you have pulled the home in, it stays only on your own device. It doesn't become yours, and it doesn't get synchronised onward.

What iCloud means, compared with "an app with a login"

The difference between the two models is where the trust sits. In an app with an account and login, your home data lives in the provider's database. The provider can technically read it, has to protect it, can be broken into, can change owner, and can change its terms. You cannot yourself verify what lives where.

In the iCloud model, home data lives in the area Apple already holds for you — the same place as your photos and notes. The app's developer has no access, and there is no account to compromise. In return, you depend on keeping your own Apple ID and iCloud storage in order. Neither model is magic; the difference is who can reach your data if something goes wrong.

What you should do yourself

Three things give the most protection for the effort, whichever app you use to measure up your home:

1. Turn on two-factor authentication for your Apple ID. When home data lives in your iCloud, your Apple ID is the key to it. It's the single most important protection there is.
2. Export a PDF of anything you want to keep forever. A floor plan or a takeoff report as a PDF in your own files outlives a change of phone, the app and the developer alike. HouseSense can write out floor plans, takeoffs and reports as PDF — use that as your own archive.
3. Clean up share codes you no longer use. A code you created for a viewing in June still works until it expires. Revoke it once the deal is done.

In short

Your home data in HouseSense lives on your device and in your private iCloud. HouseSense has no account, no server and no tracking, and can therefore neither see nor hand over your homes. The only thing that leaves your private iCloud is a voluntary, time-limited copy for a buyer — without photos and notes, valid for 30 days, and revocable at any time.