Rumpus
Privacy policy
Last updated 1 November 2026
Rumpus is a family app for pocket money: children see their Spend, Save and Give jars on a tablet on the wall, and parents record allowances, purchases and gifts. Rumpus is run by Greg van Berkel in South Africa, and handles personal information in line with South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). This page explains what Rumpus stores, where, and why.
The short version
- Your family's records live in a Google Sheet in a parent's own Google Drive, not in a Rumpus database. You own it and can open, download or delete it at any time.
- Rumpus can only see the Drive files it created or that you opened with it. It cannot see the rest of your Drive.
- Children don't have accounts or email addresses. A parent adds them.
- No advertising, no tracking, no analytics, and nothing is sold or shared for marketing.
Your family's spreadsheet
When a parent sets up a family, Rumpus creates a spreadsheet in that parent's Google Drive. The parent who set it up owns it; parents they invite, and the Rumpus app itself, are given edit access to it. It holds:
- Members: each family member's name, whether they are a parent or a child, their relationship (for example Mom or Daughter), and the avatar they chose.
- Logins: parents' Google email addresses and Rumpus account IDs, and for everyone a hash of their picture PIN (never the PIN itself), when it was set and which parent approved it, and failed-attempt counts.
- A login record: the time of each PIN unlock, wrong PIN, lock-out, PIN change, parent sign-in and wall set-up, who it was, and whether it was on the wall or a phone or laptop.
- Money: accounts, allowances, transactions with their notes, savings goals, the causes the family gives to, and the money responsibilities each child has taken on.
What Rumpus keeps itself
- Sign-in: parents sign in with Google. Rumpus's sign-in service (Firebase Authentication) stores the parent's name, email address, profile picture, a user ID and sign-in times. The family's wall tablet has its own login, which holds no personal information.
- A small directory: which spreadsheet belongs to which family, and which login belongs to which family and whether it is a parent or the wall. It holds no names, emails or money.
- Pictures you upload for savings goals or causes, stored in Google Cloud Storage in your family's own folder.
- Technical logs: Google Cloud records requests to Rumpus (such as the time, the address the request came from and any errors) to keep the service running and secure. These are kept for up to 30 days.
On your devices, Rumpus keeps your sign-in and a copy of your family's latest records so the app opens quickly. It uses no advertising or tracking cookies.
Access to your Google account
Signing in with Google gives Rumpus your name, email address and profile picture. When
you set up a family, Rumpus also asks for Google Drive access with the
drive.file permission, which only covers files Rumpus creates
or that you open with it. Rumpus uses it to create your family's spreadsheet and share it
with the people you invite, and for nothing else.
Rumpus's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. That information is used only to run Rumpus for your family; it is never used for advertising, never sold, and never read by people except to fix a problem you ask for help with, for security, or where the law requires it.
You can remove Rumpus's access to your Google account at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
Children
Children don't sign in with an account. A parent adds each child to the family and, as the child's parent or guardian, agrees to Rumpus keeping the child's name, avatar, PIN hash, login record and money records in the family's spreadsheet. A child chooses their own picture PIN and a parent approves it. Children's information is used only to show and record their pocket money.
Who else sees it
Only your family, and Rumpus to run the app. Rumpus runs on Google: Firebase and Google Cloud for the app, sign-in and storage, and Google Drive and Sheets for your family's spreadsheet, under Google's own data protection terms. Rumpus shares information with nobody else, unless the law requires it.
Where it is kept
Rumpus's directory is stored in Johannesburg, South Africa, and its server code runs in South Africa or the European Union. Your spreadsheet is stored wherever Google Drive keeps your files. Because these are Google services, some information may be handled outside South Africa, under Google's data protection terms.
Keeping it safe
- Everything travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS).
- Only Rumpus's server reads and writes your family's spreadsheet, and it checks every action against your family's rules.
- PINs are stored only as hashes made with a secret key, and repeated wrong PINs lock the login.
- Every transaction is chained to the one before, so changes made outside the app can be noticed.
How long it is kept, and deleting it
Your spreadsheet stays in your Drive until you delete it; Rumpus never deletes it. You can stop Rumpus using it at any time by removing the app's access to the spreadsheet in Google Drive.
When a parent makes a member Inactive, that member's login is removed from Rumpus. To close your family's use of Rumpus altogether, email us: within 30 days we delete your family's directory entry, its logins and any pictures you uploaded. Your spreadsheet stays yours.
Your rights
You can ask what information Rumpus holds about you or your children, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, or object to how it is used. Most of it you can see and change yourself in your family's spreadsheet. If you are unhappy with how Rumpus handles your information, you can complain to South Africa's Information Regulator.
Changes
If this policy changes, this page will be updated and the date at the top will change. If a change affects how your family's information is used, Rumpus will tell parents in the app first.
Contact
Questions or requests: gvanberkel@gmail.com.