LOCKAFRIEND

TERMS OF SERVICE

LAST UPDATED 11 AUGUST 2026

These terms govern your use of the lockafriend app and website, operated by Olivier Martinez, an individual developer based in France. By installing the app or subscribing, you agree to them. If you do not, do not install it.

The Android app is not released yet. These terms take effect for you when you install it and sign in.

1. WHAT LOCKAFRIEND IS

lockafriend blocks a list of apps you choose, on your phone, during hours you choose. You are Player 1. You name a friend as Player 2, and they — not you — hold the key that can unlock you early. Being Player 2 is free and requires no subscription.

The lock is something you set on yourself, in advance, and hand to somebody you trust. It is a commitment device, not a parental control and not a monitoring tool. It is not for locking anyone else's phone.

2. WHAT IT IS NOT, AND WHAT IT CANNOT PROMISE

lockafriend is not a security product and cannot guarantee that an app stays blocked. It runs on top of Android, subject to Android's rules. A system update, an aggressive battery manager, a manufacturer's power-saving policy, or you revoking the accessibility permission will all switch the lock off. Some of these we cannot detect instantly, and none of them we can prevent.

That is exactly why the product has a second person in it. When the lock stops reporting, we tell you and we tell your Player 2. Treat lockafriend as a pact with a friend that a phone helps enforce — not as a safe you cannot open.

lockafriend is not a medical device and not a treatment for any condition. If your relationship with your phone is causing you real harm, please talk to a professional.

3. YOUR ACCOUNT

You sign in with a Google account. One phone, one account, one identity — you are responsible for what happens under yours, and for keeping your Google account secure.

You choose a nickname. It is public: it names you on the ladder and on your commitment card, which anybody can open. Nicknames are first come, first served. We may reclaim or change a nickname that impersonates somebody, that is offensive, or that was registered in bulk to resell.

4. THE SUBSCRIPTION

If your subscription lapses, your pact stops being armed: the app will not block anything until it is active again. Your streak and your history are not deleted.

5. THE PACT

A pact arms only when both things are true: your Player 2 has accepted, and your subscription is active. Until then nothing is blocked, and the app says so.

You can make a pact bigger at any time — more apps, a wider window. You cannot make it smaller. Removing an app, or moving the window so it starts later or ends earlier, counts as reducing it, and reducing a pact is only possible by ending it. That asymmetry is the entire point: a lock you can loosen at 2am is not a lock.

Ending a pact is always available, from inside the app, any night. It takes a deliberate sequence: a screen that lists what you lose, a closing message chosen from a fixed list, and a button held down while a countdown runs. When it completes, your Player 2 is told and your streak returns to zero.

You can always uninstall lockafriend. It will never block, delay or hide its own uninstallation, and it will never use device administrator powers to make itself harder to remove. Uninstalling ends the protection, your Player 2 is told, and your streak goes to zero — that is the whole of the consequence, and it is between you and your friend.

6. BEING PLAYER 2

If you hold somebody's key, you agree to a small amount of responsibility: you will be sent unlock requests, and not answering within 15 minutes counts as a refusal. You are not obliged to answer, and you are never at fault for your friend's choices. You can hold keys for several people, and two people can hold each other's. You cannot hold your own.

You see your friend's pact — apps, hours, whether it is locked right now, their requests, their streak, and whether they ended it or uninstalled. You never see what they use their phone for. Attempting to use lockafriend to monitor, coerce or control another person is a misuse of it and grounds for termination.

7. ACCEPTABLE USE

Do not use lockafriend to lock a device that is not yours, or to pressure someone into a pact. Do not attempt to break, overload or reverse the service, to access another person's data, or to register nicknames in bulk. Do not put anything into a nickname or an unlock message that is illegal, hateful, or harassing — unlock messages go to a real person and nicknames appear on a public page.

8. ENDING IT

You can delete your account at any time from OPTIONS → ACCOUNT → DELETE ACCOUNT. Because your pact is somebody else's commitment too, deleting your account ends the pact and tells your Player 2, exactly as ending it deliberately would.

We may suspend or terminate an account that breaches section 7, or that we are legally required to remove. Where it is reasonable to do so, we will tell you first.

We may also stop operating lockafriend. If that happens, we will give at least 30 days' notice by email, stop taking new subscriptions immediately, and let existing ones run out rather than charge for a service that is ending.

9. LIABILITY

lockafriend is provided as it is. To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, for anything you missed because an app was blocked, or for anything that happened because an app was not blocked when you expected it to be — see section 2. Nothing here limits liability for death, personal injury, fraud, or anything else that cannot be limited by law, and nothing here removes the statutory rights you have as a consumer.

10. CHANGES

We may update these terms. The date at the top changes, and if the change materially affects you, the app tells you before it applies. Continuing to use lockafriend after that means you accept the new version.

11. LAW

These terms are governed by French law. If you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory rules of the country you live in, and you may bring proceedings before your local courts.

Questions: lockafriend@protonmail.com.