KitchenLocker Terms of Service
The short version. KitchenLocker hides a combination from you until a timer you chose runs out. It is a deterrent, not a safe, and not medical advice. Never lock away anything you might urgently need, or anything alive. Keep a backup code where you can reach it, because nobody — including us — can open a lock early without one. Accounts are optional and for people aged 14 and over. Usage reporting is optional, off until you turn it on, and never a condition of using the app.
These terms are an agreement between you and HYPER C ("we", "us") about the KitchenLocker app and the sync service behind it ("the service"). By using KitchenLocker you accept them. If you do not accept them, do not use the app. HYPER C is the name used by 임중혁 (Joong Hyuk Im), an individual developer based in the Republic of Korea; "we" and "us" mean 임중혁. How we handle your data is in the separate Privacy Policy, which these terms do not replace.
1. What KitchenLocker is, and is not
KitchenLocker is a self-commitment tool. You put something in a container of your own, you record its combination in the app, and the app keeps that combination from you until a timer you set runs out.
KitchenLocker is a deterrent, not a security product. We do not make, sell, or certify any physical container. Whatever you use has its own lock, hinges, and ways of failing, and none of them are ours. The app makes it inconvenient to change your mind. It cannot make that impossible, and it is not designed to keep anyone else out.
KitchenLocker is not medical, psychological, therapeutic, or professional advice, and it is not a treatment for addiction, substance use, or any other condition. The app lets you label a lock "Alcohol", "Vape", or "Coffee". A label is not a recommendation. Nothing in the app diagnoses anything or tells you what to take, when, or how much. If you are dealing with dependency, please talk to a qualified professional.
2. What you must never lock away
Do not lock away anything you may urgently need, and do not lock away anything alive.
Specifically, and without limitation:
- medication or medical devices you may need — prescriptions, rescue inhalers, EpiPens, insulin, heart or seizure medication, glasses, hearing aids;
- keys, identity documents, wallets, phones, or anything else you may need in an emergency;
- any living creature;
- anything that must be kept refrigerated, ventilated, or otherwise maintained;
- anything belonging to somebody else, or anything you cannot afford to lose.
You choose what goes in the box. That choice, and everything that follows from it, is yours.
3. Backup codes are the only early exit, and they are yours to keep
A backup code is the only way to release a lock before its timer ends. Generate them, keep them somewhere you can actually reach, and never keep your only copy inside the locked container. Backup codes are encrypted on your device with a key we do not hold. We cannot generate, recover, reset, or override one for you. If you lose them, no one — including us — can open the lock early.
Backup codes release only locks created after the codes were made. Re-rolling or revoking a set starts that over. The app tells you this before you commit; read it.
If you sync, a recovery code is a different thing: it re-admits a new device to your encrypted vault when no existing device is available to approve it. Your phone keeps this code in its own keystore — iCloud Keychain, or an Android phone's end-to-end encrypted Google backup — so that a reinstall or a replacement phone of the same kind can find it, and any connected phone can show it to you again. Writing it down is optional; it is what gets you back in when you move between iPhone and Android with no connected phone left to approve the new one. Disconnecting a phone replaces the code, so a written copy of the old one stops working. Losing every device and every copy of the recovery code means your lock names, your combinations, your memos and your activity history are gone, by design. See section 4.
4. Timers, clocks, and things that go wrong
The app measures elapsed time using counters your operating system provides. Those counters can be affected by device restarts, OS updates, battery exhaustion, clock changes, storage failures, and bugs. A timer may run long, run short, or fail.
Data on your device may be lost if the app is uninstalled, the device is reset, lost, damaged, or replaced, or a backup is restored incompletely. Lock names, combinations, backup codes, your memos, and your activity history are sealed on your devices; if every device is gone and you have no recovery code, they cannot be recovered by anyone.
You should assume the app can fail and plan accordingly. Section 2 exists for this reason.
5. Accounts
Accounts are optional. The app is complete without one; an account exists so your locks can follow you between devices and so you can appoint a partner (section 6).
You must be at least 14 years old to create an account, or older if the law where you live sets a higher minimum age for agreeing to terms or to data processing — 13 in the United States, between 13 and 16 across the EEA — whichever is higher. You must give accurate information, and you are responsible for what happens under your account.
You can sign in with Apple, with Google, or with an email address that receives a one-time code. Keep your email account secure: anyone who can read your email can sign in as you.
Deleting your account. You can delete it at any time from Settings (Privacy & data), or by asking us at [email protected]. Deletion has a grace period of 14 days; signing back in before it ends cancels the request. After it, your account and everything synced to it are removed from our servers.
Resetting your vault. A device that cannot be approved may ask to reset your encrypted vault. That request waits 7 days and is announced by email; any of your connected devices can cancel it in that time. If it runs, every synced combination, memo and history entry is destroyed, on purpose, so that a stranger holding one of your devices cannot quietly empty the rest.
We may suspend or close an account that attacks the service, abuses other people through it, or breaks these terms, and we will say why where we can.
6. Accountability partners
You may invite one person to be your partner. A partner can see your locks' timers — and their names only if you choose to share them (section 8) — receives your requests to open a lock early, and can approve or refuse them. A partner never sees a combination or a memo.
You invite a partner by email address. By entering someone's address you confirm that you are entitled to give it to us and that the person is willing to hear from you through the app. We send them an invitation, and if they accept, notices of your unlock requests and a monthly statement, each carrying a way to stop. Someone who receives an email from us because of you and does not want it can unsubscribe, and you must not re-invite a person who has declined or unsubscribed.
A partner must hold an account to accept, and so must be at least 14. Either side can end the partnership at any time from the app.
Approving or refusing an early unlock is your partner's decision to make, and they make it for you, not for us. We are not a party to that arrangement and are not responsible for what either of you does with it.
7. Usage reporting is optional
The app can send us anonymous usage events — which screens are opened and how far people get through creating a lock. It is off until you turn it on, and you can turn it off again at any time in Settings → Your data. It never includes the name of a lock, its memo, a combination, or anything that identifies your account.
Accepting these terms does not turn usage reporting on. It is a separate choice, put to you separately, and nothing in the app is withheld if you say no. Turning it off also asks our analytics provider to forget the anonymous identifier that earlier events were keyed on. The details are in the Privacy Policy.
8. Your content
Lock names, memos, categories, combinations, and your activity history are yours. You grant us only the limited licence needed to store and sync them for you and, where you have a partner, to show that partner what section 6 describes. You are responsible for what you put in them and for having the right to put it there.
Be aware of what is sealed and what is not. Lock names and categories, combinations, the memo on a lock, backup codes, and your activity history are encrypted end to end; we cannot read them. A lock's timer and status are not; if you sync, they are stored on our servers in readable form, because the service has to run the timer. If you turn off Encrypt lock names so that your partner can be told which lock, a readable copy of your lock names and categories is stored on our servers until you turn it back on. A name and a memo are sealed before they sync, but both are kept in readable form on your own phone.
9. Acceptable use
Do not use the service to lock away another person's property without their permission, to harass or coerce anyone, or to interfere with the service or with other people's use of it. Do not probe, scan, or attack the service. If you find a security problem, tell us at [email protected] instead of publishing it; we would rather hear about it early and in private.
10. Price
KitchenLocker is free with up to two locks shut at once. KitchenLocker Pro is an auto-renewing subscription that lifts that limit and adds on-demand locks. The app shows its price, in your currency, before you pay. You buy, renew, cancel and ask for refunds through the App Store or Google Play, under their terms, not ours. If a subscription ends, every lock already running keeps running and opens as it would have; what you lose is shutting more than the free app allows. Section 8 of the Privacy Policy says what we do and do not learn from a purchase.
11. Warranties
The service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, that timers will be precise, that data will never be lost, that any lock will open or stay shut when you expect it to, or that a partner will answer.
12. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, nor for loss of profits, revenue, data, or goodwill, nor for property that is lost, damaged, spoiled, or made inaccessible because of how you used the app, whether or not we were told such damage was possible.
Where liability cannot be excluded, our total liability for all claims is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or USD 100.
Nothing in these terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for wilful misconduct or gross negligence, or for anything else that cannot be excluded under the law that applies to you, including consumer protection law in the EEA, the UK, and Korea. If you are a consumer, you keep every mandatory right your local law gives you, and nothing here takes it away.
13. Indemnity
You will indemnify us against claims brought by a third party arising from your use of the app in breach of these terms — for example, a claim by someone whose property you locked away, or by someone whose email address you gave us without their permission.
14. Changes
We may change these terms. Material changes will be announced in the app at least 30 days before they take effect, and you will be asked to accept them again before you continue. If you do not accept a change, stop using the app and delete your account.
15. Governing law and disputes
These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Korea, and the Seoul Central District Court has jurisdiction — except that if you are a consumer resident elsewhere, you keep the protection of the mandatory law of your country of residence and may bring proceedings in your local courts.
16. Contact
Service provider: 임중혁(HYPER C)
[email protected]