This policy covers Voice Tide for Mac, Voice Tide for iPhone and Voice Tide for Android. The sections up to "Purchases" are about the Mac app, which you can get in two ways: from the Mac App Store, and from this website, where the payment is handled by Polar. Where the two differ, it says so. The iPhone and Android apps each have their own section below.
Your voice stays on your Mac
Speech recognition runs on your Mac, using a speech model you download once. Your voice is never uploaded, by us or by anyone else. The same is true of the text it produces, unless you choose to connect an online AI service yourself (see "Optional online AI services" below).
What Voice Tide keeps on your Mac
- Recent dictations. By default, History keeps your last 5 dictations: the text and a recording of each, so you can play one back or run it again. You can keep fewer, more or none, keep them for a set time, save the ones you want, or delete any of them at any time.
- Words you teach it. When you correct a word, Voice Tide remembers the pair so it gets it right next time. You can see and delete them on the Words page.
- Dictation statistics for the Insights page: how many dictations, how long, and how many words, never the words themselves. You can clear them there.
- Meetings, if you use them. Recording a meeting keeps its audio on your Mac for 14 days by default (you can change this), and saves the transcript as a file on your Mac, in a folder you can choose.
- Your licence, for the copy bought on this website. The date your free trial started, and your licence key once you enter it, are kept on your Mac: in Voice Tide's folder and in your Mac's Keychain, under "ai.voicetide.app".
- Your settings, the models and voices you download, and a troubleshooting log that leaves out the text you dictate.
All of this lives in Voice Tide's own folder on your Mac, apart from meeting transcripts saved to a folder you picked:
- the App Store copy:
~/Library/Containers/ai.voicetide.mac - the copy from this website:
~/Library/Application Support/ai.voicetide.app
It stays there until you delete it. To remove everything, quit Voice Tide and move that folder to the Trash. For the copy from this website, the trial date and licence key also stay in your Keychain, so that deleting the app does not restart the trial; you can delete that item in Keychain Access.
Recording other people
In some places everyone on a call must agree before it is recorded. Before a meeting recording starts, Voice Tide asks whether everyone knows and agrees, and writes your answer into the transcript. Please make sure before you record.
When Voice Tide goes online
To download something you asked for:
- speech models, from Hugging Face (huggingface.co), or from the mirror blob.handy.computer if a Hugging Face download fails;
- the translation model, from Hugging Face;
- the natural voices for read aloud, from GitHub (github.com).
These are ordinary downloads. Like any website, the server you download from sees your internet address; nothing about you or your dictations is sent. Every file is checked against a fingerprint before it is used.
The copy from this website also goes online for two more things:
- Updates. When it starts, it asks
download.voicetide.aiwhether a newer version exists, and downloads it if you choose to install it. Nothing about you is sent. You can turn this off in Settings, under Updates. (The App Store copy is updated by the App Store.) - Your licence key. When you enter a key, Voice Tide sends it to Polar (
api.polar.sh) with your Mac's name, so that Polar can activate it and list that Mac in your Polar account. After that it checks the key with Polar at most once a week, and tells Polar when you remove the key from a Mac. If your Mac is offline, Voice Tide keeps working and stays licensed.
Optional online AI services
Voice Tide has an experimental feature, off by default, that can tidy up text using an online AI service with your own account key. If you turn it on and choose such a service, the text of your dictations is sent to that service and handled under its own privacy policy. It never includes your voice. The on-device choices, Apple Intelligence and the built-in translation, keep your text on your Mac.
Permissions
- Microphone, to hear you while you hold the key.
- Accessibility, to notice the key you hold and to type the text into the app you're using.
- System audio recording, only if you record a meeting, so the transcript includes the other side of the call.
Voice Tide never asks for your camera, your screen, your contacts, your location or your photos.
Purchases
From the App Store: Apple handles the payment. We never see or store your payment details.
From this website: Polar (polar.sh) is the merchant of record. It runs the checkout, takes the payment, handles sales tax and refunds, and sends your licence key. Polar collects what a checkout needs, such as your name, email address, billing address and card, under its own privacy policy. Polar shows us the orders placed for Voice Tide, including the buyer's name, email address and billing address, so that we can answer questions about a purchase. We never see your full card number, and we use your email address only to reply to you about your purchase.
Voice Tide for iPhone
Speech recognition and translation run on your iPhone. The speech model for the languages that come with the app is part of the app you get from the App Store. Voice Tide's keyboards contain no internet code at all: only the app goes online, and only for the download described below.
When the iPhone app goes online
Only when you add a dictation language that the built-in model does not cover. The app then downloads a larger speech model (about 474 MB) once, from Hugging Face (huggingface.co). It is an ordinary download that needs no account. Like any website, Hugging Face sees your iPhone's internet address; nothing about you or your dictations is sent. The file is checked against a fingerprint before it is used, and it is left out of your iPhone's backups.
Translation uses Apple's on-device translation. If a language is not on your iPhone yet, iOS offers to download it from Apple, under Apple's own privacy policy.
What it keeps on your iPhone
- My words: the words you fixed, up to 1,000. You can see and delete them on the My words page.
- Autocorrect: the words it learned to leave alone when you undid a correction, and a list of its last 1,000 corrections (what you typed, what it became, the language and the time). Both are on the Autocorrect page, with "Remove all" and "Clear all".
- Clipboard: the last 10 things you pasted or translated from the Voice Tide bar, so you can paste them again.
- Your latest dictation's text, which the app hands to the keyboard to type, until your next dictation replaces it.
- Your recent emoji, your settings, the number of free dictations left, and the speech models.
All of this stays in the space your iPhone gives Voice Tide and its keyboards. Deleting the app deletes all of it. If you back up your iPhone to iCloud or a computer, the backup includes this data, as it does for your other apps; the speech models are left out.
Permissions on iPhone
- Microphone, for the app to hear you while you dictate. So that the next dictation starts at once, the app keeps the microphone ready for 15 minutes after you use it (you can choose 5 minutes, 1 hour or "Until I stop" on Home), and iOS shows its microphone indicator for that time. While it waits, it holds only the last half second of sound in memory, so that your first word is not cut off, and keeps replacing it; nothing is recorded until you tap the mic. The sound of a dictation stays in memory only until it has become text, and it is never saved.
- Full Access for the keyboards. iOS asks for this for any keyboard that shares data with its app. Voice Tide's keyboards use it to receive the text you dictated in the app, to share My words and your settings with the app, and to paste what you copied. The keyboards never go online.
The iPhone app never asks for your camera, your contacts, your location or your photos.
Purchases on iPhone
Apple handles the payment for the unlock. We never see or store your payment details.
Voice Tide for Android
Speech recognition and translation run on your phone, with models that come with the app from Google Play. The Android app has no internet permission, so it cannot go online: neither we nor anyone else receives what you say or what you type.
If you add a dictation language that the built-in models do not cover, Google Play delivers a larger speech model (about 474 MB) to the app, as part of the app and under Google's privacy policy. The app itself still cannot go online.
What it keeps on your phone
- My words: the words you fixed. You can see and delete them on the My words page.
- Autocorrect: the words it learned to leave alone when you undid a correction, and a list of its last 1,000 corrections (what you typed, what it became, the language and the time). Both are on the Autocorrect page, with "Remove all" and "Clear all"; "Reset learned words" in the app also forgets the learned words.
- Clipboard: the last 10 things you copied, in memory only while the keyboard runs. A copy that an app marks as sensitive, such as a password from a password manager, is left out.
- Your recent emoji and your settings.
Uninstalling the app removes everything. Voice Tide turns off Android backup and phone-to-phone transfer, so none of it is copied to Google Drive or to another phone.
Permissions on Android
- Microphone, used only while you dictate, after you tap the mic.
The Android app asks for no other permission: not the internet, your camera, your contacts, your location or your photos.
Purchases on Android
Google Play handles the payment for the unlock, under Google's privacy policy. We never see your card details.
Diagnostics on iPhone and Android
Both apps have a Diagnostics mode, off and hidden unless you turn it on, which turns itself off after 24 hours. It records how the keys and the microphone behave (which kind of key, timings, sound levels), never a letter, a word or anything you say, and it stays on your phone unless you send it to us yourself.
Children
Voice Tide does not knowingly collect information from anyone, including children, because it collects no information from anyone.
Changes to this policy
If this ever changes, this page will say so, with a new "last updated" date above.
Questions about privacy?