Privacy Policy

The short version

• Talk, Text, and Look translation are designed to run on your device. We do not need to receive your conversation audio, translation text, or camera images to perform core translation.
• You may use core translation as a guest. Guest-session preferences and recent activity are cleared when the guest session ends or after a cold relaunch. Downloaded offline packs can remain on the phone. An optional account can retain supported preferences and account settings.
• Chat, Ask, Nearby, accounts, advertising, and live place services use the internet. Those features may involve the service providers described below.
• Support diagnostics are optional and off by default. If you enable them, TalkieTalkie may send the event-driven readiness reports described below, and you can also send a report immediately.
• Usage metrics are optional and off by default. If you enable them, only coarse feature and success counters tied to random, pseudonymous app identifiers are sent; your speech, translations, prompts, photos, places, precise location, and email are excluded.

Scope

This policy covers the TalkieTalkie iPhone app and this website. It explains what TalkieTalkie processes, what stays on your device, why information is used, and the choices available to you.

Information processed on your device

Core translation may process microphone audio, speech recognition results, typed text, selected camera or photo content, selected languages, and voice or accessibility preferences on your iPhone. These inputs are used to provide translation and related playback. They are not uploaded to TalkieTalkie for core translation.

In build 75, Talk, Text, and Look use the release-wide on-device translation path. A Look camera frame or selected photo stays on the iPhone; hosted visual assistance is disabled. Ask documents are also imported into local app storage and used only by the on-device Ask model. They are not uploaded by Ask.

Your phone may need Apple language resources or TalkieTalkie model files for a selected language. Downloading system or app resources can require internet access, even though translation can work offline after the required resources are installed.

Guest-session settings and recent activity can be stored temporarily on the device, but TalkieTalkie clears them when the guest session ends or after a cold relaunch. Downloaded offline language and travel packs can remain on the phone so they do not need to be downloaded again; deleting the app removes app-managed downloads.

Optional accounts

You do not need an account for core guest translation. If you create or use an account, we may process:

• your email address, optional username, email-verification status, and account role;
• a securely transformed password credential for email/password accounts; we do not need to store your readable password;
• provider identifiers and tokens needed to sign you in with Apple or Google, including an Apple private-relay email if you choose Hide My Email;
• session, security, provider-linking, and account-deletion records; and
• supported language, voice, accessibility, and other preferences you choose to retain with the account.

We use this information to create and secure the account, verify email ownership, prevent account duplication or abuse, keep you signed in, link sign-in methods you authorize, retain supported preferences, and fulfill deletion requests.

Online features

Chat

Chat is an account-dependent online room service. Before the app connects to Chat, it asks for your express permission to send Chat data to TalkieTalkie, Cloudflare, and OpenAI. When you create or join a room, TalkieTalkie sends the room code, your chosen display name and language labels, and pseudonymous account and participant identifiers to the room service. Message text and translated text pass through Cloudflare and are sent to OpenAI to provide translation and safety moderation. Do not send passwords, financial information, medical records, government identifiers, or other sensitive personal information in Chat.

OpenAI API response storage is disabled for this use and OpenAI does not use API data to train its models by default. Unless a shorter approved retention control applies, OpenAI may retain API inputs and outputs for abuse monitoring for up to 30 days, or longer when legally required. Cloudflare processes room content and normal network, security, and service data to operate and protect the service.

A room keeps up to 500 recent message records containing text, including source text and translated versions, and its participant roster until the room creator deletes the room, the history limit removes older records, or an account deletion removes that account's content. The app may separately cache up to 200 recent room messages on a participant's iPhone. Build 75 does not accept Chat photos, documents, or location attachments because media moderation is not yet available.

TalkieTalkie applies automated safety checks before source or translated text is stored or delivered. Ordinary reports are sent privately to the room creator, who can remove a reported message, remove or room-ban a participant, dismiss the report, or escalate it to TalkieTalkie Safety. Any participant can block another account across Chat. Severe reports, reports about a room creator, reports without an available creator, and user-requested escalations can go to TalkieTalkie Safety for review and account-level action. The subject of a report does not receive the reporter's identity.

A report may retain the reported content, pseudonymous account and room identifiers, reason, timestamps, and review actions until the report is resolved and for as long as reasonably necessary for safety, appeals, disputes, fraud prevention, or law.

Closing or leaving a room clears that room's app cache from your iPhone but does not delete the server room. A room creator can delete the whole server room. Deleting your account removes that account's messages, translations, participant state, and legacy attachment metadata across indexed rooms, and TalkieTalkie sends deletion records so connected or rejoining app clients purge app-controlled cached copies. Other participants' own content remains. TalkieTalkie cannot recall a screenshot, export, or other copy someone saved outside the app before deletion.

Ask and Nearby

Ask and Nearby may use typed questions, destination names, search categories, and location you choose to provide to find current or place-specific information. When you choose current-location features, the app may use your device location with permission. In version 1, Ask reasons with the on-device Qwen model; verified live place lookups may pass a search phrase and relevant location to Apple's MapKit or geocoding services. TalkieTalkie does not send those precise coordinates to a TalkieTalkie server. Apple is responsible for the information its services collect under Apple's privacy policy.

When automatic offline-pack downloads are enabled, the iPhone resolves the appropriate country and requests that country pack. The pack request does not include the phone's precise coordinates, although ordinary network services can still receive an IP address.

You can use a typed destination instead of current location and can deny or withdraw location permission in iOS Settings.

Advertising

Version 1 is free and supported by ads. The app uses Google Mobile Ads and its consent tools. Before loading ads, TalkieTalkie requests the advertising choices required for your region. Depending on your choice, region, and device settings, Google and its advertising partners may process network information such as IP address, device and app information, advertising identifiers where permitted, consent signals, and ad impressions, clicks, or interactions to deliver, measure, limit, and protect ads.

Google's current iOS SDK disclosures also cover coarse location inferred from IP address, advertisements seen, app or ad interactions, crash and performance diagnostics, and device identifiers for advertising, analytics, fraud prevention, and service reliability. Broad TalkieTalkie linguistic, product-research, and market-research analytics remain disabled in version 1. The separate, narrow adoption measurement described below is available only if you turn it on.

You can revisit available advertising privacy choices in TalkieTalkie Settings. Version 1 configures non-personalized ad treatment, disables Google's publisher first-party identifier, limits Google ad creative to a PG content rating or below, identifies the app as not child-directed, and leaves user-specific age-of-consent treatment to applicable regional consent handling. The app does not request Apple's App Tracking Transparency permission. Non-personalized ads can still use device or app identifiers and local storage for frequency capping, aggregated reporting, fraud prevention, ad delivery, and similar operational purposes. These privacy limits do not remove ads. TalkieTalkie does not sell your conversation content.

Account and email services

Cloudflare hosts TalkieTalkie account services and this website and may process normal network, security, and service logs. Apple or Google processes information when you use its sign-in option. TalkieTalkie requests Google's basic profile and email scopes and does not request a phone-number scope. Google's iOS sign-in disclosure says its SDK may also process a user identifier for OAuth grants and an IP-derived general location for fraud prevention. Email delivery providers process your address and verification or account-service message when we send account email.

Optional support diagnostics

Support diagnostics are off by default. If you explicitly enable them, TalkieTalkie may automatically send a readiness snapshot after launch or return, an account or relevant setting change, a language-pack change, or a translation failure. The Send Diagnostics Now control sends a current snapshot immediately while diagnostics are enabled.

A report can include app build and iOS version, permission states, selected language-pair readiness, installed speech or translation resource status, bundled-model health, audio-route settings, and a normalized error or failure code. If you are signed in, it can also include a random app-instance identifier, a pseudonymous account identifier, and a one-way hash of your account email so support can locate the report.

Support diagnostics are designed not to include your email address in readable form, conversations, microphone recordings, photos, precise location, contact list, or device name. Advertising providers may still receive their own operational events as described above.

Optional pseudonymous usage metrics

Usage metrics are off by default. If you turn on “Share optional usage metrics,” TalkieTalkie may send a first-observed-launch counter, app-open and coarse feature-view counters, a backend-confirmed account-created counter, the first successful use of a translation or Ask/Nearby feature, and coarse recommendation impression or action counters. Events also include the app version and build, iOS major version, device family, sign-in-state category, and random app-instance and pseudonymous identifiers.

The “first observed launch” counter is an opt-in app event, not an Apple App Store download or install count. It begins when consent is enabled, can begin again after reinstalling or resetting app data, and excludes people who do not opt in. TalkieTalkie compares it only as an in-app adoption proxy; authoritative App Store installs and downloads come from App Store Connect.

This narrow event path has a closed field list and does not accept speech, translations, typed prompts, photos, place or business names, citations or URLs, precise or coarse location, readable email addresses, advertising identifiers, or free-form metadata. It is not used for tracking across other companies' apps or websites and is not sold.

We use these events to measure activation, recommendation engagement, and opt-in D1, D3, D7, and D30 return cohorts and longer-term active-day patterns. Raw adoption events are scheduled to expire after no more than 400 days. You can turn future collection off in TalkieTalkie Settings and can request deletion as described below.

Why we use information

We use information only as reasonably necessary to provide and secure requested features, retain the preferences you choose, deliver account messages, show and measure privacy-controlled advertising, measure adoption when you opt in, investigate support reports, prevent abuse, meet legal obligations, and improve reliability using optional data you have chosen to share.

When information is shared

We may provide limited information to processors that operate hosting, account email, sign-in, advertising, maps, calling, or an online feature you request. For Chat, Cloudflare operates the authenticated room service and OpenAI processes message text for requested translations and safety moderation after you grant the in-app Chat permission. They may process information under their own terms or on our instructions, depending on the service. We may also disclose information when required by law, to protect people or the service, or as part of a properly structured business transfer.

We do not sell translation conversations. We do not share microphone recordings, camera images, or translation text with advertisers for ad targeting.

Retention and security

Account data is retained while your account is active and then deleted or de-identified after a valid deletion request, except for limited records we must retain for security, fraud prevention, dispute resolution, or law. Chat room content follows the limits and deletion controls described above. Account deletion removes the deleting account's Chat content and participant state without deleting other participants' own content or necessarily deleting the room itself. Verification messages, expired sessions, diagnostic reports, moderation records, and service logs are kept only as long as reasonably needed for their stated purpose.

We use technical and organizational safeguards appropriate to the nature of the information. No storage or transmission method can be guaranteed completely secure.

Your choices and rights

• Use core translation as a guest.
• Choose whether to create an email, Apple, or Google-linked account.
• Change microphone, speech, camera, photo, location, local-network, Bluetooth, and notification permissions in iOS Settings. Version 1 does not request Apple's App Tracking Transparency permission.
• Review or change available advertising choices in TalkieTalkie Settings.
• Accept or decline the separate Chat data-sharing permission before using Chat, and revoke it from Chat settings to disconnect and require permission again.
• Keep support diagnostics off, or enable them when you want to share readiness reports with support.
• Keep optional usage metrics off, enable them to share the narrow counters above, or turn them off later to stop future collection.
• Delete your account in the app or follow the steps on the account-deletion page.

Depending on where you live, you may also have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict, or obtain a copy of personal information, or to object to or withdraw consent for certain processing. Email support@talkietalkie.us from the address associated with the account. We may need to verify the request.

Children

TalkieTalkie is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly create accounts for children under the minimum age required in their country without valid authorization. Contact us if you believe a child provided account information improperly.

International processing

Online services may process information in the United States and other countries where TalkieTalkie or its providers operate. Privacy protections can differ by country. We use appropriate measures where required by applicable law.

This website

This public website contains no advertising, analytics scripts, tracking pixels, forms, or first-party cookies. Cloudflare necessarily processes request information to deliver and protect the site. Following an external link or sending an email is subject to the destination service's privacy practices.

Changes and contact

We may update this policy as TalkieTalkie changes. We will post the updated date and provide additional notice when required. Questions or privacy requests can be sent to support@talkietalkie.us.