Permission is built to be a completely private space. Your reflections belong to you and only you. The app does not collect, store on our servers, transmit, or share any personal information — because there are no servers and no accounts at all. As of version 1.7.0 it makes no network connections whatsoever: there is nothing for it to send, and nothing for it to fetch.
Nothing. Specifically:
If you choose to record a voice or video entry, Permission uses your device's microphone solely to create that recording. The audio is saved privately on your device alongside your other entries and is never transmitted anywhere. Permission does not use the microphone at any other time.
When you finish a voice entry, Permission can turn it into a written transcript so you can read back what you said. This happens entirely on your iPhone, using the on-device speech recognition built into iOS. The recording is never uploaded, and neither is the text.
This is worth being exact about, because Apple's speech recognition can work either on the device or by sending audio to Apple's servers. Permission requires the on-device mode. If your iPhone has no offline speech model for your language, Permission does not fall back to sending your audio anywhere — it simply tells you no transcript could be made. "No transcript" is the worst thing that can happen; your recording being uploaded is not one of the possibilities.
Because the app uses this feature, iOS asks for the Speech Recognition permission the first time you open the Record screen. You can decline, and everything else in the app keeps working — you just will not get transcripts. You can change your mind later in iOS Settings › Permission.
The transcript is yours to edit before you save it, and it is stored with the recording on your device like any other entry. Permission has no live dictation feature — it never listens to your microphone to turn speech into text as you talk. It only ever works on a recording you have already finished and chosen to make.
Transcripts saved by earlier versions are still shown with their recordings, exactly as they were — nothing was deleted from your journal.
If you choose to record a video entry, Permission uses your device's camera and microphone solely to create that recording, and only at the moment you ask for it. If you instead pick a video you already have, Permission receives only the single video you select — it never reads or scans your photo library. Permission does not use the camera at any other time.
Every voice and video entry is stored inside the app's own private storage on your device, alongside your written and drawn entries. They are never saved to your Photos library, never copied into any other app, and never uploaded. The app does not even hold the iOS permission that would let it add anything to your Photos — that ability is switched off at the operating-system level, not merely unused.
Nothing leaves the app unless you ask it to. If you tap "Export a copy", "Page PNG" or "Export PDF", Permission hands that one file to your device's standard share sheet and you choose where it goes; the temporary copy it makes to do so is deleted immediately afterwards. There is no automatic export, backup, or sync of any kind.
If you turn on biometric unlock, it is handled entirely by your device's own secure system. Permission never receives, stores, or transmits your face or fingerprint data — it only learns whether your device confirmed it was you.
Permission lets you export a copy of an entry (for example, to save or share it yourself) using your device's standard share options. This happens only when you choose it, and only to the destination you pick. Permission plays no part beyond handing the file to your device.
Because Permission collects no data, there is nothing for us to access, correct, export, or delete on our side. You can delete any entry within the app, erase everything from Settings, and removing the app from your device removes all entries and your passcode.
Permission collects no data from anyone, including children. It is intended for a general audience seeking a private space for personal reflection.
If this policy ever changes, the updated version will be posted on this page with a new effective date.
Questions about this policy? Email jonathanbbiles@gmail.com.