The short version
Your voice stays on the iPhone
Speech recognition, clean-up and translation run on the device. No audio or text is uploaded, ever.
There is no account
No sign-up, no email, no password. We don’t know who you are, and we built it that way on purpose.
It works in Airplane Mode
After the first setup, every feature works without internet. That is the simplest proof that nothing leaves.
No tracking, no ads, no analytics
Flustr contains no analytics, advertising or tracking code, and we don’t sell or share data with anyone.
There is one optional exception: if you use invite codes, the app talks to our small invite server. It sends random codes and Apple’s yes-or-no checks, never anything you said or typed.
What happens when you speak
Here is the full path of a dictation, from your voice to the text in your chat.
- You tap the mic.The Flustr app on your iPhone listens. iOS shows the orange dot while it does.
- Your voice is turned into text on the iPhone.Flustr uses Whisper, a speech model that runs on the iPhone’s Neural Engine. While you talk, the audio sits in short temporary files inside the app; each one is deleted as soon as it has been transcribed.
- The text is cleaned up on the iPhone.Filler words, repeats and punctuation are fixed by Apple Intelligence’s on-device model. If the clean-up would add a single word you didn’t say, Flustr throws it away and keeps your own words.
- If you picked a language, it is translated on the iPhone.Apple’s translation engine does this with language packs stored on your phone.
- The text is typed into your app.A copy goes into your Flustr history on the iPhone, so you can find it later. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Meeting recordings follow the same path, except the audio file is kept on your iPhone (encrypted, see below) so you can transcribe it again later. You can delete any recording at any time.
What stays on your iPhone
Everything Flustr knows lives on your phone. Here is the complete list.
| What | Why | How it’s protected |
|---|---|---|
| Recordings, transcripts, summaries, minutes and translations | So you can read, search and export your meetings | Encrypted with your passcode; left out of iCloud backup |
| Dictation history | So you can find what you dictated, with its original wording | Encrypted; left out of iCloud backup |
| Learned words | So names like “Eywa” are spelled right next time | Encrypted; shared only between the app and its own keyboard |
| Word counts, streak and settings | For Insights and your preferences | Stored in the app’s private storage |
| Trial start date, invite code, random install ID | So the free trial and invites work without an account | iPhone Keychain. The trial start date also syncs through your iCloud Keychain, so a new iPhone continues the same trial. |
| Speech, speaker and language models | The AI that does the work, offline | App files; contain nothing about you |
The keyboard and “Allow Full Access”
iOS shows a strong warning when you turn on Full Access for any keyboard, because a keyboard with Full Access could, in principle, send what you type over the internet. So here is exactly what Flustr’s keyboard does with it.
- Why it needs Full Access: keyboards are not allowed to use the microphone. The Flustr app listens instead and hands the finished text to the keyboard. Full Access is what lets the keyboard and the app share that text on your iPhone.
- It does not record your typing. Keystrokes are not logged, stored or sent. The letters you type go straight into the app you’re typing in, like any keyboard.
- One thing it does read: for up to 20 seconds after a dictation, the keyboard looks at the text just before your cursor to notice if you corrected a dictated word, for example “Ava” to “Eywa”. Only that pair of words is kept, on your iPhone, to improve future dictation. It is never sent anywhere.
- Passwords: in password and other secure fields, iOS always replaces third-party keyboards with Apple’s own keyboard, so Flustr never sees them.
- The keyboard itself never goes online. The one network feature, invites, runs in the app, not in the keyboard.
The microphone
To make the keyboard fast, the app can keep the microphone ready in the background for a while after you dictate, 15 minutes by default. You can change this to 5 minutes, 1 hour or until you turn it off in Settings, and you can switch it off right away with Turn off now.
While the microphone is ready, iOS shows the orange dot. Flustr only writes audio while you are dictating or recording; in between, it measures the volume for the waveform and keeps nothing.
When Flustr goes online
Flustr works offline, but a few things need the internet. This is the complete list.
- The first setup. Flustr downloads its speech model (about 650 MB) and a small speaker-labelling model. They are hosted on Hugging Face, a public service for AI models. Like any download, the host sees your IP address; nothing else is sent.
- Downloads managed by iOS. Apple’s speech, translation and Apple Intelligence components are downloaded by iOS itself, under Apple’s privacy policy.
- Purchases. Subscriptions and the lifetime purchase go through the App Store. Apple tells the app whether you have Flustr Pro; we never see your name, Apple ID or payment details.
- Invites, only if you use them. Explained in detail below.
There is no analytics service, no crash reporter of our own and no advertising network in the app. If you allow iOS to share analytics with app developers, Apple may share anonymous crash reports with us; you control that in Settings › Privacy & Security › Analytics & Improvements.
Invites, in full detail
Inviting friends is optional. If you never open Invite friends and never enter a code, Flustr never contacts our server. If you do, this is everything involved:
| What is sent | When | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Your invite code (8 random characters) | When you open Invite friends, and every few hours afterwards | To register the code and ask how many friends qualified |
| A random install ID | When you redeem a code, and once you qualify | So each install counts only once |
| A signature from Apple’s App Attest | With every request | Proves the request comes from the real Flustr on a real iPhone |
| A one-time token from Apple’s DeviceCheck | When you redeem or qualify | So one iPhone can only redeem one code and count once as a friend |
| “This friend qualified” | Once, after 2,000 words on two different days | To give the inviter their free days. The words themselves are never sent. |
The server stores each code, how many friends qualified, which random install IDs redeemed or qualified, and when. It runs on Cloudflare, which processes your IP address to deliver requests and to stop abuse; our rate limiting keeps IP-based counters for at most an hour. None of this tells us who you are. If you want your invite data deleted, write to us with your invite code.
Apple’s part
Clean-up, email writing and translation use frameworks that Apple builds into iOS. Flustr uses only their on-device versions: Apple Intelligence’s on-device language model and Apple’s on-device translation. They run on your iPhone and are covered by Apple’s own privacy commitments. Flustr does not use any cloud AI service, Apple’s or anyone else’s.
What we never do
- Upload your audio or text
- Use your words to train AI
- Let a person listen to or read your dictations
- Show ads or track you across apps
- Sell or share data with anyone
- Ask for your name, email or phone number
Recording other people
If you record a meeting or a call, the people in it have rights too. In many countries, including most of the EU, you need everyone’s consent to record a private conversation. Please tell people before you record. Flustr keeps recordings on your iPhone only, which makes it easier to keep that promise.
Your choices and rights
- Delete anything: long-press a recording or dictation and choose Delete. Deleting the app removes everything except the Keychain items listed above.
- Export anything: transcripts, minutes and translations can be exported as PDF or text.
- Turn things off: microphone and Full Access can be switched off any time in the iOS Settings app; Flustr keeps working within those limits.
- Your rights under GDPR and similar laws: you can ask us for access to, correction of or deletion of personal data we hold about you. Because Flustr doesn’t send your content to us, the only data we could hold is invite data, and only if you used invites. You also have the right to complain to your data protection authority.
- Children: Flustr is not aimed at children and collects no personal data from anyone, of any age.
Contact
Questions about privacy are welcome, and a person will answer them.
If this policy changes, we will update this page and the date at the top. If a change affects how your data is handled, we will also tell you in the app before it takes effect.