Privacy Policy

1. Who is responsible

Outspoken and this website are provided by:

Artesoft GmbH
Hirschengraben 20
6003 Luzern, Switzerland
Email: info@artesoft.ch

2. The Outspoken apps (Mac and iPhone)

Your voice

• Audio is processed in memory and never saved as a file — on the Mac and on the iPhone.
• After a dictation with the Outspoken keyboard, the microphone stays ready for up to 15 minutes so you can dictate again instantly; audio received while ready is discarded immediately. iOS shows its microphone indicator during that time.
• For VoiceLock, the Mac app stores a voiceprint as numbers on your Mac. It never leaves your device, and you can delete it at any time.

Your text

• Mac: The app keeps your recent dictations in memory only; it saves a history only if you turn it on — as local files. The one exception is an app update: the app briefly stores your recent dictations locally so they survive the restart, then deletes the file.
• iPhone: With “Save history” (on by default), your last 200 dictations are kept in a file on your iPhone — encrypted, readable only while your iPhone is unlocked and not included in backups. You can find it in the Outspoken folder of the Files app. Turning it off or “Clear all” deletes it immediately.
• Keyboard and app (iPhone): To pass text between the keyboard and the app, the text is temporarily kept in protected files on your iPhone — even when history is turned off. Text waiting to be inserted by the keyboard can be inserted for 2 minutes; after that it is no longer offered and is deleted at the next clean-up.

Dictionary, word suggestions and learning

• Your dictionary and snippets are kept in a local file on your device and stay until you delete them.
• Word suggestions (on by default, can be turned off in Settings): when the app is unsure about a word, it notes it; if the word comes up again, it suggests it to you together with the part of the sentence it appeared in — at most 20 suggestions, each up to 120 characters.
• The Outspoken keyboard learns from your typing and swiping — permanently on this iPhone with Full Access, otherwise only until the session ends. You can delete this learning data in the app settings.

AI cleanup

AI cleanup runs on your device. If you choose to connect your own AI server on the Mac instead, your text goes to that server. This only happens when you explicitly set it up; the operator of that server is responsible for it. We receive nothing.

The Outspoken keyboard (iPhone)

The keyboard contains no networking code and sends nothing anywhere. Full Access is used only for the private exchange between the keyboard and the Outspoken app on this iPhone and to store your typing personalization there. Typing works without Full Access.

Diagnostics

Both apps keep a technical log on your device — events and errors, not your dictated text. On the Mac, it may note a time word such as “tomorrow” or a month name when AI cleanup tried to change it. On the iPhone you can see it in the Files app. Outspoken never sends the log anywhere itself; only you can share it. The apps do not send crash reports to us themselves; what Apple may share with us about the iPhone app is described under “Apple”.

Downloaded models and voices

Models and voices downloaded by Outspoken contain no data about you. You delete models in the app settings, and voices on the iPhone in the Files app under Outspoken › tts.

Backups

If you back up your Mac or iPhone — for example with Time Machine, iCloud or the Finder — local Outspoken files may be included in those backups, such as your dictionary with its word suggestions, the log or the keyboard learning data. On the iPhone, Outspoken excludes your history and downloaded speech and AI models; downloaded voices may be included in backups. You manage your backups yourself; we have no access to them.

Technical connections

None of these connections transmits what you dictate:

• Update check (Mac): Automatically, usually once a day — and whenever you check yourself — the Mac app asks our server whether a new version is available. As with any request on the internet, this transmits your IP address along with the app and macOS version; no identifier that could identify you or your device is sent. The app only downloads an update when you choose to install it. You can turn off automatic checking in Settings.
• Models (Mac and iPhone): The app downloads speech, AI and voice models when you select them. On the iPhone, it also downloads models by itself: during first-time setup, when upgrading older installations, and when parts of a selected model are missing. The server a file comes from sees your IP address. Which providers these are is listed under “Who receives data”.

Purchase and license (Mac)

• Purchase: You pay on PayPal’s site. When you click “Buy with PayPal”, our license server creates the subscription at PayPal and forwards you there; it sees your IP address in the process (server log, 14 days). PayPal processes your name, email address and payment details under its own responsibility. From PayPal we receive the subscription and plan ID, the status, your email address, the order code and, for each payment, the transaction ID, amount, currency, time and any refunds. We use this to issue and manage your license.
• License key: We send it from licensing@outspoken.ch to your PayPal email address, together with the order code and a personal link for cancelling.
• Activation: When you click “Activate”, Outspoken sends your key, a pseudonymous device ID and the build number to our license server. The device ID is a SHA-256 checksum; your Mac’s device UUID itself never leaves your Mac. This is how we make sure a license runs on one Mac.
• Confirmation: At most once a day, when your Mac is online, Outspoken confirms the license with the license ID (not the key), the device ID and the build number. When you deactivate a Mac, the license ID and device ID are sent to the server.
• Cancellation: You can cancel at any time — in the app, via the link in your purchase email or at getoutspoken.ai/cancel/. Our license server receives your license key or the code from the link, cancels the subscription at PayPal and sends you a confirmation by email. We store when and in which of these ways you cancelled.
• License rules: Outspoken fetches the current license rules with each confirmation, once when the trial ends and otherwise only before it blocks a feature because of the license, at most every 6 hours, without any ID. During the trial it fetches nothing as long as your Mac’s clock is right; only if the clock demonstrably lags behind the real running time (stopped or set back) does it fetch the rules, at most once an hour and without any ID, to take over the server time. This prevents wrongful blocking.
• On your Mac there is a license file (key, license ID, expiry, device ID) and a trial marker (as a file and in the keychain, with a shortened device ID) until you delete them.
• Retention: License and purchase data up to 24 months after the license ends, raw PayPal data 30 days, license server logs (with IP address) 14 days, emails in the licensing@outspoken.ch mailbox 30 days. We keep payment records as long as the law requires (10 years in Switzerland). The license database is backed up daily on the license server (30 daily and 12 monthly copies). We keep the times of Mac switches for 30 days.

Apple (TestFlight and App Store)

We distribute the iPhone app through Apple — as a beta via TestFlight, later on the App Store. Apple processes data under its own terms. If you turned on “Share with App Developers” in iOS, Apple may share crash reports and usage statistics with us. During the beta, Apple also makes information available to us, such as whether and how often you installed and opened the beta, crash reports, feedback you choose to send through TestFlight, and, if you were invited by email, your name and email address. We only use this information to improve the app and to invite you to the beta.

Your control

• Mac: Turn history on or off, delete your VoiceLock voiceprint, turn off word suggestions and update checks, delete models.
• iPhone: Turn off history or clear it, turn off word suggestions, reset keyboard learning, delete models.
• You can revoke microphone, Full Access and other permissions at any time in macOS or iOS Settings.

Children

The apps collect no user data — from anyone, including children.

3. This website

• The website sets no cookies, uses no analytics and loads no content from third-party servers — not even fonts or videos.
• For each request, our server briefly stores technical information: IP address, date and time, the page or file requested, status code, referring page, and your browser's or the app's identifier. We need it to run the site securely and delete it after 14 days.
• The website is hosted by Hostinger on a server in Germany.
• If you choose a color theme (cream or green) at the top of the website, your browser remembers this choice locally; it is not sent to us.

4. If you write to us

If you email us, we use your details only to reply. We delete them once they are no longer needed for that purpose, unless we are legally required to keep them.

5. Who receives data

We do not sell data or share it for advertising. These providers process data on our behalf or under their own responsibility:

• Hostinger (Lithuania, servers in Germany): website, update check, model server, license server.
• PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A. (Luxembourg): payment, under its own responsibility.
• cyon AG (Switzerland): licensing@outspoken.ch mailbox, sending license keys and confirmations.
• Cloudflare (USA): storage for model files.
• Hugging Face (USA): some speech models.

Germany, Lithuania and Luxembourg provide an adequate level of data protection. For transfers to the USA, we rely on the Swiss-U.S. and EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified under it, and otherwise on standard contractual clauses.

6. Legal basis

We process personal data under the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP). For people in the EU, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) also applies. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in operating securely and in providing you with updates and models (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR); for email enquiries, responding to your request, and for purchase and license, performing the contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR); for keeping payment records, legal obligations (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR).

7. Your rights

You can request access to your data, have incorrect data corrected and data deleted, object to processing and, under the GDPR, request restriction of processing and data portability. Just write to info@artesoft.ch. You can also lodge a complaint with the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) or a data protection authority in the EU.

By the way: most of what you create with Outspoken never reaches us — it only exists on your device, and you can delete it there yourself.

8. Changes

We update this policy when the apps or our services change; the date above shows the current version.