Privacy Policy
Reteum is built so that what you write stays yours. Your thoughts, voice notes, photos and videos are kept on this iPhone and, if you choose, in your own iCloud, end-to-end encrypted so that only your devices can read them. There is no account, no Reteum server, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking. We, the developer, never see anything you save.
What stays on your iPhone
Everything you save in Reteum: the words of your thoughts, your voice notes and their transcripts, photos, videos and what is said in them, files you attach and the words in them, links, the places where you saved things, and the links between your thoughts.
The work that makes Reteum useful also happens on this iPhone: the text model that searches and groups your thoughts, the photo model that finds pictures by what they show, reading text in photos, and turning speech into text. None of it is sent anywhere to be processed.
Your thoughts are stored in Reteum's own storage, which iOS keeps separate from other apps and encrypts when your iPhone is locked.
What leaves your iPhone, and why
Only what a feature needs, and your thoughts only to your own iCloud, if you choose:
- iCloud, if you turn it on (Reteum asks the first time it opens, and Settings can change it). Your thoughts, photos, videos and files are copied to your private iCloud database, so they are safe if you lose this iPhone and appear on your other devices. They are encrypted on this iPhone before they leave: the words go in CloudKit's encrypted fields, whose keys are kept in your iCloud Keychain, and photos, videos and files are sealed with a key that is itself kept that way. Apple stores them but cannot read them, and neither can we. What Apple can see is how many items there are, how large they are and when they changed. Turning iCloud off in Settings stops syncing; the copy in iCloud can be removed in the Settings app under your name › iCloud.
- Place names. If you allow location, the coordinates of where you are when you save a thought, or the coordinates stored in a photo or video you add, are sent to Apple's map service to look up the name of the place. Apple's privacy policy covers that request.
- Links you save. To show a link's title and picture, Reteum opens the page the way a browser would, in a private session with no cookies. The website sees a request from your iPhone's internet address. For posts on X, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Spotify, SoundCloud and niconico, whose pages show little without their app, the post's address is sent to that platform's own public embed or info service (the one web pages use to embed posts) to get its title and picture.
- Siri. If you add a thought by speaking to Siri, Siri turns your words into text, as it does for any app, and Apple's privacy policy covers that. Reteum receives only the text. Typing in Shortcuts, the widgets and Control Center send nothing anywhere.
- Downloads from Apple. The photo search model is downloaded once from Apple, and iOS may download its speech models for your languages. Nothing of yours is sent for these.
- Purchases. The subscription is sold and managed by Apple through the App Store. Reteum learns only whether your subscription is active; we never receive your payment details or your Apple ID.
- Crash reports. If you have chosen in iOS Settings to share analytics with app developers, Apple may send us anonymous crash reports. They describe the app's state when it crashed, not your thoughts.
Permissions
Reteum asks only when a feature needs it, and works without each of them:
- Location, while using the app: to note where a thought was saved.
- Microphone: only while you record a voice thought.
- Speech recognition: to turn your voice into text on this iPhone.
- Photos: Reteum uses the system picker, so it receives only the photos and videos you choose and cannot see the rest of your library.
You can change these at any time in the Settings app.
Sharing into Reteum
When you share a link, photo or video to Reteum from another app, it is passed to Reteum on this iPhone through storage only Reteum can read, and saved like anything else you add.
Backups and your control
- Export: Settings → Export all thoughts makes one file with everything, saved wherever you choose. What happens to that file is up to you and the place you save it.
- iPhone backups: if your iPhone is backed up to iCloud or to a computer, iOS includes Reteum's data in that backup, encrypted as your backup settings say.
- With iCloud on, a thought deleted on one device is deleted on the others too, where it also waits in Recently Deleted.
- Deleting: a deleted thought stays in Recently Deleted for 14 days, then it and its photos and videos are removed for good. Settings → Delete all thoughts removes everything at once, and deleting the app removes all of its data from this iPhone.
Because we hold none of your data, there is nothing for us to hand over, sell or lose.
Children
Reteum is not directed at children under 13, and it collects no personal information from anyone.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be in the app with a new date. A change that sends anything more off your iPhone would be explained before it takes effect.
Contact
Questions about privacy are welcome at support@reteum.com.