Dictation Station — Privacy Policy

Effective August 16, 2026

Dictation Station is a voice recorder for dictating a life story. It has no accounts, no ads, no analytics, and no servers run by the developer. This page explains where your recordings and their text actually go.

What the app stores, and where

Your recordings, their written-down text, and the order of your stories are stored on your device. If your device is signed in to iCloud, the app also stores this content in your own private iCloud database so your stories appear on your other devices and survive a lost phone. That iCloud data belongs to your Apple account; the developer cannot read it.

What leaves your device for processing

To turn your voice into text, and to read your stories back in a natural voice, the app sends audio and story text to OpenAI's transcription and text-to-speech services, using an OpenAI account that you (or a family member) set up and control. OpenAI's handling of that data is governed by OpenAI's own policies; per OpenAI's API terms, API data is not used to train their models. The app also sends story text to OpenAI to generate the short story titles shown in lists.

Optional family backup

In the settings area, a family member can connect a storage bucket (for example Cloudflare R2 or Amazon S3) that the family owns. When connected, the app copies every recording and the book's text to that bucket so the stories survive a lost device or a locked account. This is off unless you set it up, and the bucket belongs to you, not the developer.

What the developer collects

Nothing. No usage data, no crash reports, no identifiers, no location. The developer never receives your recordings, your text, or your API key. Your OpenAI key is stored in the device Keychain.

Deleting your data

Deleting a story permanently in the settings area removes it from the device and from your iCloud sync. Deleting the app removes everything the app stored on that device. Content in your own iCloud or your own family backup bucket is yours to remove through those accounts.

Children

Dictation Station is not directed at children and collects no data from anyone.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted at this address with a new effective date. Questions: abrown@elementengineering.org.