The short version
- We collect your name and email (from Sign in with Apple), the thoughts you record or type, and usage statistics (which you can turn off in Settings).
- The app only records while you press the button. Never in the background.
- Your thoughts are sent to AI providers to be transcribed, understood and answered. Your name and email are never sent to them.
- Location is opt-in. If you turn it on, we store where you were when you saved a thought. Storing a home location is a separate opt-in.
- We never sell your data, never use it for ads, and never share it with anyone except the providers listed below.
- Everything is encrypted in transit and at rest.
- You can access, correct, export or delete your data any time, in the app or by emailing privacy@thoughts.help.
What we collect
Thoughts is made by So Easy Limited, a company in New Zealand (“we”, “us”). We collect only what the app needs to remember things for you and answer your questions.
| Data | Where it comes from | Why we need it |
|---|---|---|
| Name and email address | Sign in with Apple. You can choose Apple’s “Hide My Email” and we’ll only get a relay address. | To create your account, keep it yours across devices, and reply to support requests. |
| Your thoughts: voice recordings, transcripts, typed text, edits, lists and reminders | You, when you press the mic or type. | This is the product. We store them so you can ask about them later. |
| Time of each thought | Your device clock. | So “what did I say last Tuesday?” works. |
| Precise location (optional) | Your device, only if you turn location on for Thoughts. | So “what did I like at that café?” works. |
| Home location (optional) | You, if you choose to save it in Settings. | So the app can tell “at home” from “out”, without guessing. |
| Subscription status | Apple, after you subscribe. | To know your subscription is active. We never see your card details. |
| Usage statistics | The app, automatically, unless you turn it off in Settings. | Events like “thought saved” or “answer shown”, your device model, OS and app version, and crash reports. Never the content of a thought. |
| Push notification token | Apple, if you allow notifications. | To deliver reminders you set. |
| Sign in with Apple token | Apple, when you sign in. | To tell Apple to disconnect Thoughts when you delete your account. |
We don’t collect your contacts, photos, calendar, browsing history, or anything from other apps.
What we never do
- Never record in the background. The microphone is on only after you tap to start recording, until you tap to stop, and the app shows you it’s recording.
- Never sell your data or share it with data brokers.
- Never use your data for advertising, ours or anyone else’s. There are no ads in Thoughts.
- Never send your name or email to AI providers. They receive your thoughts and questions, nothing that identifies you.
- Never train our own AI models on your thoughts.
- Built to answer only from what you said. If it’s not in your thoughts, the app says so.
How we use it
Everything we collect is used to provide Thoughts to you:
- turning your voice into text;
- understanding what you said so it can be found later by meaning, not just exact words;
- answering your questions from your own thoughts, and showing which thoughts the answer came from;
- keeping lists and reminders up to date, and delivering reminders on time;
- keeping your account and subscription working across your devices;
- answering support requests, fixing bugs, and improving the app.
Our staff may look at your data only when needed to answer a support request you’ve made, to investigate a problem, or to improve the app. We keep that access to as few people as possible.
Usage statistics tell us which features are used and where the app fails. They are linked to your account id, not your name or email, so we can see how the app is used across people, for example how many people who set a reminder also use lists. They never include the content of a thought. You can turn them off in Settings at any time.
Who we work with
We don’t share your data with anyone except the service providers below, who process it only to run Thoughts, only on our instructions, and only the parts named here.
| Provider | What they do for us | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Apple | Sign in, subscriptions, push notifications. | Your Apple ID details under Apple’s own privacy policy. Apple does not receive your thoughts. |
| Supabase | Hosts our database and file storage (United States). | Everything listed above, encrypted at rest. |
| OpenAI | Turns voice into text. | Your voice recordings and the transcripts. No name or email. |
| Fireworks AI | Understands your thoughts and questions, and writes answers. | The text of your thoughts and questions. No name or email. |
| Voyage AI | Builds the search index that finds thoughts by meaning. | The text of your thoughts and questions. No name or email. |
| PostHog | Usage statistics and crash reports. | Usage events, your account id, and device details. No thoughts, name or email. |
OpenAI, Fireworks AI and Voyage AI do not use what we send them to train their models. We never train our own models on your thoughts. We’ll update this list if a provider changes.
We will also disclose data if the law requires it, for example a valid court order, or to protect someone’s safety. If we ever sell or merge the business, your data would move with it under this same policy, and we’ll tell you.
Where it lives and how it’s protected
- Your data is stored on servers in the United States.
- Data is encrypted in transit (TLS) between your devices, our servers and our providers.
- Data is encrypted at rest on our servers.
- Every account’s data is separated from every other account’s by database access rules, so one user can never read another’s thoughts.
- Staff access is limited to what a support request or bug fix needs.
No system is perfectly secure. If we ever learn of a breach that affects your data, we’ll tell you and the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner as the law requires.
How long we keep it
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Thoughts, lists, reminders | As long as your account exists, or until you forget them. |
| Voice recordings | Up to 45 days after transcription, then deleted. The transcript is what we keep. |
| Forgotten thoughts | Recoverable in the app for 30 days, in case you change your mind. After that they are hidden from you and from every answer. |
| Deleted accounts | Hidden immediately when you delete your account. |
| Anything you delete | Completely erased from our servers and backups within 1 year of the day you deleted it. Backups are only used to recover from a failure, never to bring back something you deleted. |
| Usage statistics | Deleted with your account, on the same schedule as everything else. |
Your rights and choices
You can do most of this in the app, and all of it by emailing privacy@thoughts.help. We’ll answer within 20 working days, usually much sooner, and won’t charge for it.
- Access. See everything you’ve saved in the app, or ask us for a copy.
- Export. Download all your thoughts and lists as CSV files from Settings.
- Correct. Edit any thought in the app, or tell it to fix something. Ask us to correct your name or email.
- Delete. Forget any thought, or delete your whole account, from the app. Or ask us and we’ll do it.
- Location. Turn location off any time in iOS Settings. Remove your home location in the app.
- Usage statistics. Turn them off in Settings in the app. Nothing else changes.
- Notifications. Turn them off in iOS Settings. Reminders you set will then only show inside the app.
These rights come from the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020. If you live in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you also have the rights your local privacy law gives you, including the right to object, to restrict processing, and to complain to your local privacy regulator. We rely on your consent for location, on our legitimate interest in improving the app for usage statistics (which you can object to by turning them off), and on our contract with you for everything else the app needs to work.
If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your data, please tell us first and we’ll try to fix it.
Minimum age
Thoughts is for people aged 13 or older (or the age of digital consent where you live, if that’s higher). We don’t knowingly collect data from anyone under that age. If you believe someone under the minimum age has an account, please email us. If we learn that we hold data from someone under the minimum age, we’ll delete it.
International transfers
We’re a New Zealand company and our servers and providers are in the United States. By using Thoughts, your data is transferred to and stored there. We only work with providers who commit to protecting your data to a standard comparable to New Zealand law, and each one is bound by contract to use it only for the purposes above.
Changes to this policy
If we change anything meaningful, we’ll tell you in the app before it takes effect. Small wording fixes will just be posted here with a new date.
Contact
So Easy Limited
New Zealand
Privacy questions and requests: privacy@thoughts.help
Everything else: contact us