Privacy
Black Notes is a voice-note app for iPhone, with an iMessage app and a web player for the links you send. It's made by BAG (Black Audio Generator). This page covers the app, the iMessage app and the web player at blacknotes.app. Plain language, no tricks.
What we collect
- Your account. When you sign in with Apple or Google, our sign-in service (Supabase Auth) keeps your email address (or Apple's private relay address) and which way you signed in. We also keep the display name you choose.
- Your voice notes. The audio you record or import, the transcript we make from it, the edits you make to the transcript, the summary, the title, and the settings you choose for each note (who can open it, saving, disappearing, the training lock).
- Where you're from. The city, state and country you say you're from. This is where you grew up, or where people say you sound like you're from, not where you live now. We use it only to classify accents. Age range and gender are optional.
- Approximate location, only if you allow it. Black Notes asks for your approximate location, never your precise location, and uses it once as a first guess at where you're from. You confirm or change the guess. [TBD by Justin: confirm whether the approximate location itself is stored, or only the confirmed region]
- Notes people send you through Black Notes, and notes you import from other apps.
- Link activity. When someone opens a Black Notes link, we record what happens to that link: the page opened, the audio started, played halfway, finished, the summary opened, and similar steps. We tie these to a scrambled (hashed) version of a random ID stored in a cookie on that browser, not to a name. A play counts only when the audio actually starts, never when a page or a link preview loads.
- Reports. If someone reports a note shared with "Anyone with the link", we keep the reason and any details they type.
Cookies on the web player
The web player has no ad trackers and no analytics cookies. It sets two cookies: a random device ID, so a Restricted note stays locked to the device it was first opened on and a play-once note can tell who already played it; and a note that the Black Notes app is installed on that device, so the page can offer "Open in App".
Why
- To record, store, transcribe and summarize your notes, and to deliver the ones you send.
- To enforce the rules you set as the sender: who can open a note, whether it can be saved, and when it disappears.
- To make Black Notes' speech recognition better for Black voices, only as described in the next section.
- To keep the service safe and handle reports.
We don't sell your information or share it for advertising.
Helping improve Black Notes (training)
- On by default, with an opt-out. Following BAG's rule, the notes you record yourself may be used to improve Black Notes unless you turn off the training switch in Settings or lock the note. It's on when you sign up, and the sign-up screen says so. We never ask you to opt in first; you can opt out at any time. Your corrected transcripts are the labels that teach the model.
- Lock any note. Each note has its own switch, "Don't use this note to improve Black Notes", on top of the account setting.
- Never used for training: notes you receive, notes you import from WhatsApp, iMessage or anywhere else, your friends' notes, and disappearing notes. Your friends never agreed to Black Notes' terms, so their voices stay private to you.
- Only BAG uses training data. It's never sold, never shared for anyone else's training and never used to clone anyone's voice.
- Turning training off stops the use of anything you make after that. Deleting or unsending a note takes it out of future training sets.
Sending, unsending and disappearing
Black Notes sends a link, not a file, so your audio only lives on our servers. As the sender you control every note you send, with no time limit:
- Unsend. The note, its transcript and its summaries leave every inbox and the web player at once, and the link stops working, on blacknotes.app and on any older Black Notes address.
- Disappearing. After listening, after 24 hours, after 7 days, or never (the default). When time runs out the note is removed for recipients. "After listening" means each recipient can play it once.
- Saving. Off by default. Recipients can't download this note unless you turn saving on. Anyone can still record a screen or hold up a second phone, so we never promise a note can't be kept another way.
- General access. Every note you send has one of two settings. Restricted (the default): only people you send it to can open it. Each person gets their own link, which plays only on the first device that opens it, and link previews say "For your ears only" with no title. Anyone with the link: anyone who has the link can listen, even if it's forwarded. Either way, notes are never listed or searchable on the web.
Deleting
- Deleting a note moves it to Recently Deleted for 30 days, then removes the audio, transcripts, summaries and links.
- When a note is unsent, or has disappeared for every recipient and you delete it, the audio, transcript and summaries are purged from storage. Backups roll off within [TBD by Justin: number of days] days.
- You can delete your account in the app's Settings. That deletes your notes and your account information. [TBD by Justin: state the account-deletion timeline, e.g. BAG uses "within 30 days"]
- You can also email support@blacknotes.app and say "delete me".
Who we share it with
These companies process information for us, for nothing else:
- Supabase: database, sign-in and private file storage (United States).
- Vercel: hosting for the web player, and the gateway our AI requests go through (United States).
- Apple and Google: only for the sign-in option you choose.
- AI providers for transcripts and summaries. Today these are stand-ins until BAG's own speech model (WhisperX-CJ) is hosted: OpenAI (transcription) and Google Gemini (summaries), reached through Vercel's AI Gateway. [TBD by Justin: confirm the vendor list and that their data terms forbid training on our requests]
We share information with anyone else only if the law requires it (for example, a valid court order), or to protect Black Notes' users or service from fraud or abuse.
How long we keep it
- Your account: until you delete it.
- Your notes: until you delete them (plus 30 days in Recently Deleted), or until they're unsent.
- Notes sent to you: until the sender unsends them, they disappear, or you delete them.
- Link activity: [TBD by Justin: retention period].
- Backups: roll off within [TBD by Justin: number of days] days.
Your choices and rights
You can ask us at support@blacknotes.app to show you the information we have about you, correct it, or delete it. We don't charge for this and we won't treat you differently for asking. Depending on where you live (for example California, or the EU and UK), the law may give you more rights; email us and we'll honor them.
Kids
[TBD by Justin: minimum age for Black Notes (BAG's beta is 18+)]
Changes
If this page changes, we'll update the date at the top. If a change affects what we do with information you've already given us, we'll tell you first.