Privacy Policy

Spoken Margins is a local-first reading and listening app. Your library, Margin recordings and transcripts, listening history, and settings are stored on your device. Content can also leave the device through the sharing, optional connections, notes-folder delivery, and optional community-map contributions described below. The app retrieves sources you select or follow and introductory content from our server.

Local storage

The app stores imported text and files, saved links, listening maps, playback history, original Margin audio and transcripts, session exports, and settings locally. Spoken Margins has no account or sign-in system of its own and includes no advertising, analytics, or tracking service. Optional connections use your account at the service you choose.

Introductory content from our server

The app checks for the introductory tour from spokenmargins.proximitytoprogress.com when it opens, unless you have deleted that tour. The starter podcast catalog is fetched when you open it, including when the catalog opens on first use. These requests do not send your library, recordings, transcripts, listening history, or an installation identifier. Like other web requests, they expose a network address to the server while it responds.

Our web server is configured without request access logs. Its error logging removes client network addresses and request headers. We do not use these requests for analytics or tracking.

Source and podcast requests

When you import or play a link, Spoken Margins contacts the selected website, podcast feed, or media host to retrieve the requested material. This can include episode pages, publisher chapter and transcript files, artwork, and episode audio. Artwork in the starter catalog is fetched from the image host that each show's own feed names. To resolve podcast links, the app may send the selected link to Spotify's public metadata service or Apple's public podcast search and lookup services. For a Spotify link, the episode title can also be sent to Apple's search service. Source hosts and these services receive information normally included in a network request, such as the requested URL and network address, and handle it under their own terms and privacy policies.

Followed shows and websites are checked for new items automatically when the app opens or returns to the foreground. Article import can also look for a feed to follow, including on Substack. A private feed address may contain a token; that address is sent to the feed's host. Articles are loaded in a private, hidden web view, with outside resources blocked and cookies discarded afterward.

Podcast playback and offline downloads use media URLs supplied by publishers. Episodes can download automatically on Wi-Fi; cellular downloads require your action. A publisher transcript can be fetched automatically after import. The app may also retrieve episode audio to process the context of a recorded Margin on the device.

When you confirm an import of Margins someone shared with you, your device can fetch the source address in the packet. That source's host sees the request. Your Margin recordings and Margin text are not sent to our server. Optional transfers to Readwise, notes folders, and community maps are described below.

Read Later services and optional Readwise sync

If you connect Readwise Reader or Raindrop.io, Spoken Margins sends the access token you enter to that service when you connect or request more saved items. The token is stored in your device's Keychain. Reading saved items does not change your account. Articles you choose to import can then be retrieved from their original websites.

If you separately enable Send Margins to Readwise, the app sends unsent Margin text, source context, source title and author, a shareable source URL, category, and creation time to your Readwise account. It checks for unsent Margins while the app is active, including existing Margins when you first enable it. Original recording audio is not sent through this connection. Readwise retains the highlights and notes under your account and handles them under its own terms and privacy policy. Turning sending off or disconnecting stops future transfers; it does not remove material already stored in Readwise. If you turn on Send Margins to Readwise, your Margin text and the passage it is attached to go to your own Readwise account. That is why the App Store privacy label lists user content as linked to you.

Optional community listening maps

Help make listening maps is off unless you enable it in Settings. If enabled, the app can check our server's service configuration and, when the community-map service is available, send a public episode's transcript, an episode code, its duration, and language information to our server. It does not include your Margin recordings, Margin text, account name, or an installation identifier. The service can pass the episode transcript to Anthropic's API to generate scene titles and summaries. Anthropic handles that input under its own terms and privacy policy. The resulting map can be shared with other listeners; the transcript itself is not shared with listeners.

Look up community maps is also off unless you enable it in Settings. If enabled, when you open or start a public podcast episode that has no chapters or map of its own, the app can check our server's service configuration and ask it for that episode's map. The map request carries the episode code and nothing that names you or your library, but our server can see your device's IP address, as any web server can.

The map service removes its transcript input after generating a map and periodically removes stale transcript input once it is 24 hours old. Turning the setting off prevents future contributions; it does not retract a map already created.

On-device speech and intelligence

Spoken Margin transcription requests on-device speech recognition. iOS may first download a speech model from Apple. Installed system voices, bundled voices, and supported local intelligence features process their input on the device. Availability depends on the operating system, installed resources, language, and device capabilities. Spoken Margins does not operate a server for this processing. Remote OpenAI features are unavailable in this build.

Sharing, extensions, and support

The Share and Safari extensions write the content you explicitly share or capture into the app's private shared container. The Safari extension reads Selected Text or Readable Page when you invoke that action; it does not continuously read browsing activity.

When you use the system share sheet, copy an export, or email support, the destination you choose receives the content you select. A shared packet can contain the Margin recordings and text, source references, and other material shown in its review. Recipients can keep or forward their copy. This build shares packets as files; it does not upload them to a developer-hosted sharing service. Diagnostics are created locally for you to review and share, and are not sent automatically.

If you enable Save Margins to Notes Folder, the app writes Margin text and source context as Markdown files to the folder you select. A cloud-backed folder can be synced by its storage provider under your account and that provider's own terms and privacy policy. Turning delivery off stops new writes and does not delete copies already delivered.

Deletion and retention

You can move library items to Recently Deleted, permanently delete them in the app, or remove the app to remove its local app data. Deleting your local copy does not remove copies you have shared with other people or services. An upgrade from an earlier private beta may archive an old local test database before creating the current database; the app reports that archive in its diagnostics.

Contact

Questions or privacy requests: resists.fabric-0o@icloud.com.

Changes

This policy may change as beta features evolve. The effective date above will be updated when material practices change.