Fonos Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 5, 2026

Fonos is a voice dictation app for iPhone. This policy explains how Fonos handles voice, text, notes, and configuration data.

Fonos has no user accounts and no Fonos-operated servers. The developer of Fonos never receives your recordings, transcripts, notes, prompts, or API keys.

Data You Create

Fonos can process audio recordings, transcripts, edited text, translations, dictation history, and notes. Dictation history and notes are stored on your device unless you delete them.

Microphone And Speech Recognition

Fonos asks for microphone access so it can record your voice for dictation. Fonos may also ask for speech recognition access to use Apple Speech.

Apple Speech

Apple Speech is the default transcription engine, and it is performed by iOS, not by Fonos. When your device and the selected language support on-device recognition, the audio is recognized on the device. When they do not, iOS may send the audio to Apple's servers for processing. That processing is carried out by Apple and is governed by Apple's privacy policy, not by this one. Fonos does not receive a copy of anything sent to Apple.

Keyboard Ready

For no-jump dictation from the Fonos custom keyboard, you may explicitly start a time-limited Keyboard Ready session in the main app. It defaults to 15 minutes and can be configured between 1 and 30 minutes. During that session iOS keeps microphone input active and shows its microphone indicator. Before you tap the microphone in the Fonos keyboard, incoming audio buffers are discarded and are not stored, recognized, or uploaded. After you tap, Fonos keeps only the bounded in-memory audio for that utterance and releases it after the selected recipe finishes, fails, or is cancelled. Keyboard Ready ends automatically unless you stop it sooner. Fonos never plays audio in the background; the background audio capability is used only to keep this recording session alive.

The Fonos Keyboard

The keyboard's typing keys — digits, punctuation, space, delete, return, and the globe key that switches to another keyboard — run entirely inside the keyboard extension. They work without Full Access, do not use the App Group, and send nothing off the device.

Keyboard dictation requires Full Access. iOS custom keyboards cannot record audio, so the Fonos keyboard asks the main app to record and transcribe on its behalf, over a shared App Group container on your device (group.com.fonos.ios). Only the text of that dictation, the selected recipe, and its status pass through the App Group. The keyboard does not read your existing text, your keystrokes, or your clipboard, and it has no network code of its own.

Optional Third-Party Services

Fonos can use Apple Speech by default. You may also configure speech-to-text or language model services by entering your own endpoint and API key. Fonos does not choose these services for you and has no business relationship with them.

Before Fonos sends content, the app identifies the provider and network destination, explains whether voice recordings, transcripts, or text prompts will be sent, and asks for your explicit permission. Voice recordings, transcripts, notes, and prompts are sent only when you initiate a configured feature that uses that remote model, such as a voice recipe or voice-note processing.

Your use of a third-party service is subject to that provider's privacy policy and terms.

Public AI endpoints must use HTTPS. Clear-text HTTP is accepted only for an explicitly configured localhost or local-network server.

Connection Tests And Model Discovery

Setup Doctor runs reachability checks only against endpoints you have already authorized. Such a check sends a plain request to the endpoint's base address; it carries no recordings, transcripts, prompts, or credentials.

Model discovery asks a configured endpoint which models it offers. It sends no recordings, transcripts, or prompts, but it does present the API key of the profile you are testing, because the endpoint requires it to answer. Fonos shows you the destination address before that request is sent, and does not send it without your approval.

API Keys

API keys entered in Fonos are stored in the iOS Keychain. They are not stored in plain app settings, and they are not sent to the developer of Fonos. A key leaves your device only as the authorization header of a request to the endpoint you configured for it.

Keys are marked as belonging to this device only: they are excluded from iCloud Keychain sync and are not restored onto a different device from a backup. Deleting a model profile removes its credential from the Keychain. Because iOS may preserve Keychain items independently of an app's local sandbox, delete model profiles before uninstalling Fonos if you want to explicitly remove their credentials.

Analytics And Advertising

Fonos contains no third-party SDKs of any kind — no analytics, no advertising, no crash reporting. Fonos does not use your data to track you across other companies' apps or websites.

Local Data

History, notes, configuration, and remote-AI permission choices remain on your device until you delete them or iOS removes the app's local sandbox. You can remove local history, notes, and model profiles from the app. You can withdraw all remote-AI permissions at any time under Settings → General → Privacy & Data Sharing. After withdrawal, Fonos blocks future network STT and LLM requests until you explicitly allow that endpoint again.

Fonos does not operate an account or cloud-storage service. Withdrawing permission in Fonos does not delete content that a model provider already received. That provider controls its own retention and deletion; consult its privacy policy and use its privacy controls to request deletion.

Camera

Fonos asks for camera access only if you choose to import a configuration by scanning a QR code. The camera is used to read that code and for nothing else; no image is stored or transmitted. The same configuration can be imported from a file or from pasted text instead, so camera access is optional.

Children

Fonos is a general-purpose productivity tool. It is not directed at children, and it contains no advertising, no social features, and no content feed.

Changes To This Policy

If this policy changes, the updated version is published at this address with a new "Last updated" date.

Contact

Email: ethanzhou222@gmail.com

Support page: https://fonos.giomni.com/support

Fonos also has a public issue tracker at https://github.com/ethannortharc/fonos-ios/issues. Do not include API keys, transcripts, recordings, or other personal information in a public issue; use the email address above instead.