Forte Privacy Policy

Effective August 12, 2026 · doublebooked

What Forte does with your voice

When you dictate, Forte records audio on your device and transcribes it on your device, using a speech engine that runs locally. The audio and the resulting text are processed and stored on your iPhone. Nothing about a dictation is transmitted anywhere: not the audio, not the transcript, not your vocabulary, not any other content. That is how every version of Forte released to date works, and any future feature that changes it will be optional and described here before it ships.

What Forte stores on your device

Your dictation history, statistics, vocabulary, word replacements, and settings are stored locally in the app's private storage. If you turn on keeping dictation audio, those recordings are stored the same way: on your iPhone only, trimmed to the count you choose, and removed with their history entries or when you turn the option off. Sharing a transcript or a recording uses the standard iOS share sheet and happens only when you initiate it. Deleting any of this in the app, or deleting the app, deletes it. There is no copy elsewhere: Forte cannot recover data you delete.

About the “Allow Full Access” switch

iOS requires Full Access for the Forte keyboard to communicate with the Forte app on your device. That is how the keyboard hands audio duty to the app and receives your transcript back. iOS shows a standard warning that full-access keyboards could transmit what you type; Forte does not. The keyboard contains no networking code, and everything it exchanges with the app stays inside the app's protected storage on your phone.

Permissions Forte requests

Microphone: used only while you're dictating, and only to turn your speech into text. The one-time engine download (from Hugging Face's CDN) fetches the speech engine itself; no personal data is sent in that request beyond what any download implies (your IP address).

Data collection

Forte collects none. No analytics, no advertising identifiers, no third-party SDKs that phone home, and no account to create. Forte's App Store privacy label reads “Data Not Collected,” and the label on the listing is always the current answer for the version you are installing.

The beta waitlist

Requesting a beta invite goes through a short form hosted by Tally. It asks for your name and email. That is how we send your TestFlight invite, arrange feedback conversations during the beta, and send one note when Forte launches. The other questions are optional. None of it is ever shared or sold, and we delete it on request. Just ask us.

The contact form

The contact form on this site is also hosted by Tally, and loads from their servers when you open that page. It collects what you type into it: your email address, your message, and, if you are reporting a problem from inside the app, the version and device details Forte fills in for you so you do not have to. It is used to answer you and nothing else, and it is never shared or sold.

Beta versions (TestFlight)

If you use Forte through TestFlight, Apple provides us with crash reports and any feedback or screenshots you choose to submit, under Apple's TestFlight terms. That is the only usage information we receive, and it comes from Apple, not from Forte.

Changes

If this policy ever changes, the new version will be posted here with a new effective date. On-device dictation, with nothing collected about you, is the design Forte is built around, and that is not changing. If a future version adds something you can turn on that works differently (anything that sends content off your phone), this page will say so plainly, and will say it before that version ships.

Contact

Questions, or a request to delete anything we hold: get in touch.