Privacy Policy
JKST Note 1.0 for iPhone · last updated 23 August 2026
JKST Note collects nothing. There is no account to create, no server to talk to, and no analytics or advertising code in the app. JKST Note makes no network requests of its own at all. Your notes are stored on your iPhone, and nobody — including me, the person who wrote it — can read them.
The rest of this page is the detail behind that paragraph: what the app keeps, where it keeps it, every way data can leave your iPhone, why each permission is asked for, and how to delete everything. It describes version 1.0. When the app gains a feature that changes any of this, this page changes with it, and the date above changes too.
What JKST Note collects
Nothing. To be specific about what that means:
- The app has no accounts and no sign-in. It never asks who you are.
- The app has no server. There is no backend for it to talk to.
- The app contains no analytics, telemetry, crash-reporting, attribution, or advertising code, and no third-party service of any kind.
- The app makes no network requests. There is no HTTP code anywhere in it — not in the app, not in its widget, not in its share extension.
- The app does not read your contacts, calendar, location, health data, or photo library, and does not use the device advertising identifier.
Because nothing is collected, there is no data of yours for me to lose, sell, subpoena, share, or hand to a “partner”. That is the whole design, not a promise about how carefully I will behave.
What JKST Note stores on your iPhone
All of it stays in the app’s own private storage, which only JKST Note and its own extensions can read:
- Your notes
- The field values you type, the note type each note belongs to, and the times it was created and last changed.
- Your note types
- The seven built-in types and any you create or edit: their names, icons, colours, and field definitions.
- Attachments
- Photos and files you attach, and audio clips you record, kept as files on the device.
- A search index
- Text pulled out of your notes so search is fast. Secret field values are never put in it.
- Settings and small housekeeping records
- Your choices in Settings, which note types you used most recently, and a log of what has been ingested or exported.
- An encrypted recovery record
- If you set up a recovery code: your encryption key wrapped by that code, and — for the generated six-word code only — the words themselves wrapped by your encryption key, which is what lets the app show you your code again after a fresh Face ID check. A passphrase you chose yourself is never stored, so the app can never show it back to you. The file on its own opens nothing: one half needs the code, the other needs the key that lives in this device’s Keychain.
Secret fields
Any field you mark secret — a password, a key, an account number — is treated differently everywhere:
- Its value is encrypted on your iPhone with AES-GCM under a 256-bit key held in the device Keychain. The Keychain item is marked so that it never syncs to iCloud and never leaves this device.
- Only the encrypted form is ever written to storage. The plaintext exists in memory only while you are looking at it.
- It is displayed as dots. Revealing it or copying it requires a fresh Face ID (or passcode) check every single time, however recently you last authenticated.
- A revealed value re-hides after ten seconds, and only one secret can be revealed at a time.
- It is excluded from the search index, and from exports in plaintext — exports contain only the encrypted form.
- While a secret is on screen, the app renders it in a layer that iOS blanks out of screenshots, and blanks secrets while a screen recording is running. iOS does not promise this behaviour and an update could change it, so the app claims the protection on a revealed value only when the secure layer reports that it really attached — if the technique ever stops working, the app goes quiet rather than telling you something untrue.
Every way data can leave your iPhone
JKST Note never sends anything anywhere by itself. These are the only routes out, and every one of them is something you do deliberately or something iOS does for you:
- Your iPhone backup
- If you use iCloud Backup or back up to a computer, your device backup includes JKST Note’s stored data, the same as any other app’s. That backup is Apple’s, encrypted by Apple, and under your control in iOS Settings — the app neither creates it nor can read it. The Keychain item holding your encryption key is marked this device only, so it does not travel; that is exactly what the recovery code exists to cover.
- Copying a secret to the clipboard
- When you copy a secret, the app puts it on the local-only clipboard, so it does not travel to your Mac or iPad through Universal Clipboard, and sets it to expire after 60 seconds (you can change or switch off the timer in Settings › Security). The app also clears it itself when the timer runs out, because clipboard expiry is a request to iOS rather than a guarantee. What you paste it into afterwards is between you and that app.
- Exporting your notes
- “Export everything now”, in Settings › Backup & recovery, writes your notes, types, and attachments as files inside the app’s own storage, on the device. Secret values are written only in their encrypted form. Nothing is uploaded. Where those files go next is your decision.
- Dictation
- The mic button uses Apple’s speech recognition, running on your iPhone, to turn what you say into text in the field you are typing in. The app asks for on-device recognition; where your iPhone cannot provide it, dictation is unavailable rather than sent anywhere. No audio is kept.
- Opening a link
- Tapping a URL you saved hands it to Safari, which is then an ordinary web visit under Apple’s and that site’s own terms. The app has no browser inside it.
Permissions, and why each one is asked for
- Face ID
- To unlock the app, and to check it is you each time you reveal or copy a secret. Face data itself never reaches the app — iOS answers yes or no.
- Microphone
- Only when you record an audio clip onto a note, or dictate into a field. The app never listens otherwise.
- Speech recognition
- Only for dictation, as described above.
JKST Note asks for nothing else. Attaching a photo or a file uses the standard iOS picker, which runs outside the app and hands over only the single item you choose — which is why the app never asks for access to your photo library, and cannot browse it.
Children
JKST Note is a general-purpose notes app, is not directed at children, and does not knowingly collect information from anyone, of any age, because it does not collect information at all.
Keeping and deleting your data
You hold it; I do not have a copy to keep or delete. Concretely:
- Delete a note and it moves to Recently Deleted, then is purged permanently after 30 days (adjustable in Settings › Security). You can also delete it from there immediately.
- Delete the app and iOS removes its storage, including your notes, attachments, and the encryption key in the Keychain. If you exported files or wrote down a recovery code, those are yours to dispose of.
- There is no consent to withdraw and no deletion request to make, because there is no collection to consent to and no server holding anything. If it helps to have this in writing for a data-protection request: I hold no personal data about users of JKST Note.
Third parties
There are none in the app. JKST Note is built on Apple’s own frameworks plus a small number of open-source Swift libraries that store and query data on the device — principally SQLiteData and GRDB, which are SQLite wrappers. None of them is an analytics or advertising SDK, and none of them makes network requests in this app.
Two things sit outside the app and are worth naming so this page is complete:
- Apple runs the App Store. Downloading, updating, or paying for an app is a transaction with Apple, governed by Apple’s privacy policy, not this one.
- Apple gives developers aggregate App Store statistics — download and crash counts and similar, aggregated across users — and, if you have opted in to sharing diagnostics with developers in iOS Settings, crash reports. That is a choice you make with Apple, in iOS, and it is the only channel through which anything about your use of the app can reach me. It contains no notes.
What will change, and when
Two planned features will change what this page says, and this page will be updated before either ships, not after:
- An export folder an AI assistant can read. A later version will be able to mirror your notes into your own iCloud Drive so that an assistant on your own computer can read and add notes. It is optional, it is your iCloud rather than mine, and secret values stay encrypted in it — reading one will require you to approve the request on your phone with Face ID, every time.
- Sync between your own devices, using Apple’s CloudKit, in your own iCloud account.
Neither is in version 1.0. If this page describes them in the present tense one day, that means they shipped.
Contact
Questions about this policy, or about privacy in the app: support@jkstnote.app.