Privacy Policy

Offhand — private on-device voice notes
Last updated: September 11, 2026

1. Who we are

Offhand is developed by Dmytro Samoilov ("we", "us"). For anything related to this policy or your data, contact us at dmytro@dmytrosamoilov.com.

2. What Offhand does with your voice notes

Offhand records voice notes and meetings, transcribes them, and turns them into structured notes. All of this happens on your device:

• Recording — audio is captured only while you actively record, and is stored on your device in encrypted form.
• Transcription — speech is converted to text by on-device AI (the Whisper speech model) running on your device.
• Structuring — titles and overviews are generated by on-device AI (the Google Gemma language model) that also runs on your device.
• Storage — notes, transcripts and audio are kept in encrypted storage on your device.

Your audio, transcripts, notes, titles and overviews are never uploaded, synced, or transmitted to us or to any third party. We have no servers that receive your content, and we cannot access it.

3. Data we collect

Offhand has no user accounts, no advertising, and no advertising trackers. The only analytics is the opt-in, anonymous usage telemetry described in section 4 — never linked to your identity or to your content. We do not sell, rent, or share any data.

4. Optional telemetry: crash reports and usage statistics

During onboarding (and at any time in Settings) you can choose whether to share anonymous telemetry. If you decline, nothing is sent and the telemetry software in the app is never even started. If you opt in, we use Firebase Crashlytics and Firebase Analytics, services provided by Google LLC, to receive:

• crash stack traces and error information from the app's code;
• standard, automatically collected usage events: app opens, session start and end, app updates, and which screens inside the app are viewed (screen names only, never their content), plus a small set of app events that count actions such as a note being recorded, shared, copied or restyled, a folder being created, a setting being changed, or a purchase being made. These events carry only categories (for example the export format, or whether a note style is built-in or custom) and never your notes, titles, transcripts, folder names, search text or the names of your own styles;
• basic device information such as device model, operating system version, app version, and device language;
• an approximate location (country, and at most city level) that Google derives from your IP address at the time of sending. Google Analytics does not log or store the IP address itself;
• a random, app-specific installation identifier used to count sessions and group crash reports. It is not linked to your name, email, phone number, or any account, and it is discarded when you uninstall the app.

Offhand does not use advertising identifiers. On Android the app does not hold the advertising-ID permission and advertising-ID collection is disabled in its configuration; on iOS the app ships the Analytics component without IDFA support and never asks for tracking permission. Telemetry never includes your recordings, transcripts, notes, or any content you create in the app.

Crash data is retained by Google for a limited period (currently 90 days); Analytics event data is retained for up to 14 months. You can withdraw consent at any time in Settings: collection stops immediately and any crash reports not yet uploaded are discarded. Data already received is deleted by Google at the end of its retention period; if you want it deleted sooner, contact us. For details on Google's handling of this data, see the Firebase Privacy and Security documentation.

5. One-time download of the on-device AI

To work fully offline, Offhand needs to download its on-device AI (the Whisper speech model and the Gemma language model) once after installation. These files are fetched over an encrypted connection (HTTPS) from huggingface.co, a public model-hosting service. This is a plain file download: no content from your device is included in the request beyond what any web download technically requires (such as your IP address, which the hosting provider may log under its own privacy policy). After the download completes, transcription and note generation require no internet connection at all.

6. Permissions the app requests

• Microphone — required to record voice notes. Audio is captured only during an active recording that you start and stop. On iOS, background audio is enabled so a recording continues when you lock the screen or switch apps.
• Notifications — used to show recording and processing status and to tell you when the one-time on-device AI download finishes. Optional; the app works without it.
• Biometric unlock — if you turn on the optional app lock, the app asks the operating system to verify you with Face ID, Touch ID, fingerprint, or your device passcode. The check is performed entirely by the operating system; Offhand never receives or stores your biometric data.

Offhand does not request access to your contacts, location, camera, photos, or files outside its own storage.

7. Where your data is stored and how it is protected

• On Android, notes and transcripts are stored in a database encrypted with SQLCipher (AES-256), and audio recordings are stored as encrypted files. The encryption keys are protected by the Android Keystore on your device.
• On iOS, notes, transcripts and audio recordings are stored in files protected by iOS Data Protection, which encrypts them with keys tied to your device and passcode so they are unreadable while the device is locked.
• The app blocks screenshots and screen recording of its content by other apps on Android, and hides its content in the app switcher on iOS.
• Your data is excluded from Android and iCloud backups.

Because your content exists only on your device, deleting the app (or clearing its data) permanently deletes all recordings, transcripts and notes. We cannot recover them for you — and that is by design.

8. Your rights and choices

• Access and portability — your notes are on your device; you can view, copy, or share them at any time.
• Deletion — delete individual notes in the app, or remove everything by uninstalling the app or clearing its data.
• Consent — telemetry (crash reports and usage statistics) is off unless you turn it on, and you can withdraw consent at any time in Settings.

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or another region with data-protection laws, you may have additional statutory rights (such as access, rectification, erasure, and complaint to a supervisory authority). Since we do not hold your content, most of these rights are exercised directly on your device; for telemetry data, contact us and we will assist.

9. Children

Offhand is not directed at children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your jurisdiction), and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children.

10. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top and, for material changes affecting data leaving your device, ask for your consent again in the app. Continued use of the app after non-material updates constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

11. Contact

Questions, requests, or concerns: dmytro@dmytrosamoilov.com.