Privacy Policy
Effective: 2 November 2026. Last updated: 4 November 2026.
This policy explains what BeaconNote collects, why, how long we keep it, who helps us run it, and the choices you have. It covers the BeaconNote iPhone app and the BeaconNote website at https://beaconfrontier.com/note/en. We wrote it in plain words.
Who we are
BeaconNote is run by Beacon Frontier ("we", "us"). Beacon Frontier decides how the information described here is used, so in the words of privacy laws such as the GDPR, we are the controller.
Contact: help@beaconfrontier.com. We do not have a postal address for privacy requests. Email is the way to reach us, and we answer every request.
BeaconNote is an independent product. It is not affiliated with Beacon Software, Beacons AI, Help Scout, or any other company that uses the word "Beacon".
The short version
- You can use BeaconNote with no account. Your notes then stay on your device.
- Your voice is turned into text on your iPhone. We never receive your audio, and BeaconNote does not save it.
- Summaries are written on your iPhone by Apple Intelligence. We never receive your notes to summarize them.
- If you turn on sync, your notes are end-to-end encrypted on your device before they leave it. We store them, but we cannot read them.
- We send anonymous usage counts, such as "a note was saved", never what you say or write. You can turn them off.
- No ads, no tracking, no data brokers. We never sell your information.
On your device: audio and transcription
BeaconNote uses the microphone only while you are recording a note. The iPhone asks for your permission the first time.
Your speech is turned into text on your iPhone, by a speech model that ships inside the app or by Apple's on-device speech engine. Your audio is never uploaded, to us or to anyone else. It is held in memory only while the text is being written, and then it is discarded. BeaconNote does not save an audio file.
A recording you started can continue while the screen is locked. The Lock Screen then shows that you are recording and for how long. It never shows the words.
What BeaconNote saves on your iPhone is the text of the note, when it was made, how long the recording was, and which language and on-device engine wrote it.
On your device: summaries with Apple Intelligence
Summaries are optional. You can tap Summarize on a note, or turn on "Summarize voice notes automatically" in the app's Settings, which is off until you turn it on.
On iPhones that support Apple Intelligence, summaries and suggested action items are written on your iPhone by Apple's on-device model. We never receive your notes to summarize them, and we do not use any other AI provider. A summary is saved with its note. Summaries can be wrong, so the app asks you to check them.
Notes, people, and action items
Notes, people (the names and email addresses you type), and action items are stored in a database on your iPhone. BeaconNote does not read your Contacts or your calendar on the iPhone.
If you choose to email a summary or action items, BeaconNote opens a draft in your own mail app. You decide whether to send it. We never see the email.
Widgets can show the first lines of your recent notes and how many action items are open. You can turn note text in widgets off in Settings. Spotlight search on your iPhone can find your notes. That index stays on your iPhone.
If you make an account
An account is optional. It lets you sync your notes between your iPhone and the website. You can sign in with Sign in with Apple or with a 6-digit code sent to your email address.
When you have an account, we store:
- your email address. If you use Sign in with Apple, Apple gives us an email address. If you choose Hide My Email, it is a private relay address that forwards to you, and we never see your real address.
- for Sign in with Apple: the anonymous user identifier Apple gives us, and an encrypted token from Apple that we use to tell Apple to end the connection when you delete your account.
- where you are signed in: the kind of device (such as "iPhone" or "Safari on Mac", never the name you gave your device), when each session was last used, and a scrambled copy (a hash) of each session key, never the key itself.
- if you turn on sync: your encrypted notes and related items (see the next section), and a locked copy of your encryption key that only your recovery key can open.
To send you a sign-in code, we give your email address and the code to our email provider, Resend, which delivers the message. We store the code only as a keyed hash.
If an email we send you bounces, or you mark one as spam, we stop emailing that address. We keep a note of that: for a year after a bounce, and after a spam report until you ask us to remove it.
Sync and end-to-end encryption
Sync is off until you turn it on. When it is on, your iPhone encrypts each note, person, and action item with a key that is created on your device and never leaves it unlocked. Our server stores only the encrypted result (ciphertext). We cannot read your synced notes, and we cannot recover them for you.
When you turn sync on, the app shows you a recovery key once. It unlocks your notes on a new device. We never receive it. If you lose your recovery key and every signed-in device, you can reset sync. That deletes the encrypted copy on our server and starts again from the device you are holding.
Our server can see how many encrypted items your account has, how large they are, and when they changed. It cannot see what they say.
Anonymous usage counts
To learn which features help people, the iPhone app and the website send usage counts to our own server. They are on by default and you can turn them off at any time: in the iPhone app, go to More, then Settings, then "Share anonymous usage counts"; on the website, go to Settings. Off means nothing more is sent, and anything waiting to be sent is deleted at that moment.
A usage count is a fixed event name, such as "a note was saved", "a search was used", "sync was turned on", or the name of a screen you opened, plus a fixed value where one applies, such as how long a recording was in broad bands. It never contains what you say or write, a note's title, a name, an email address, a key, or a note's identifier.
With the counts, the iPhone app sends your device language, the app's language, and whether the device is a phone or a tablet. To count visits without identifying anyone, it adds random identifiers that change every day, week, and month. They are not linked to your account, your device, or any advertising identifier. Turning the counts off deletes them.
Our server checks each count against a fixed list and passes the allowed ones to the Beacon Frontier statistics service. It adds a two-letter country code, worked out from the network address of the request, unless your browser or device sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control. We do not store your IP address and we do not use cookies for usage counts. On the website, Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control turn usage counts off completely.
We do not link usage counts to your account, and we never use them for advertising or to build a profile of you.
How long we keep it
- On your iPhone: your notes stay until you delete them. Deleting the app deletes them from the iPhone.
- Your account (email address, Apple identifier, sign-in details): until you delete your account.
- Encrypted synced items: until you delete them, reset sync, or delete your account. A deleted note leaves a small encrypted marker so your other devices also delete it. It goes when your account goes.
- Sign-in codes: a code works for 10 minutes and can be used once. We keep only its keyed hash, and our regular cleanup deletes it within a day after it expires.
- Sessions: a session ends 90 days after it was last used, and never lasts more than 400 days. You can end one sooner by signing out, or from the list of signed-in devices. Our regular cleanup deletes ended sessions.
- Security records: to stop abuse, we count requests and failed sign-in attempts. The counters use a keyed hash, never your IP address or email address, and our regular cleanup deletes them after 1 to 2 days.
- Usage counts: the statistics service keeps individual events for 13 months, then deletes them and keeps only daily totals (such as how many notes were saved on a day) that contain no identifiers.
- Sign in with Apple: when you delete your account, we ask Apple to end the connection. If Apple cannot be reached, we keep that encrypted Apple token, with nothing linking it to you, for up to 30 days and then delete it.
Who else can see it
A few companies help us run BeaconNote. They handle information only to do that job for us:
- Vercel hosts the website and our server.
- Neon stores our database (your account and your encrypted synced items).
- Resend delivers sign-in emails.
- Apple provides Sign in with Apple, the on-device speech and Apple Intelligence features, and the App Store. Apple's own privacy policy covers what Apple does.
We never sell your personal information and never share it for advertising. We may disclose information if the law requires it, but your synced notes stay encrypted and we cannot read them.
Where your data is kept
Our service providers store and process information in the United States and in other countries where they operate. If you use BeaconNote from outside the United States, your account information is sent there. Where the law requires it, we rely on the safeguards our providers offer for international transfers, such as standard contractual clauses.
Why we use it (legal bases)
- To provide BeaconNote, keep your account, and sync your notes, because you asked us to (performance of a contract).
- To keep BeaconNote secure and prevent abuse, such as limiting sign-in attempts (our legitimate interests).
- For anonymous usage counts, to understand which features help (our legitimate interests). You can turn them off at any time.
- To meet legal obligations, when they apply.
Your rights and choices
You can always:
- see and copy your notes: share or export any note as Markdown or plain text in the app or on the website.
- delete notes one at a time, in the app or on the website.
- delete your account in the app: go to More, then Account and sync, then Delete account. This deletes your account, every synced item, and your keys from our server, right away. You choose whether to keep the notes on your iPhone. On the website, the same button is on the Account page.
- turn off usage counts in the app's Settings or on the website's Settings page.
Depending on where you live, privacy laws give you more rights. These include the GDPR in the European Union and the United Kingdom, Brazil's LGPD, and Japan's APPI. In plain words, you can ask us to tell you what personal information we hold about you and give you a copy, correct it, delete it, limit or object to how we use it, or move it to another service. You can also withdraw consent you gave. To make a request, email help@beaconfrontier.com. We will answer within 30 days, and we will not treat you differently for asking. Because your synced notes are encrypted on your device, only you can open them, and we can delete them but cannot read them for you.
If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to your local data protection authority, for example a supervisory authority in the EU, the ANPD in Brazil, or the Personal Information Protection Commission in Japan.
Children
BeaconNote is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has made an account, email help@beaconfrontier.com and we will delete it.
Security
Synced notes are end-to-end encrypted with standard encryption provided by Apple's operating system or your browser. All connections to our server use HTTPS. Keys and session tokens on your iPhone are kept in the iPhone Keychain, on that device only. No system is perfectly secure, but we design BeaconNote so that we hold as little as possible, and nothing we can read about what you write.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we will update the dates at the top and post the new version at https://beaconfrontier.com/note/en/privacy. If a change is significant, we will post it at least 14 days before it takes effect. The copy inside the app is updated with the next app update.
Contact
Beacon Frontier
- Privacy Policy: https://beaconfrontier.com/note/en/privacy
- Terms of Use: https://beaconfrontier.com/note/en/terms
- Help: https://beaconfrontier.com/note/en/help
- BeaconNote: https://beaconfrontier.com/note/en