Privacy Policy
The short version
- Clarity Atlas stores your notes as plain Markdown files on your own device. You own those files.
- We operate no servers and we collect no data from you. No analytics, no crash reporting, no telemetry, no advertising, no account, no login. We never see your notes, and we have no way to.
- The app works fully offline. It only makes network requests when you turn on an optional feature and supply your own credentials.
- If you turn on optional AI features, note text — and, for voice transcription, your audio recording — is sent from your device directly to the AI provider you chose, using your own API key. That transfer is governed by that provider's privacy policy, not ours.
- If you turn on optional sync, your notes and attachments are uploaded to a storage bucket you own and control.
- Notes you mark local-only are never sent to any AI service.
- To delete your data, delete the notes or the vault folder, or uninstall the app. We hold nothing to delete on your behalf.
- Not directed at children under 13.
1. How Clarity Atlas is built, and why that matters
Clarity Atlas is a "local-first" note-taking app. Your notes are stored as plain Markdown text files with YAML frontmatter:
- On Android: in the app's private storage directory. Other apps on your device cannot read it.
- On Windows: in a folder you choose. The default is
Documents\ClarityAtlasVault.
These are ordinary files in an open format. You can read them, back them up, move them, edit them in another program, or delete them, with or without Clarity Atlas installed.
We do not run a backend service. There is no Clarity Atlas server, no Clarity Atlas account, and no Clarity Atlas database. Nothing in this policy should be read to mean that we host, receive, store, or process your notes — architecturally, we cannot.
2. Data we collect
None. Specifically, Clarity Atlas contains:
- No analytics or usage tracking SDK
- No crash or error reporting service
- No telemetry or "phone home" behavior of any kind
- No advertising SDK and no advertising identifier use
- No user accounts, sign-up, sign-in, or profile
- No contact list, calendar, location, or device identifier collection
We do not know how many notes you have, what they say, when you open the app, or whether you use it at all.
If you email us for support, we will have whatever you choose to put in that email. We use it only to answer you. Please do not paste sensitive note content into a support request.
3. Data the app accesses on your device, and why
| What | Why | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Note files (Markdown + frontmatter) | To display, search, and edit your notes | Stays on device unless you enable an optional feature below |
| Photos and camera images you attach | To attach an image to a note | Stored in your vault; leaves the device only via optional AI description or optional sync |
| Microphone audio (voice memos) | To record a voice note | Stored in your vault; leaves the device only if you enable optional transcription or optional sync |
| API keys and sync credentials you enter | To authenticate your requests to the services you chose | Stored on your device only. Never transmitted to us. Sent only to the service they belong to |
| Optional encryption passphrase | To derive a key that encrypts data at rest | Used on device to derive a key. Not transmitted anywhere, including to us |
Android permissions we request
- INTERNET — required for the optional AI, sync, and web-clipping features. If you use none of them, no network traffic is generated by the app's features.
- RECORD_AUDIO — to record voice memos when you tap record. The microphone is not accessed at any other time.
- MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS — to configure audio routing/levels during voice memo recording.
- Camera and photo access (via the system camera and file picker) — only when you choose to attach a photo or take a picture for a note.
4. Optional features that send data off your device
Every feature in this section is off by default and requires you to supply your own credentials. If you never configure them, no data leaves your device.
Because these requests go directly from your device to the provider using your own key, we are not a party to them. We receive no copy and keep no log.
4.1 AI features (require your own API key)
| Provider | What is sent | Used for | Their privacy policy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropic (api.anthropic.com) | Note text; attached photo/PDF content; voice-note transcripts | Classifying and organizing notes, answering questions about your notes, describing photos and PDFs, cleaning up voice-note text | anthropic.com/legal/privacy |
| Voyage AI (api.voyageai.com) | Note text | Computing embeddings so semantic search works | voyageai.com/legal/privacy-policy |
| Deepgram (api.deepgram.com) | Your voice recordings (audio files) | Transcribing voice memos to text | deepgram.com/privacy |
Notes and attachments processed by these features are subject to the receiving provider's terms, retention practices, and security. Please read their policies before enabling a feature. Your relationship with each provider is your own, under your own API key and account.
Local-only notes are excluded. Any note you flag as local-only is never sent to any AI service, regardless of which AI features are enabled.
4.2 Sync to your own storage (requires your own bucket credentials)
Clarity Atlas can sync your vault to an S3-compatible object storage bucket — for example Cloudflare R2 — using credentials you provide.
- The bucket belongs to you. It is not our infrastructure, and we have no access to it.
- Notes and attachments are uploaded there so your devices can stay in sync.
- Your storage provider's own privacy policy and terms apply to the data in your bucket.
4.3 Web clipping
If a note contains a URL and you use the clipping/summarizing feature, the app fetches that web page directly from your device so it can be summarized. The site you fetch will see the request the same way it would see a browser visit. We are not involved in that request.
5. Sharing and selling
We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information, because we do not have it.
The only transfers of your content to third parties are the ones you enable and configure, listed in Section 4: the AI providers whose API keys you entered, the object storage provider whose bucket you configured, and any website you choose to clip. There are no other recipients — no advertisers, no data brokers, no analytics vendors.
6. Retention
- On your device: your notes stay until you delete them. There is no expiry and no automatic upload.
- With us: nothing, because we receive nothing. There is no retention period to state.
- With third parties you enabled: governed by that provider's retention policy. Check their documentation and your account settings with them.
- In your own sync bucket: your data stays there until you delete it or your storage provider's lifecycle rules remove it. You control those settings.
7. Your control and how to delete your data
You do not need to ask us, and there is no request form, because there is nothing on our side to erase.
- Delete individual notes: delete them in the app, or delete the corresponding
.mdfiles. - Delete everything on Windows: delete your vault folder (default
Documents\ClarityAtlasVault). - Delete everything on Android: uninstall Clarity Atlas, or use Android's Settings → Apps → Clarity Atlas → Storage → Clear storage. Uninstalling removes the app's private vault directory and all app data, including any stored API keys.
- Stop all outbound data: remove your API keys and sync credentials in the app's settings. The features turn off and no further requests are made.
- Delete data already sent to a third party: contact that provider or use their console. Because the data was sent under your own account and API key, you are the account holder who can request its deletion. We cannot make that request for you.
- Delete synced data: delete the objects in your own storage bucket.
Support contact for questions about any of this: support@clarityatlas.app.
8. Security
- In transit: all network requests made by the app use HTTPS/TLS.
- At rest, on Android: the vault lives in app-private storage, which the Android sandbox prevents other apps from reading.
- At rest, on Windows: the vault is a normal folder protected by your operating system account permissions. Use full-disk encryption (for example BitLocker) if the device may be lost or shared.
- Optional passphrase encryption: if you set a passphrase, local-only notes and all attachments are encrypted with AES-256-GCM. The key is derived with PBKDF2 at 310,000 iterations using a per-vault salt. This encryption also protects those items at rest in your sync bucket, so your storage provider holds ciphertext for them.
- Your passphrase is not recoverable. We do not have it, cannot reset it, and cannot decrypt your data. If you lose it, encrypted content cannot be recovered by anyone.
- Your API keys are stored on your device and sent only to the service they authenticate. Treat them like passwords, and revoke them in the provider's console if your device is lost.
No system is perfectly secure. The data most at risk in this design is data on your own device and data you have chosen to send to third parties, so device security and provider account security are the meaningful controls.
9. Children
Clarity Atlas is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect any information from children. Since we collect no information from any user, there is nothing for us to identify or remove. Parents or guardians with questions may contact us at support@clarityatlas.app.
10. Your rights (GDPR, CCPA, and similar laws)
Privacy laws such as the GDPR and the CCPA/CPRA give you rights to access, correct, delete, and port your personal data, and to know whether it is sold or shared.
Because we are not a controller or processor of your note content — we never receive it — these rights are exercised directly:
- Access and portability: your data is already in your possession, as plain Markdown files in an open, portable format.
- Correction and deletion: edit or delete the files (see Section 7).
- Sale/sharing: we do not sell or share personal information, and we do not process it for targeted advertising.
- Rights against third parties: for data you sent to an AI provider or stored in your own bucket, exercise your rights with that company directly, as their account holder.
If you believe we hold information about you and want it removed, email support@clarityatlas.app and we will confirm and act.
11. International transfers
We transfer nothing. If you enable an optional feature, your data goes from your device to the provider you selected, which may be located in another country. Their policies describe how they handle international transfers.
12. Changes to this policy
If the app changes in a way that affects privacy, we will update this policy, change the effective date at the top, and post the updated version at https://clarityatlas.app/privacy. Material changes will also be noted in the app's release notes and in the Play Store listing.
Planned features that would be a material change include advertising and an optional paid subscription with a developer-operated AI relay. Neither exists in the current version. If either ships, this policy and the Play Data Safety declaration will be updated before or at release, and the new data practices will be described here.
13. Contact
Clarity Atlas LLC
[BUSINESS MAILING ADDRESS — Daniel: fill in the LLC's registered address before this page goes live]
Email: support@clarityatlas.app